“An incredible transfixing gaze unsettles us in our seats. We listen to testimonies of inequality and how the performers have negotiated the terrain of their lives. These stories reconfigure the identities we see and refuse the identities we hold on to. We watch the performers create makeshift structures of brilliant colour to sleep in. These is an uncomfortably long silence as we watch them rest in real time. They dance as if only for themselves – we witness their resilience and an undeniable strength that permeates the space.”

Feast deals with issues surrounding homelessness, performed by people with lived experiences of homelessness or of being at risk of homelessness. The work speaks to the growing gap of inequality between ‘us’ and ‘them’ in the contemporary world. It aims to provide a deeper understanding of the multifarious face of homelessness through personalising the issues and showing that people are more than just their ‘stories’ of homelessness. The Ensemble are familiar with the conceptual frameworks and tasks in the piece, but improvise and respond to them freshly in the presentation of the work. This ‘moment to moment’ approach is at the heart of the work and its ability to be responsive and inclusive, as it gives the performers autonomy over the content of their expression and how they choose to approach it.