Touch Compass’ to debut at Wellington’s Performance Arcade

Touch Compass’ new installation piecePharmakos to debut at Wellington’s Performance Arcade Next Week

Vulnerability, sexuality and disability take centre stage in Touch Compass Dance Company’s new workPharmakos (scapegoat) which has its premiere at Wellington’s Performance Arcade from next week.

Pharmakos, an installation work, will be at the Performance Arcade on Waitangi Promenade on the Wellington waterfront from Wednesday 26 February to Sunday 2 March.

Choreographer Suzanne Cowan transforms terms like ‘wheelchair bound’ and projects them into the realm of suspension, where manipulations and restrictions become aesthetic choices and a journey of transcendence.

Inspired by the Japanese rope art of Shibari, dancers Cowan and Emilia Rubio will build a web of tension and suspension by constructing and deconstructing images and scenes.
Pharmakos raises questions about our relationship to vulnerability and fragility, and how we project these traits onto “the other” instead of embracing them within ourselves.

Touch Compass Dance Company is New Zealand’s only professional inclusive dance company and is comprised of disabled and non-disabled dancers, Touch Compass aims to challenge perceptions about what dance is and who can do it.

The 2014 Performance Arcade ‘Container Series’ – where performers create installations within the temporary architecture of shipping containers, scaffold walkways and veils of netting – is the perfect place to debut this exciting departure for the company which seeks to move further beyond traditional show formats.

Touch Compass’ Dance Company’s Pharmakos has 14 installation times at Performance Arcade from Wednesday 26 February to Sunday 2 March.

ENDS

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