LIAM (in development)

They went out in search of a name, but found a body instead. 

10 years after a brutal assault left them nameless, Dancing is trapped in the local Library for Broken Books, combing through histories, manifestos, saran wrap, and peaches on a trial-by-fire fight for freedom from their neurotic and over- intellectualizing self.

The Library for Broken Books is both refuge and laboratory: a self-made archive where stories buried in damaged books become tools for self-discovery. The library is a place where Dancing can explore the limits of embodiment with true freedom. In this sacred space they try on selves, desires, expressions, and names in an ongoing poetic experiment on how to move from intellectual dissociation to physical, embodied self.

The first half of LIAM follows the nameless protagonist as they ricochet through fragments of their own history: childhood memories, the violence of the assault, and the disembodied aftermath that followed. Moving associatively through time, they cycle through an ever-growing list of possible names and identities arriving at the most embodied version possible: a beautifully collaged-together self name Dancing. 

In the second half, Dancing summons Domme. A powerful entity where BDSM meets Tattoo Artist. As Dancing begins trying on their new identity in real time, the two enter a charged negotiation of power, care, pain, and consent. Through kink, tattooing, and acts of vulnerability, Dancing tests not only what their body is capable of, but what can be done to it — discovering the body not simply as a site of trauma, but as a site of possibility, pleasure, endurance, and transformation. 

Part kink warehouse party, part tattoo appointment, part philosophical chat on a long drive home, LIAM is a poetry-performance work that, through vulnerability and care, invites us to truly be with our suffering.

Developed with the support of Theatre Replacement, What Lab, Upintheair Theatre, and the Historic Joy Kogawa House.