DARK PARK is part fable, part nightmare, part surrealist bedtime story. Psychologically intense, compelling and strange, DARK PARK is a new Dance Theatre work of unsettling impact. DARK PARK was originally created as part of MA project 'Visceral experiments with narrative in dance theatre'. Following the work of Pina Bausch and Lloyd Newson, the project investigated processes for integrating narrative with the abstract properties of dance. Whilst Bausch and Newson have approached narrative from divergent perspectives, both have utilised it in ways that embrace ambiguity, encouraging interpretation but refusing definitive meaning. DARK PARK expands these perspectives to further explore the space between specificity and ambiguity, suggesting a story through movement and physicality whilst investigating the ability of narrative to connect directly to the emotional core of the spectator. DARK PARK is a character based solo performance that follows three threads of investigation: wild dog/becoming animal; simple technologies of shadow and illusion; and a combined personal, political and fictive narrative. These threads were pursued for the rich and visceral narrative possibilities they offered. They supported the cultivation of a studio practice that investigated the unveiling of story, whilst reinforcing the overall aim to renegotiate narrative territory for dance. As well as Bausch and Newson, DARK PARK draws inspiration from Film Noir, film maker David Lynch, philosophers Delueze and Guattari_x0019_ s text _x0018_ Becoming Wolf_x0019_ (in A Thousand Plateaus), the work of visual artists Christian Boltanski and Joseph Beuys, as well as authors Justine Larbalestier, Eva Hornung, Angela Carter and Clarissa Pinkola Estes. DARK PARK: not exactly dance & not really theatre & genre confounding performance
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