In Many Hands

Kate McIntosh

Recent visitors to Kate McIntosh’s works have been involved in many ways. Some broke apart domestic objects and made new inventions from the fragments (Worktable installation 2011). Other audiences examined a kind of collectivity–throwing furniture across the stage, uniting as an orchestra of rain-makers, collecting their own bacteria, and imagining themselves as birds (All Ears performance 2013).

The invitations in these works sprang from Kate’s ongoing curiosity to bodily involve an audience, and to imagine a social space where individuals might explore their own agency as well as a communality. Her new project In Many Hands wades further into these experiences.

With In Many Hands Kate dives into the tactile and the multi-sensory, inviting the audience to test, touch, listen, search and sniff. This project steps away from the stage–instead bringing the audience into a series of aesthetic sensory situations, and inviting them to experiment with materials and encounter physical phenomena themselves. If one really does learn-by-doing, then what’s learned here is a sensitization of nerves, a tuning of attention, a priming of curiosity. In Many Hands is part laboratory, part expedition, part meditation. As it unfolds, visitors take their time to engage and explore as they wish, following their noses and curiosities.

As always, Kate’s work is guided by her ongoing fascinations with the misuse of objects, playfulness with the audience and an off-beat humour.

From Fusebox A scent, an object, the texture of something in your palm can unfurl whole worlds, stories, memories, and associations. Kate McIntosh’s immersive performance In Many Hands, acknowledges the power and potential of sensory experience and how they themselves perform and work upon the imagination.  As the title suggests, this is not just an individual experience, but a communal one, empowering a group of audience members to participate and engage their hands, their noses, and their curiosity. Words can’t do this performance justice; you have to see it, feel it, smell it, experience it for yourself.

CREATIVE TEAM

Concept and Direction: Kate McIntosh Developed in collaboration with: Arantxa Martinez, Josh Rutter Presented with: Lucie Schroeder Sound: John Avery Light and technique: Joëlle Reyns Technical direction tour: Michele Piazzi, Koen De Sager Artistic advice: Dries Douibi, Gary Stevens Studio Assistance: Lucie Schroeder Drawings: Daria Gatti Production: Sarah Parolin, Linda Sepp Finances and distribution: Ingrid Vranken Production assistance: Jana Durnez, Anneliese Ostertag, Mara Kirchberg Produced by: SPIN Coproduction: PACT Zollverein (DE), Parc de la Villette (FR), Kaaitheater (BE), Vooruit Kunstencentrum (BE), BIT Teatergarasjen (NO), Black Box Teater (NO), Schauspiel Leipzig (DE), théâtre Garonne – scène européenne (FR), far° festival des arts vivants (CH), House on Fire Network (EU), and the Open Latitudes Network (EU). Supported by: Vlaamse Overheid, Vlaamse Gemeenschapscommissie, NATIONALES PERFORMANCE NETZ (NPN), Pianofabriek kunstenwerkplaats (BE), Tanzfabrik (DE), and the Goethe Institute Chicago. SPIN is structurally supported by BUDA Kunstencentrum for the period 2017 – 2021 Thanks to: Tom Bruwier, Martin Pilz, Andrea Parolin