So… we had a show a couple nights ago, and it didn’t quite go according to plan…

We (I’m not entirely sure if I mean Sai & Eve or a more collective performer we) don’t often reveal much about the shit that goes wrong. As it’s going wrong we do our best to perform over the top of it, to keep the show pretty for the audience… then we go home and privately deconstruct, to keep shaping the work so that next run it is closer to our vision. As professional performers we probably won’t share our failures online - we want to present our peak moments so that we get more gigs.

But what happened last night was FASCINATING, and speaks to the moment, and reveals much about our artistic process. And we want to share that, the personal meanings and material of our performances.

It was a queer gig, so we already wanted to ensure we were fucking with gender. And there’s 62 million reasons why we ESPECIALLY didn’t want to reproduce the normative gender power dynamics that are so common in shibari.

We had a simple but cool concept, Eve beginning as a chrysalis, Sai weaving a web around her from the chrysalis ropes and then raising her aloft as the spider queen before joining her, inverted. After the mating Sai falls to the ground, lifeforce spent…

Simple right? Way toooo simple.

Our performances are not theoretical, they are deeply spiritual and embodied. Before each show we enter a connective ritual space together, and also open ourselves to the energies that need to flow. Our pieces are often shaped by what is moving in the world, and we offer our vessels to channel that, to tap into deeper mythic substructures and core ancestral woundings.

It was wildly silly of us to think we could enact such a simple transfer of power whilst reverberating with these themes. Instead a messy, furious power struggle emerged. Still utterly grounded in love and trust, but low key harrowing for both of us as we transited deep and complex internal and interconnected journeys.

When we deconstructed what had happened these shadows emerged. And y’know what? It was weirdly healing. To name it. Our frustration at a self perceived ‘bad show’ shifted as we recognised the impossibility of creating a nice pretty package of millennia of gender trauma.

And now, in hindsight, that show feels powerful, but not in a simple, palatable way. It was messy and furious and loving and all the things we actually are right now in a world on fire.

For those that were present, we hope you enjoyed the show, or rather we hope you felt something, and we would be oh so curious to hear your reflections…

BTW!

We’ve started a Patreon! Full sets of performances and shoots, and more meandering words from Eve and Sai… come play!

INFERNAL DESIRE MACHINE PATREON