Without Warning
Without Warning is an immersive blend of movement, sound, and scenography, with each element playing an equal and integral role. The venue itself becomes a crucial partner in the performance, shaping the experience and creating a sense of confinement. The piece is adaptable to various confined spaces, where audiences find themselves enclosed with the performers, surrounded by an atmosphere of visceral uncertainty and unpredictability.
The inspiration for Without Warning came from Brian Keenan’s An Evil Cradling, his autobiographical account of being held hostage for four years. The hostages' constant movement between hiding places informed the performance's fluid approach to venues, treating each site as a new chapter in the evolving narrative of the piece. Just like memory, the movement and sound build, shift, and transform with each new location, creating a continuous, layered experience.
During a two-week run at the Old Vic Tunnels, local library reading groups joined the performance space to discuss An Evil Cradling, deepening the engagement with Keenan’s story. Additional events included a reading by Brian Keenan from his new book, reflecting on his experiences two decades after his captivity in Beirut. The photographer Peter Anderson also contributed to the atmosphere by installing a Darkroom in the tunnels, which served as the starting point of the performance, with audience members entering one by one. Anderson’s exhibit of photographs from his recent trip to Haiti, documenting the aftermath of a hurricane, added another layer of narrative to the event, blending visual art with the immersive experience of Without Warning.
Commissioned by Old Vic Tunnels, Old Vic Theatre London
February 3- 16 2010
Choreographer - Lizzi Kew Ross
In collaboration with dancers & musicians - Laura Moody, David Leahy, Lauren Potter
Megan Saunders, Simon Wehrli, Sonia Rafferty, Natasha Lohan.
Composer - Natasha Lohan
Lighting Design - Fay Patterson
Dramaturg - Mary Ann Hushlak
Costume Designer - Susan Kulkarni
Photographer - Peter Anderson
Without Warning
Without Warning is a dance and performance piece by Lizzi Kew Ross and her company, featuring four dancers and four musicians. It weaves movement, sound, and scenography into a cohesive whole, with the venue itself acting as an integral partner. Adaptable to various confined spaces, the piece creates a sense of visceral uncertainty for the audience, who find themselves immersed alongside the performers. Inspired by Brian Keenan’s An Evil Cradling, an account of his years as a hostage, the work draws on themes of displacement, with each performance site building on the last, allowing movement and sound to evolve like memory.
“I still remember this performance vividly... I cannot think of any other production that statys so well in the psyche or deals with such an ordeal with as much consideration and clarity”
Peter Anderson: The Darkroom
Renowned photographer Peter Anderson is known for his immersive approach to photography, preferring to make images rather than simply capture them. His signature style has produced iconic portraits of both the famous and the infamous, along with commissioned work across a variety of subjects for advertising and documentary projects.
Peter’s creative journey began with formal training at the Glasgow School of Art, followed by the Royal College of Art in London. His early career saw him as a staff photographer at New Musical Express during the 1980s, and his work has since graced the pages of leading publications like The Face, i-D, and Rolling Stone.
In the Without Warning performance, Peter’s Darkroom installation became an integral part of the experience at the Old Vic Tunnels. The Darkroom, originally built as a functional space for an exhibition of Peter’s hand-printed photographs, recreated the environment where he had spent countless nights processing and printing images for next-day deadlines. This space, filled with test prints, mistakes, and favorites covering every surface, carried the atmosphere of stale fix chemicals, John Peel’s music, and other nocturnal sounds.
A mutual friend introduced Peter to Lizzi Kew Ross, and they quickly realized that the Darkroom could be woven into the Without Warning performance. Peter began photographing the cast during rehearsals, filling the Darkroom’s interior with their images. The installation evolved into a key element of the performance set, where audience members could enter one by one through its revolving door, experiencing the photographs alongside the Without Warning soundscape. This unique collaboration added an intimate, sensory dimension to the performance, inviting audiences to engage with the imagery and sound in a way that blurred the lines between observer and participant.
Interview
A short interview with Lizzi Kew Ross, BBC Radio 4pm Programme January 2012
PRESS REVIEWS at OLD VIC TUNNELS
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A disturbing, ultimately humane work that leaves a haunting and indelible impression.
Neil Norman, The Stage
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Kew Ross's exemplary cast, called upon to lug double basses about and belt out operatic tunes while engaged in hard core physical movement, work to draw us into the torment. Keep close to them, - it's a promenade performance- and on offer is a darkly poetic insight into the living nightmare of hostage incarceration.
Keith Watson, Metro
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In the performance, mankind appeared bare, reduced to its most essential without being deprived from compassion. Involving the audience by the very fact that it became part of the scene, moving around with the performers in an estranged place, the spectatorial participation was heightened in this theatrical production in which emotions were clearly motivational forces able to direct body and mind.
Andrea Grunert, Vulgo
(c) Peter Anderson
(c) Peter Anderson
(c) Peter Anderson