Here are the programme notes:
Indifference is a performance that takes the search
for freewill as its starting point. This idea of freewill, of having the power
of choice over our actions seems, the further one looks at it, like a phantom,
something that cannot be proven to exist. Indeed, it completely contradicts
most ideas of causality that underpin a scientific worldview. People have
debated its existence since the Greeks and it remains central to many aspects
of society yet it remains stubbornly elusive. It is precisely because it is
forever elusive yet also necessary that it is interesting and the focus of
Indifference.
Indifference looks at this old question of freewill
in a way relevant to today, not attempting to provide answers or instructions
but rather attempting to stage questions and paradoxes. In this way it aims to
remain open to both intention and interpretation. We have attempted to create a
structure that allows us to better visualize such questions as: Can we be free
as individuals but doomed to species-specific behavior when acting
collectively? What happens when we start to suspect that we are not completely
free? What are the consequences of resigning ourselves to a fatalistic outlook?
What happens to the whole idea of a person, of a self, if we are not
responsible for some or even any of our choices? Why is the idea of freewill so
enduring, what appetite does it meet? What are we if we have no freewill?
The performance features five popular group dances,
dances that attracted us as they contain many of the dilemmas we are busy with.
They are dances in which the individual must follow set movements: either you
follow the steps or else you are not doing The Birdie Dance or Macarena. In
this sense the dancer has no freedom. Yet, when given this fixed framework to
follow, the dancer then becomes part of a group and this offers another sort of
freedom: the freedom to make a fool of yourself. This is a freedom that should
not be under-rated. It’s a rare collective action, you make a fool of yourself
with other people doing the same thing too. Given the success of Gangnam Style
I would suggest that this vision of freedom is alive and well and is held just
as dearly as the freedom to improvise alone. Maybe, it is even stronger than
the freedom to act alone, as Alfred Jarry wrote in his play Ubu Enchained, “We are free
to do what we want, even to obey. We are free to go anywhere we choose, even to
prison! Slavery is the only true freedom!”
