description

“I get a feeling that maybe I'm working too hard. It's not unusual that I'm reading way into the early hours and many times I fall asleep and wake to find my face pressed flat into a page. In my dreams I'm looking for a book, a particular book, but one that can't be found.”

Dreams' Winter was the first major site-specific performance by Forced Entertainment, designed for and inspired by the Manchester Central Library building — a huge circular, domed space with shelves running to the centre like the spokes of a wheel. The audience were seated at tables throughout the library, whilst the action of the piece continued around them. The central motif of the piece was sleepwalking and the cast of thirty, all dressed in pyjamas, walked barefoot through the aisles of books as if searching for a particular tome, as if having stepped from the pages of a story. Much of the performance made use of the whispering gallery acoustic of the space whereby conversations or sounds from one side of the room can be heard crystal clear on the other.

© Forced Entertainment 1994. Site-specific performance.

Credits

Conceived and devised by the company
Performers: Robin Arthur, Richard Lowdon, Claire Marshall, Cathy Naden, Terry O'Connor
Guest Performers: Nicky Beaumont, Nicola Bertram, Alex Bliss, Paulette Terry Brian, Kath Cooke, Susie Dick, Ian Greenall, Tim Hall, Steve Jackson, Alex Kelly, Sue Marshall, Jamie McAffer, Kit McCudden, Ellen Mills, Susan Scott, Juliet Sebley, Fleur Soper, Michelle Stanbridge, Liz Tomlin, Rachel Walton
Direction: Tim Etchells
Text: Tim Etchells and the company
Design and Lighting Design: Richard Lowdon
Soundtrack: John Avery

Commissioned by Manchester Central Library.