Stopgap Dance Company
| Artistic direction & choreography: | Lucy Bennett |
| Lighting design: | Chahine Yavrovan |
| Composer: | Dougie Evans |
| Dramaturge: | Lou Cope |
| Production manager: | David Stothard |
| Technical manager: | Francois Langton |
| Production stage manager: | Alexandra Anzemberger |
| Costume supervisor: | Rosey Morling |
| Rehearsal directors: | Laura Jones and Siobhan Hayes |
| Access officer & assistant stage manager: | Amelia Clark |
| Creative inputs during research & development: | George Adams (La Petite Mort Theatre), Ben Duke (Lost Dog), Dan Huxley (ethnomusicologist), Caroline Leroy & Michael Pallandre (Collectif Pret a Porter), Thomas Noone, Chris Thorpe (Unlimited Theatre) and Lenka Vagrenova |
| With the support of: | Arts Council England, Farnham Maltings, New Theatre Royal Portsmouth, PASS - Circus Channel (Interreg), Pavilion Dance South West, The Point, University of Chichester (Theatre Department) and University of Surrey |
| Thanks to: | St George's Church Portsmouth, Frensham Heights School, Aya Kobayashi, TJ Lowe, KJ Mortimer, Femi Oyewole, Cherie Brennan, Ethan Duffy and Floyd Konde |
| The presentation ofThe Enormous Room in Madrid enjoys the collaboration of the British Council | |
“An absorbing encounter with grief and loss”.Bachtrack
The British Stopgap Dance Company has made diversity its engine for creation. Permanently seeking innovative collaboration formulas between artists with and without disabilities, it has shaped a pioneering venture of integrating people through dance. In parallel it has helped to change perceptions towards what is different and to encourage each of us to explore our potential. The performances are a powerful window into a parallel world where human interdependence, strength and vulnerability take to the stage in a context of poetic realism that goes beyond what we know of inclusive theatre and links it to other dance companies like DV8 Physical Theatre, Gecko, Probe and Company Chameleon. Via atmospheric choreographies made up of artists with and without physical and mental disabilities, their pieces represent an unheard-of and stimulating approach to physical theatre and contemporary dance with great emotional impact, which encourage us to see the world through different eyes. The company also teaches this activity by way of art residences, workshops and entertaining sessions.
Combining physical and scripted theatre with an evocative staging and exceptional artists with well-defined personalities, The Enormous Room is an exploration—at times claustrophobic and at others raw and intimate—of grief and pain. It puts the focus on the complex relationship between a father and daughter who are undergoing a difficult grieving process after the disappearance of Jackie, their wife and mother. ‘In this house, the chairs have forgotten how to hold us up and the walls how to contain us,’ they say. He still sees her everywhere, laying in their bed, sitting at the kitchen table, laughing with their daughter Sam… while his daughter, locked away in her room, struggles with her own feelings. Together they must find a way to let Jackie go, who they both met and loved at a time in which the past is more present than ever and memories collide with reality.