The Disappearances Project

Overview

In a darkened room, points of light flicker across a screen. Abstract sound, like the lights, darts through the silence. The points of light gradually transform into streets, empty nighttime streets, which we move through in a constant stream of images. With the light from the screen, we can make out two figures in front of us, sitting in chairs at each end of the screen and looking firmly ahead of them. After a time, they speak. In turns, they tell us their stories. From the start, intertwined, they talk from the moment it happened and reach into the future, from the certainty of the disappearance into their uncertain future.

The Disappearances Project speaks of the unexpected disappearances of loved ones from the words of those left behind. Video and performance both trace a carefully constructed narrative but one that is not immediately obvious to the watcher. Specific case references are there but deliberately blurred, switched. Genders, relations, locations change, heightening the sense of disorientation and confusion already present in the subject matter.

Version One Point Zero's approach to the material, as we would expect, strikes right at the heart of the matter. The text has been assembled from more or less renowned cases, drawing on writings, case studies and interviews. The accumulation of stories spoken, combined with the relentlessly trawling visuals, builds into a dull ache with salient moments that take the observer by surprise.

This is a departure from media treatment of such cases, a sensationalised 'whodunnit' style which assumes an outcome. Instead, this performance holds in focus those who remain in the unknowing, unresolved between. The ones who remain always wondering. It is a strangely moving production, delivering not quite what we initially want from it but perhaps something much more.

Part of Performance Space's Uneasy Futures season, this is an exceptionally offering from one of Australia's most exciting theatre collectives. Being presented absolutely free (though remember to RSVP), it's hard to find a reason not to attend.

Image: courtesy of Version One Point Zero