Review by Nadia Free­man

Read­ing the cues of human emo­tion is an inher­ent trait that we take for grant­ed. Some of us view emo­tion dif­fer­ent­ly from oth­ers or can find it more chal­leng­ing. Access, presents an oppor­tu­ni­ty to analyse this form of human expres­sion more close­ly.

After col­lect­ing our tick­ets we are asked to wait out­side Te Aua­ha Gallery. Inside the gallery are two chairs fac­ing each oth­er about two metres apart inside a white square taped on the floor. The instruc­tions are straight­for­ward. The per­former is to take one chair and the audi­ence is invit­ed to take the oth­er if and when they want. Once an audi­ence mem­ber sits in the seat, they may select an emo­tion from one of six. The per­former will then enact that emo­tion. The per­for­mance of the emo­tion will con­tin­ue until the audi­ence mem­ber ris­es from the chair, leav­ing the seat open for anoth­er per­son to hop in should they want to.

From this point, the per­for­mance slips into the hand of the audi­ence e.g. how much we choose to par­tic­i­pate and how we inter­act with the per­former is key. The stage is set up so that we can walk around the per­for­mance 360 degrees allow­ing the audi­ence to watch not only the per­former but the audi­ence mem­ber that has cho­sen to take the hot seat as well as the rest of us in the room. 

It is an insight­ful look into emo­tion and how we respond. As empa­thet­ic beings, it is not often that we get to be voyeurs to emo­tion. This per­for­mance allows us to stand a lit­tle sep­a­rat­ed from our usu­al com­pas­sion­ate response, but even so, some pri­mal respons­es are elicit­ed. For instance, I spot­ted some nuances that the audi­ence mem­bers seat­ed oppo­site could­n’t help but dis­play. Like how nat­ur­al it is to smile when some­one oppo­site us is hap­py, one of the very first things we as humans learn in behav­iour mim­ic­k­ing and there­fore, how chal­leng­ing it can be for a per­former to main­tain this emo­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion if it is not reflect­ed back by the per­son they are engag­ing with. Or the nuanced indi­ca­tors of our audi­ence mem­bers even when try­ing to remain com­posed through the ten­sion of mus­cles and hands squeez­ing chairs. 

I myself found it inter­est­ing how the indi­ca­tors of Aggres­sion have many sim­i­lar­i­ties to Lust and left won­der­ing how oth­er emo­tions out­side of the six we were able to select may have been rep­re­sent­ed by our per­former, par­tic­u­lar­ly more pos­i­tive ones since many in the selec­tion were neg­a­tive.

I am curi­ous to see where the team of Hamish Annan, Katie Bur­son and Rob Byrne take this per­for­mance in the future. Access has two more show­ings on Fri­day the 23rd and Sat­ur­day the 25th at 7pm.