Romi Sarfaty & Dale Williamson
The Pathetic Planet

One of the recipients of the 2024 Graduate Residencies; weeklong residencies for recent performance graduates in partnership with the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland ‘Contemporary Performance Practice’ course. Supported by Tramway.

About the residency
We are planning to use our time in the residency, to develop our show 'The Pathetic Planet' an operatic absurdist melodrama. This work explores themes of existentialism, stagnant shame and consumerism/commodification in the face of our current zeitgeists social fears and expectations. The piece is presented in an episodic nature, dictated by varying personas and their constant urge for ecstasy in order to fill the void. We would like to research and develop another iteration of this arc to unpack and exhaust the dichotomies between pleasure/pain and hysteria/fulfilment. We will achieve this through a movement exploration that stems from body archive and Butoh techniques in conjunction with our shared practice of subconscious free writing.

About the artists

We are a collaborative duo of multidisciplinary visual and performance art, based in Scotland. Our work explores the building of new worlds and mythologies, centred around lateral thinking and subconscious imagery. Working passionately with absurdity, abstraction and melodrama we create stories of fantastical dreams/nightmares and new arrangements of reality. Our otherworldly sets, costumes and personas express extreme feelings of love, anguish and melancholia. We are driven by working with an authentic state of self, incorporating unashamedly neurodivergent ‘accidents’ and ‘mistakes’. Our practice is rooted in gratitude for what there is, resisting the impulse to focus on what there isn’t. Considering the visual as the most crucial way of thinking; working alongside artists, non-artists, friends, lovers and their surrounding landscapes. We unrelentingly explore methods of existing and evolving in these tumultuous times.

Image credits
Image 1- The Titty Twins © Jassy Earl
Image 2- The cracked humans 2. © Jassy Earl