Random Scream

Too Shy To Stare

In the 2011-2012 season Davis Freeman / Random Scream will collaborate with different cities to create new versions of his celebrated piece Too shy to stare. Developed over the pass 9 years in Europe, Too shy to Stare is a unique two-hour performance for only 10 audience members at a time. In order to see the performance, the audience needs to have their photograph taken a day before they see the performance. We then develop these photos and wear the pictures in masks we wear over our face during the show. Too shy to stare then creates the unique illusion that audience is actually performing for themselves. In each new version I come to the city and cast the show with all local dancers. Using the set choreography as a base we’ll develop a new version, which again will be entirely unique. I promise you it will be a piece that you’ve never seen before.

In each of our past shows we've had very strong reactions from the audience. Some people cry while others can’t stop laughing. What makes ”Too shy to stare” unique is that every audience member is affected differently depending on their own psychological make up. The material we made gives general directions but the specific gestures are open doors for the audience to interpret their own way depending on their life experience. While one sees the ”couple scene” to represent their male and female side, another sees their parents. While one sees the music scene as a moment of internal meditation another person might see his or her own funeral. The performers themselves repeat their same scene for all the audience members while each time changing their masks. Once they have performed their last scene each performer joins the audience in the bar where they then ask questions and share their experience of the show.

Concept and Direction: Davis Freeman

Music and Performance: Gerrit Valckenaers , Davis Freeman and invited guests.

 

 

 

Rachel Zerihan on One-to-one performance

Responding to his immensely gentle and simplistic movements and gestures, an extremely safe environment played host to the most intimate and liberating performance experience I have ever encountered. My senses were liberated and simultaneously stimulated through his non-threatening adoption of my (corporeal) self. The opportunity to re-embody ones own corporeal sense of self is a rare invitation that provides with it the possibility of re-establishing our awareness of our mind/body, self/other relationship. Freeman's gift of a form of corporeal catharsis provided the opportunity for an intimate self-sharing and self-discovering that, I believe, is unique to and lies at the core of the lure of inter-action in One to One performance.

 

Too Shy to Stare - Not for the timid

By Jacques-Olivier BADIA

Wonderfully conceived and produced, “Too shy to stare” pushes the boundaries in many aspects and disciplines. Its weapon is the unavoidable interaction with the spectator who, for his part, finds in each room what he brings into it, depending on how he perceives himself… Whether the main reactions, which result from surprise, amusement, oppression, or hesitation, each reacts in his own unique way to the atmosphere of the scenes, which are always created for him alone, and with the absence of a certain protective distance. The title resonates like a warning: the shy, which cannot hold their own gaze, this is not for you, the rest reserve now.