The Bench
The world is absurd, and it is time to accept that the only way to meet it honestly is to delve into its absurdity.
This performance follows a to-do list. It is a sequence of directions, a way of getting from A to B, not knowing exactly where we are going. In something like a waiting room, a fish swims around in its own puddle. A clock loses track of time.
At its core, The Bench exposes disorientation. Characters hover in the paradox of craving withdrawal while yearning for connection; between retreat and action; between the sudden grasping of something and then losing it almost immediately. Rather than offering solutions, this work is a poem on how to stay – with uncertainty, with each other, and with what we are incapable of resolving.
Following their autobiographical performance-installation last portrait (2025), ashleyho+domeniknaue continue their long lasting collaboration with this project. Artistically, this work emerges at the intersection of choreography, writing, sound, graphic, and object design. This is their contemplation on purpose from the perspective of a generation attempting to build a future amidst frightening “progress”, or collapse. They want to point to the reality that more than ever, our futures are deeply entangled.
The Bench is where we met and where we will meet again. It is an exploration into humour, and saving ourselves through imagination.
The Bench is going to be playful, and a little painful.
A feeling that came over one evening & disappeared. The horizon moving away.
Here, for you, for us, a lonely piece
A yearning piece
A piece for the romantic
A heartaching,
A moment of healing piece
A deep-longing-for-a-response-from-anyone-anywhere-out-there piece