The Spiral
‘A deeply emotional piece. Charming and witty. Enchanting and delicate. So clearly told, like a memory of another time. Another life within us all.’
(Reclaim Festival – words from the audience)
From the primordial ocean of five hundred million years ago, a shapeless ancient creature speaks to you, the human inhabitants of today’s world, to ‘remind’ you what it was like to begin to discover sensation, emotions, motions and selfhood. As it creates the spiralling coils of its first shell, the ancient mollusc sings of its love and struggle for self-expression, imagines its evolution into the multiform species that inhabit our world and warns us of its (our) impending extinction.
Drawing from Italo Calvino’s Cosmicomics anthology, this poetic solo performance blends physical theatre, storytelling, folk song and immersive sound by Kerry Priest. This absurd piece takes you on an imaginative journey, searching for a sense of identity and belonging through the unlikely perspective of a self-conscious, extra-sensitive wet pulp!
‘The spiral is a piece that holds opposites: softness and strength, silence and sound, chaos and control. With every spiralling motion, Giorgia builds a world both strange and familiar.’ — Chowk Productions
Artistic Team
- Dramaturgy and direction: Kaite O’Reilly
- Music: Kerry Priest
- Outside eyes: Millie Sale, Konstantinos Thomaidis and Adrian Curtin
- Graphic elements: Loris Ciampi
- Photo credits: Lewis Mcguire and Gwyn Lau (Intercultural Theatre Institute)
- Support: Developed with the support of Exeter Reclaim Festival, Soak Live Art, Theatre Royal Plymouth and the University of Exeter
A Note on Sound and Music
The performance features soundscapes recorded as part of a SOAK Lab event run by SOAK Live Art CIC in collaboration with Sarah Blissett, Jodie Saunders and Emma Welton with IAA funding from the University of Plymouth.
The songs in the show are “songs of tradition”:
- “Lu rusciu de lu mare” — an ancient song from Salento, Puglia (South Italy)
- “Nebbia la valle” — a traditional song by the female olive harvesters of Abruzzo (Middle Italy)
- “Deshrimza” — a traditional Ukrainian love song, passed on by Ulyana Horbachevska
- “Amuri, amuri” — a traditional Sicilian love song (South Italy)
“Giorgia can dance, the strength and poise of her movements portraying the slowness of the creature’s early life cycle are impressive... displaying both control and chaos.” — Mark Ashmore, Fringe TheatreFest
A Note on the “Traditional Forms”
This new work owes much to traditional theatre, songs and knowledge: to the South Indian martial art of Kalarippayattu (taught by Phillip Zarrilli) and Kutiyattam theatre (taught by Gopal Venu and Kapila Venu), to Japanese Noh theatre (taught by Yoshimasa Kanze and Kuwata Takeshi) and butoh (taught by Fran Barbe), to Taijigong (taught by Sim Pern Yiau), to my teachers from the Intercultural Theatre Institute (T. Sasitharan, Leela Alaniz and Robin Payne), to the collective authors of Italian folk songs, to my Tuscan grandfather and to my Greek grandmother…
Performances
- 2025
- The Box, Plymouth (6th September) – organised by Soak Live Arts for “Forbidden Territories: 100 Years of Surreal Landscapes”
- Chowk Studios, Singapore (1st August) – organised by Chowk Productions
- Barnstaple Theatre Festival, Barnstaple (26–28 June)
- Theatre Royal Plymouth, Plymouth (23rd May)
- 2024
- Barnfield Theatre, Northcott Reclaim Festival, Exeter (11th November)
6th September 2026, The Box, organised by Soak Live Arts in occasion of surrealist exhibition – Hidden Territories: 100 Years of Surrealist Landscapes. Performed in front of Leonora Carrington’s statue: The Dancer.
1st August, Chowk Studios, Singapore.
4th May, set, lighting and design exploration with Lewis Mcguire, University of Exeter.
