Transform Festival has just completed a week in Leeds, taking up residence in multiple venues across the City.
The Festival showcases exceptional productions from all over the globe, using both intimate spaces as well as large scale venues to bring to life a whole host of themes, such as loss, nature, community and personal development. As a part of ‘Leeds 2023 : Year of Culture’, Transform is “smashing the mirror of comfy, white, middle class theatre, to reveal the wide and fractious world behind it” (On Magazine), breaking down the stereotypes of traditional theatre to expose the reality of modern life.
A captivating performance which took place from the 19th to 20th October was ‘ONE SONG’ at the Quarry Theatre Leeds Playhouse. The production was an hour long and was high energy from start to finish. Created by Belgium born visual artist Miet Warlop, this piece of theatre follows a group of musicians as they perform a single song over and over again, all while completing a high intensity workout.
The musicians are accompanied by crowd supporters, on the bleachers in the gymnasium setting, as well as a lone cheerleader, who performs his own routine to the musician’s song. The stage is set with multiple gym apparatus where each musician not only plays their chosen instrument, but also completes their athletic discipline.
Throughout the performance, the audience bears witness to the physical struggles the musicians endure, all the while grappling with the themes of life, death, hope and rebirth. The production transitions from the individual performances of the musicians, supporters and cheerleader to a universal, collaborative spectacle, with each actor going to extremes to emphasise the subtext of ONE SONG: how one song can give meaning to a whole collective. Belgium magazine Le Soir draws attention to this, writing “ONE SONG tells us that grief always stays with us, but also that grief – by carrying it together – is transformed, from the intimate to the universal, and allows us to go to the limits of what seems humanly possible”
ONE SONG perfectly conveyed the struggles of life in a way that the audience could visualise through the physical exhaustion of the performers but equally through the powerful dialogue sung over and over again. The words “Run for your life…Grief is like a rock / In your head…it’s just always there” repeated throughout the performance enhanced this realistic representation of life that Warlop sought to achieve when bringing this masterpiece to the Festival.
