Work Songs is a physical comedy/dance performance about the crushing alienation, endless tedium, and unexpected joys of office work. it’s a show for anyone who’s ever been bored at their job. tom and brody shuffle paper all day. they play pranks on each other and look forward to lunch. they worry they are being watched. no one’s going anywhere. then tom goes for a promotion and all hell breaks loose.
Work Songs is a mix of physical theatre, dance, and comedy, with a dose of wrestling and stunts. The dangerologists explore physical labour, attention, endurance, and exhaustion in the creation of a unique physical performance language.
Choreographed and performed by Broderick Chow & Tom Wells.
SEE IT:
29 November 2011, 6.45 PM: Work-in-progress showing at Brunel University’s Antonin Artaud Performance Centre. Brunel University is in Uxbridge, and Uxbridge is only 33.2 minutes away on the Metropolitan line from Finchley Road, and Brunel is a 15 minute walk or short bus ride (the U3 – only take the U3!).
Campus Map: http://www.brunel.ac.uk/287/where_pdfs/campusmap.pdf
Directions: http://www.brunel.ac.uk/about/campus/directions/directions
The work is in early stages of development, so more dates should be announced in the near future, including another preview showing at Birkbeck, University of London.
“we were 12 of us and now we are two. we are the department of data and knowledge management. we were Sue, Carol, Declan, Michael 1, Matt ‘Legend’ Philips, David, Mei-Ling, Charlotte, Brian, Michael 2, Tom and me. Sue and Declan were the first to go, transferred to Human Resources. a round of redundancies took away Carol, Michaels 1 & 2, ‘Legend’ and David. Mei-Ling took early retirement, Brian and Charlotte hooked up at the Xmas party, Charls got pregnant, went on maternity, Brian disappeared, we think to Sweden. no one’s replaced Charlotte. this was two years ago and we don’t think she’s coming back. it’s just Tom and Brody, the department of data and knowledge management.
last year the two of us tried to unionise, but on the first vote we couldn’t agree a majority on ‘industrial action short of a strike’ so we disbanded.
Tom is younger than me but has worked here for longer. I do not think we are friends. I see his face more than any other. what do you call that?
the post of senior data and knowledge manager has been empty for 5 years. it is the desk beside the window, the one with the drawer that sticks, but the good chair.
we take lunch at 1:30 and cigarettes at 11 and 4. we stretch our limbs at our desks and marvel at their action. we can no longer feel our hands, feet or faces. we work. we work and we have lunch, and we smoke. we drink a lot of water. we hate being watched but we hope to hell someone is watching.”
