WELCOME
Inhabited Composition III
Inhabited Compositions
The “Inhabited Compositions” are a series of interactive performances inspired by human experiences. They invite audiences to inhabit sonic scenarios, providing an opportunity to perceive their everyday reality through an outsider's lens. Serving as a platform to explore and confront social and political conventions, these performances offer an unexpected journey of self-discovery within each unique experience.
Inhabited Composition I: “Awakening Sweet & Sour” navigate diverse social scenarios, reflecting culturally learned behaviours.
Inhabited Composition II: “Ellipsis” presents an audio tour in a non-touristic setting, inviting participants to rediscover local spaces from a different perspective.
Inhabited Composition III: “Welcome” invites audiences to reflect on their interactions with people they don't know in new contexts.
Welcome
Interactive performance
Up to 20 participants per session
Duration: 60 minutes (can be repeated up to three times consecutively)
Recommended age: 12+
Welcome invites reflection on first encounters with people we do not know in new contexts. At a time when the word welcome often feels uncertain, the performance offers a a pause, a breath, and a space to reconnect with what it means to meet one another with openness.
Methodology
The work is based on experiential methodologies that shift perception, encourage embodied participation, and activate collective imagination. Each participant wears a full-face mask and headphones, which temporarily alters their sensory relationship with the world. By limiting visual cues and introducing an immersive soundscape, the performance invites participants to slow down, heighten non-visual senses, and enter a space of openness and play.
The masks are individually crafted to reflect a diversity of identities within a community. Their use allows participants to step outside their everyday roles and social conventions, adopting new perspectives and behaviours. The act of wearing the mask creates both anonymity and connection: it removes visible social markers while simultaneously linking participants through a shared, silent gesture. This collective transformation becomes the foundation for a shared narrative that emerges through interaction rather than being imposed.
The performance unfolds through guided movement, role play, and interaction with the environment, the soundscape, and other participants. Performers act as facilitators, gently guiding participants through a defined site. The space itself becomes an active element of the work, shaping each iteration and ensuring that every presentation is unique and responsive to its context.
Welcome prioritises sensory engagement beyond vision, responding to a contemporary world dominated by screens and visual stimuli. By foregrounding sound, touch, spatial awareness, and presence, the methodology encourages participants to reconnect with their bodies, their surroundings, and one another in a more attentive way. This shift opens space for reflection on personal relationships, social structures, and our collective coexistence.
Sound
"Welcome" prompts participants to heighten their sensory awareness, focusing on the often-overlooked sonic qualities within their imagination, sounds heard but not closely observed. This aims to provide a pause to close their eyes, listen attentively, and forge connections with their other senses, with fellow individuals, and with themselves.
The diverse sonic scenarios presented during the performance enable participants to delve into their imagination, fostering the formation of fresh visual scenarios crafted by their creative minds.
These sonic scenarios can include everyday sounds like distant conversations, the hum of a city, familiar songs, ambient and experimental sounds, or repeated melodies.
Repetitions are a crucial element in "Welcome" sound composition. Each repetition provides a fresh opportunity to begin anew, offering a new layer of interpretation and emotional depth. Through this process, performers and participants alike can experience the sound in evolving ways, discovering new meanings and connections with each iteration. The cyclical nature of repetition in sound not only reinforces themes and motifs but also invites continuous engagement and exploration, making every moment of the performance a unique journey.
Participation
"Welcome" centres participants in the heart of the experience, using various strategies to encourage audience participation:
Role Play:
Engage audiences through role-play-based invitations. When both audiences and performers commit to a shared challenge, such as wearing masks, an immediate sense of purpose emerges. The mask acts as a unifying element, transcending individual experiences and weaving a collective narrative.
Memories:
Draw inspiration from participants' ordinary, day-to-day experiences to deepen the connection between the audience and the content. Leverage familiar spatial arrangements, sounds, or behaviours to trigger personal memories, enhancing the overall performance experience.
Constructed Situations:
Offer opportunities for interaction and the co-creation of shared fictional realities. Constructed situations involve participants interacting with performers and other audience members, contributing to the realisation of the piece.
Empowering Sound Perceptions:
Present diverse sonic scenarios throughout the performance, allowing participants to immerse themselves in their imagination. This fosters the creation of new visual scenarios crafted by their creative minds.
Space
The performance is designed to be adaptable to a wide range of locations. It has previously been presented both indoors and outdoors, including industrial premises, small intimate venues, open fields, and beach environments. Its flexible structure allows it to transform and engage each site uniquely. The preferred location supports a site-specific approach and does not require a technically equipped venue.
Minimum space: 6 m × 6 m, ideally with areas for audience movement.
Seating: Up to 20 audience members at a time, with chairs or suitable seating.
What participants said about Welcome
“Everyone should be part of Welcome at least once in their lives”
“This performance changed the way I viewed immersive theatre. The complete sensory deprivation, except for sound and touch, genuinely flourished me and made me focus entirely on the performance. It was an experience that I think will stay with me for a long time.”
“What an impressive experience! I felt part of a collective, lost for words, full of emotions. I would highly recommend it.”
“It was a fascinating experience, a mix of sounds and movement. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
“I was transported outside of myself, and it felt good not to have an internal dialogue constantly. The freedom of being outside, the freedom of the mask, the envelopment of sound, the comfort of not knowing, the joy of trust, the elements, raging wind, silence and sound. A great experience on all fronts!”
“A great experience of trust and warmth. I felt enveloped in love.”
“A mind-blowing experience. It felt like a journey through life, one I didn’t want to end…Thank you! I think I would travel anywhere in the world to experience this again!”
“I didn't recognise the space anymore. I felt high levels of euphoria. My body melted with a kind hand. The world inside the mask, in my head, felt incredibly rich. I was held. I want to go back inside the mask. I feel I have more to see”
