The organiser says:
Moving dance theatre about embracing life in the face of death direct from Edinburgh Fringe
The company behind the smash-hit, critically acclaimed Lady Macbeth: unsex me here and Nijinsky’s Last Jump (dance picks of the year in The Guardian and The Telegraph) return to Oxford with their new show, The Chosen, a deeply personal reflection on how we experience the time left to us. The Oxford performance will be the only chance of this tour to see the show outside of Scotland.
Created and directed by Company Chordelia’s Kally Lloyd-Jones and performed by a six-strong cast, The Chosen is about dying, and so is also about embracing the art of living and the passage of time. How do we choose to live in the face of the inevitable and how do we think about the final stage of our life cycle? Increasingly, as medicine advances, knowledge of imminent death has become a reality for everyone.
A reference to 'The Rite of Spring' - where the “Chosen One” is to be sacrificed, but also revered and honoured - Company Chordelia’s The Chosen addresses our mortality from the shifting perspectives of ourselves and our loved ones.
“The Chosen has arisen out of a recent period of time during which I lost a number of really significant people in my life” says Kally. “I thought a lot about death, and about the process and knowledge of dying. I have made a piece which is personal to me, but which I hope has meaning for everyone. There is nothing more universal than dying - whether it’s our own or our loved ones. While the subject is complex, in the end the piece is about life and living, how we use and spend time, what we cling to and let go of. I think The Chosen offers audiences the chance to reflect on their own experiences, and might bring with it a sense of acceptance.”
Many of the performances will be accompanied by an informal Death Cafe, where people are invited to drop by for a coffee, cake and candid conversation about all things death and life.
Kally has recently been announced, alongside Jessica Richards, as the new Joint Directors of The Byre Theatre in St Andrews.