“It feels like within queerness there are answers to how we approach the natural world in more conscientious and compassionate ways.”
Dance theatre company Thick & Tight present Natural Behaviour, a collection of performed portraits of human and non-human life forms. Somewhere between a variety show and a biology essay that has sprung into life, Natural Behaviour is a queer look at what it means to be natural or unnatural, highlighting the essential role of diversity in all life forms. Thick & Tight’s distinctive mixture of dance, satire, impersonation and poetry aims for the outrageous, the beautiful, the hilarious and the profound. We sat down with co-directors El Perry and Daniel Hay Gordon to discuss their upcoming production.
You’ve mashed up Freud with Madonna and Diana with Marilyn — what makes queerness and nature the next iconic pairing?
We have been looking into queer ecology as a subject since lockdown, continually researching and considering the link between nature and queerness. Our identity as queer people has grown in tandem with the growth of Thick & Tight, while nature is depleting. It feels like within queerness there are answers to how we approach the natural world in more conscientious and compassionate ways. We also felt it was the right time to find a different starting point from which to work, to move away from impersonating the famous or infamous to looking into a subject that can challenge us in new ways.
How do you balance the absurd and the political without losing the audience — or each other — along the way?
Well the political is always absurd, and feels more and more so at the moment. The systems that govern us and the repercussions of their actions on our planet need to be rigorously and cleverly satirised. It’s a healthy part of what makes systems less corrupt; it helps us recognise corruption when it becomes normalised. Our aim is to always punch up, never down. We find that our audiences want to see this kind of work and we certainly want to make it. If anything, it brings us all closer.
From club nights to the Royal Opera House, what’s been the most “unnatural” space you’ve had to make feel like home?
I think we’re very good at making most places our home. We love a queer space the most, but we also love to feel how our work and the people who work with our company have an impact on the other spaces we find ourselves in.
What’s one ‘natural behaviour’ in the studio you’d ban if you could, and one you couldn’t live without?
Bigotry and bullying would be banned (is bigotry ‘natural’? Not so sure it is…). Not that we are perfect! It’s ongoing work for us to be better, as a company and as people. Couldn’t live without a natural sense of camp!
If a blade of grass can be queer, what does that say about how we define identity in performance — or in life?
It’s about taking inspiration from everything around us, opening up how we define everything, giving space for life.
Thick & Tight’s Natural Behaviour is at Battersea Arts Centre 3-7 June and The Lowry, Salford on June 10 and 11.