We sat down with Sadiq talking about Tell Me,a visceral fusion of circus, dance and theatre tackling HIV stigma.
What first made you want to create Tell Me?
The first thing that made me want to make this show Tell Me was my experience of my own diagnosis and that happening while training as a circus artist. It showed me the impact that learning alongside a newly diagnosed person can have on other people. That by being open and sharing my own journey, I was able to support and educate not only myself but those around me in becoming allies and getting more knowledge and reducing the fear and stigma within our own working spaces.
I’ve worked as an activist within different campaigns over the years and it’s a vocation that’s very close to my heart, and I work as a circus artist and a theatre maker so This is the first chance to bring those two worlds together and that’s why I really wanted to start making this show.
How did your own diagnosis shape the way you approached this show?
As above, however I realised quite quickly that my diagnosis is as a gay man, and that that’s only one element of this story and not where we are today.
I wanted to further the narrative and so it was an initial starting point to learn more about where we are and the issue as it affects a wider demographic. That’s why I’ve created a show that casts a female perspective within the lead.
Why did you choose circus and dance to tell this story?
I am a circus artist and performance maker from Scotland who went to train at London’s National Centre for Circus Arts. I specialise in an apparatus called Chinese pole. Chinese pole is generally a five or six metre high pole covered in rubber, which we climb and do acrobatics and dance on.
I was always very interested in theatre and contemporary dance and I realised when training with this pole that I’d found something that was a storytelling tool that allowed me to express journeys and emotions and narratives in a way that I hadn’t had a language for before. When working with dance and theatre techniques and then with also my interest in set design and generally the entire building of the world, I realised that this combination of extremely highly physical movement allowed us to explore different narratives to the extent which are for me impossible to achieve when staying on the floor.
What do you hope audiences take away from the performance?
I want people walking away from this to have a slightly different understanding of where we are now with HIV, but also to think about how it reflects them. I want them to ultimately have witnessed a really incredible visual and physical journey that at times is abstract and dreamlike, at times is quite visceral, and other times is a bit sexy and sweaty, and have really really enjoyed quite a unique piece of work. But also to give us that power to knock down a little barrier between people — a little bit of stigma that holds people separate from each other — in a time when separation, othering, seems greater than ever. It feels like work that unifies us and lets us look past our differences, because our differences are socialised through these vehicles of stigma rather than just looking at people as people with lives that we have to live and deal with that are much like each other. I hope it gives people a little bit of a humble approach to the people around them while entertaining.
How has working with HIV charities influenced the final piece?
Working with HIV charities gives us the peer support, and I would say the backing to feel comfortable in approaching this — knowing that we’re doing something that means something to people more than just us, and that we have the support to direct people to if things come up, if things get difficult, that we don’t have to have all the answers. We just have to start the conversation, and that we have the support of places to point people to should they need further support. That takes a lot of weight off our shoulders, to be able to do the work in the way that we do and bring our expertise to the table without having to be the people who have all the answers.
Tickets and listing info can be found here: https://theplace.org.uk/events/spring-26-tell-me