We sat down for an exclusive interview with Bea Bidault and Max Revell whose new dance-theatre work explores truth, deception and belief in an era shaped by artificial intelligence, political instability and emotional polarisation. One Without asks how people come to trust certain ideologies and what is lost when certainty replaces doubt.
This show runs on 25th October at Bread and Roses Theatre as part of Lambeth Festival – Tickets here
You first met while performing with Akram Khan Dance Company. When did you realise there was a creative partnership between you that you wanted to explore beyond performing together? What was the first spark for One Without?
I (Bea) invited Max to the studio to see if he was the right fit for a duet that I was developing at the time, Les Nuages. Having fun in the studio felt essential to our creative partnership. One Without started first with discussion around family, ideologies and how as human beings our instinct is geared to believe in consensus rather than the truth.
Artificial intelligence sits in the background of the piece, but you’re contrasting it with emotional intelligence and very human forms of communication. What interested you about exploring that tension?
The interesting tension for us, is that humans are drawn to sycophantic relations, with a tool (AI) that is biased to agree with their standpoints rather than challenging them. This induces an echochamber reinforcing their own ideologies and preventing discourse. In the work, we allude to this by incorporating images of people drastically opposing each other, and the discomfort of disagreeability. Despite this, the work explores how we can still find trust.
Bea, you’ve worked extensively within contemporary dance. Has collaborating on a piece with such a strong theatrical and comic language changed anything about the way you think about yourself as a performer?
I have always felt drawn by interdisciplinary work. Luckily, through my collaborations with other artists and companies I have been able to develop a skill set of complementary artistic practices such as singing, acting and physical theatre. It has been really organic for me and Max to integrate those aspects in our work and creative practice.
Max, audiences at Breakin’ Convention may know you through your solo work. What changes when you move from creating or performing alone to building something so closely with another artist?
I think that I am much better as part of a creative partnership rather than creating something alone. Indeed even in my solo work I always work with collaborators so I am not alone in the studio. The truth is that not a whole lot of things change in the way I work when creating with another person. The best thing about creating alongside other people is learning from them.
After creating One Without together, what have you discovered about each other as artists that you perhaps didn’t know when you first met?
Having such a like-minded collaborator has made us both better dancers, performers, choreographers and artists. Being able to hold each other accountable in our practices has been invaluable to us both.