SCENE44 / ACTORAL25 I Eve Stainton - The Joystick and The Reins

Eve Stainton
The Joystick and The Reins

dance - performance | United Kingdom I creation 2025
Friche La Belle de Mai
October 3, 2025 9:30 PM
duration: 50 minutes
12€, 8€, 6€ pass actoral
reservations: 
actoral.notre-billetterie.org

Drawing on images of police arrests, riots and reenactments from the show Crime Watch, Eve Stainton seeks to uncover the societal dynamics that keep people considered "dangerous" in a state of vulnerability.

By whom and how are 'threatening' individuals defined as such in our societies? What does the theatrical reconstruction of a crime scene taken from the truth mean? Drawing on images of police arrests, riots and reenactments from the show Crime Watch, Eve Stainton seeks to uncover the societal dynamics that keep people considered "dangerous" in a state of vulnerability. Accompanied by the musical score of Ennio Morricone composed for the horror film The Thing in the 1980s, a solitary figure explores a vast range of emotional states; always in transition, his expressions never fixed. Through a gesture slowed to the extreme, this body becomes the receptacle of the public’s mental projections and can turn into an aggressive and unpredictable football fan as well as a frightened character, stepping back, on the ground. This choreographic practice of distortion reveals the continuum that connects anger and pain while highlighting how society constructs prejudice.

Eve Stainton is an artist and choreographer born in Manchester and living in London. She creates multidisciplinary shows that involve movement, digital collage, drama and suspense. Her work focuses on how marginalized people experience power structures.

generic:
Choreographer and performer: Eve Stainton 
Producer: Michael Kitchin 
Creative producer: Sara Sassanelli 
Lighting designer: Edward Saunders 
Rehearsal director: Temitope Ajose
Director of rehearsals: Maëva Berthelot
Intendance: Henriette Hale 
Playwright: Florence Peake 
Design and creation: Eve Stainton 
Rp: Binita Walia  
production:
Co-commissioned by Bold Tendencies, Dansehallerne (DK), Transform, Possession Performance + Automation and The Place. With the support of Queen Mary University London, Old Diorama Arts Centre, Den Frie Ud stilling (DK), SLUG (DE) and L'Ecart Biennial (CA) and Mind Eater (NO). Supported by public funds from the national lottery via the Arts Council England