Not only a medical symptom but a vast metaphor for disorientation of all kinds, vertigo describes the moment when reliable bearings dissolve and equilibrium becomes unanchored. This sensation—or sense—comes sooner and more readily to some than others; to those whose bodies, identities, or social positions have never been granted the luxury of a steady foundation. For 3hd’s Shifting Ground performance program, Lewis Walker and Johanna Hedva co-headline at HAU Hebbel am Ufer on Friday to explore how inheritance becomes transformation in the search for a solid self on unstable terrain.
Walker’s Bornsick explores inherited illness and identity formation within systems that shape us before we can define ourselves. Through gymnastics and dance, the piece reveals the self as a construct—built from learned movements, imposed roles, and cultural echoes. The queer body navigates tension between conformity and freedom, layering and un-layering itself in search of stability. Conditioning creates a machine; unlearning returns us to the animal. Bornsick confronts the paradox of seeking fixity on a foundation in flux.
For their new theatrical work, Johanna Hedva performs songs from the forthcoming, unreleased album Fist. The piece marks their debut collaboration with opera director George R. Miller, who stages what might be the afterlife—eerie, void-like. White feathers, black goo. A mattress turned upside down. Written on a haunted acoustic guitar that disappeared for ten years and then returned overnight, the songs from Fist conjure “dominatrix blues,” “bog-witch lullabies,” and “succubus folk.” Hedva’s trademark voice, trained in opera and Korean P'ansori, slides between croaks, growls, and ecstatic cries as it slouches toward a cathartic purge. The songs hold doomed lament, dismembered body parts, murderous rage, and, of course, ordinary swampy heartbreak with men on their knees. Desire is ruinous—it has ruined everything.
Credits Bornsick
Choreography and Performance by Lewis Walker
Hypnotherapy and Live Narration by Michele Occelli
Dramaturgy and Rehearsal Direction by Elisabeth Mulenga
Look Engineering by Straytukay
Lighting Design by Laurie Loads
Lighting Programming & Codesign by Edward James Saunders
Graphic Design by Marco Andrea Cacioni
Set Design by David White
Physiotherapist & acupuncturist Atsue Morinaga
R&D Gymnast Louis Alexander
Music by Oliver Coates, “Throb, shiver, arrow of time” and “skins n slime” and Underworld, “Born Slippy” (Nuxx)
Additional Sound Design and Mastering by Harvey Causon
Serpentine, London: Kostas Stasinopoulos, Curator, Live Programmes, Daisy Gould, Assistant Curator, Live Programmes, Isobel Peyton-Jones, Producer, Serpentine and Andy Downie, Velocet EAF, Edinburgh: Kim McAleese, Director, Eleanor Edmondson, Curator
Special thanks to Tuur Van Balen, Melanie Saunders, Salme Naylor, Lizzie Haynes Blackburn, Angela & Hugh Walker, Courtney Deyn, Studio Wayne Mcgregor & Sarah Lewis
The performance will feature some loud sounds, flashing lights, and chalk that produces dust in the air.
