I believe I’ve seen the best feel-good film of the year and we’ve not even had the glut of schmaltzy Christmas movies yet, writes Michael Holland.
The Body’s Voice by Hattie Worboys makes you smile, makes you want to hug someone and makes you want to get up and dance, and all it takes to rouse those emotions is 27 minutes of seven young children dancing like no one is watching.
The Body’s Voice is an audio-visual installation that you watch from the centre of a circle formed of six screens as each screen comes alive and seemingly talks and interacts with the others.
First, we see the individual children alone in their bedrooms, apathetic and bored in their own spaces, in their own worlds. We hear their words and read the captions telling us how dancing helps them stop feeling angry, how it helps them feel calm, and how they use dance to feel good about themselves.
Then we see them slowly coming alive as they experiment with movement, letting their bodies talk to their hearts and minds. Next they are outside and running in a circle around their gardens or a familiar space that they feel safe in; faster and faster, from screen to screen, making us, the audience, go round in circles too as we watch them come to life and enjoy being alive.
And then they stop to regain their breath in readiness for the next stage.
Eventually, we see them in another space, still solo but moving to their own sounds in their heads, interpreting their own sounds in their own way – through movement and dance, oblivious to anything else, detached from the outside world and free of all its restrictions and influences.
As the film slowly faded away to white and the lights came up, people were smiling, some like Christians who believe they had just witnessed a miracle, others just happy that they had seen Hattie Worboys’ immersive installation.
The Body’s Voice represents all the aims and objectives of Body Talks Movement, a much bigger project that Worboys co-founded.
Iklectic, 20 Carlisle Lane, Old Paradise Yard, London, SE1 7LG until 17th July. Every half hour from 12:00 – 18:30 (run time 30 minutes) Tues 11th 12:00-17:00 (Private Event from 17:30-20:00) Sat 15th 12:00-20:30 (Friends & Family Event from 16:00 in the Iklectik Courtyard – music, talks, dance (see website for more info).
Admission: £10 adults, £5 children.
Further details of the project and booking: www.bodytalksmovement.com
