Our worlds presently are saturated with an excess of visual culture. Sometimes it seems that we have little faith left in “not seeing” and take the time to get carried away by our imagination. Based on this necessity, this experience invites the audience for a mental massage, where your senses are spoonfed!

We explore transmitting care through the bodily senses. What are the different aspects of maternal care? How do we communicate caring gently (or roughly) through touch that is shared between the performer and the audience? What are the scents we associate with those that care for and nourish us?

In this performance we engage your senses: touching, smelling and hearing with storytelling, without the use of sight. It offers an experience that is unique and personal to each individual based on their own memories, associations and feelings. When we don’t make assumptions based on visual habits, can any environment transform into a fascinating place of the unknown? Blindfolded yet aware, the environment is populated by one’s own imagination.

When the audience members enter the performance space, they find three tables and chairs. On each table there is a set of blindfolds and headphones. These are each person’s tools on this journey where their imagination will be stimulated and expanded by multi-sensory clues. The performance starts out with the performers making sure the audience is comfortable. It is a vulnerable position to be blindfolded, and it is crucial for us to make an environment where the audience trusts the performers who guide them.

On the headphones, a calm voice describes maternal moments from the animal kingdom. Like in folklore, we encounter motherhood in its various forms in this narrative. Parenting, vulnerability, sacrifice, brutality, miracles, wisdom of nature- all are manifestations of care. In that ecosystem, there is no advice –unlike how it is with us humans. Those mothers just follow their instincts. Yet we find habits and moments that seem to have been a part of our own childhoods.

While the flow of words trickles in your ears, the performers attend to your hands and nose. Pressing firmly, a warm, soft and caring human touch eases you in the imaginary landscapes that are being painted in your head through the narrative. We expand on tactile gestures that are a universal part of mother-children relationships, such as holding hands, inspecting and cleaning and activating your fingers and palms to play. The play continues with a variety of scents, tactile materials and objects. Icy cold and dry, wet and warm; drizzle and rains, caves and volcanoes erupt on your palms. Perception of the known and unknown tickle the mind as you follow stories of motherhood, challenged to feel it by different means. Information accumulates and grows as an anthill. With each new sensation, there are spontaneous associations and emotions, as inside (mental) and outside (physical) space collide.

As young life matures to adulthood and the cycle is established- the narration slowly finishes. You are back in the shared space with your fellow companions and guides. Sight is reinstalled and there are a few moments for reflection. To contemplate on the beauty, tragedy and magic that surrounds us.