Wednesday 21 January 2026

What Am I Doing This For?

Will Dickie

6pm—7pm

Work in Progress

An absurdist montage of psychophysicality, assembled from the movements and sounds of a human being trying to understand.

A lone figure asks ‘what am I doing this for?’ They are moving and making strange sounds. Feelings arise, words and meanings come and go. The figure composes with these elements - pulling words apart, twisting sounds, marvelling at the feelings beneath; despairing at meaning when the meanings get manipulated. 

The levels of propaganda, misinformation, victim blaming, aggression, separation, fear and suspicion we live with are absurd. This lo-fi composition mirrors that absurdity with its own - searching for an understanding that understands we can understand each other by understanding we don't understand each other.

A work that revels in the joys & complexities of our communicative powers and our human-ness, this show is dedicated to that part which lives and breathes and moves in the depths of us all, in ways that can never quite be explained - that part that returns us to the question -  ‘what am I doing this for?’

Credits

Created & performed by WilL Dickie
Dramaturgy & Devising from Kaite O'Reilly
Movement direction by Fabíola Santana
Thanks to Peader Kirk

Presented as part the 2026 Future Flares Festival