What can audiences expect from She walks...

She walks… has been developed with some incredible collaborators. We used a poem I had written as our starting point - Rapper JPDL and I co-wrote the lyrics which are spoken, sung (more on that here) and rapped. Experimental composer Quinta (part of Collectress) wrote the music. Award winning animator, Lou Sumray created hand drawn charcoal images - incredibly she uses 24 drawings per second.

The result is something authentic, beautiful and haunting - the music has a trip hop feel and the animation connects us to nature with its organic aesthetic. The temptation with work about abuse is to tidy it all up and make it more palatable - there’s a raw chaos to She walks... that chimes with the experiences and fragmentation that survivors share - it's untamed and all the more alive for it.

We hope that survivor audiences will connect with the story and see something of themselves in it - the lyrics talk about the experience of dissociation, feeling like our bodies are far away or numbed, as well as the drive to keep going and the belief that something better is possible. We want to share hope but more than that we want to reach out to other survivors and say “What you feel is real, is normal in the context of trauma, there’s nothing wrong with you, you’re miraculous, you don’t need to hide away, your voice matters”

The work is not just for survivors though - it's for everyone - we all have difficult times and right now the pandemic is making life really tough for so many - one of the things we have in common is the ability to connect with nature and find solace and inspiration there - even if it's looking out of the window at the birds or feeling the rain on our faces while we queue for supplies!

Get involved in the #MyLineInTheSand campaign and register yourself as coming to our launch event via our Restless project page here.