available for booking
- Mike Bechtel, Chief Futurist for Deloitte Consulting
Reading the runes and crunching the data, Ways of Knowing delves into the myriad tools we use to forecast, calculate, sense, predict and prophesy the future — from early meteorological devices to corporate trend forecasting and divination.
An intricate collage of set and improvised choreography, found text and live sound, the work unfolds like a mysterious series of visions and omens. Behold! A council of leeches, a mystic hermit, a Victorian inventor, an economics conference, a dark and dripping cave.
Wielding both science and magic, Ways of Knowing asks what is made possible by not knowing, and wonders if prediction is one of the ways that the future is made. It is a cloudy choreography and a descent into darkness, accompanying us as we hurtle headlong into the future.
WINNER of the Untapped Award 2025, from New Diorama, Underbelly and Concord Theatricals.
Created and performed by: Clara Potter-Sweet and Ben Kulvichit
Sound design & dramaturgy: Nat Norland
Set and costume design: Blythe Brett
Lighting design: Ben Kulvichit
Choreographic support: Charlie Ashwell
Outside eye: Karen Christopher
Technical support: Amy Daniels
Skirt co-design and fabrication: Zoë Frost
Photos: Jemima Yong, Michael Aiden
The development of Ways of Knowing was supported by NDT Broadgate, curious directive, BOLD Elephant, Cambridge Junction, University of Greenwich, South House, Battersea Arts Centre and Old Diorama Arts Centre.
> 20 April / Exeter Phoenix
> 18 March 2026 / Cambridge Junction
> 31 July - 24 August 2025 / Underbelly Cowgate, Edinburgh Festival Fringe
> 16-17 July 2025 / New Diorama Theatre, London
> 03 May 2025 / Battersea Arts Centre, London
> 30 November - 02 December 2023 / Camden People's Theatre, London [premiere]
> 01 October 2022 / Emergency Festival at Contact, Manchester [work-in-progress]
RESOURCES
AUDIENCE QUOTES
- Nikhil Vyas, director
"Completely unique. At once, opaque and mysterious, and at the same time, very warm and welcoming."
- Andy Field & Beckie Darlington, artists
'So many striking moments, ideas & images that will stay with me for a long time."
- Júlia Levai, director
- Maddy Costa, writer and critic
"Beauty and fear, rocks, drips, beards, strange dances in raincoats and singing. YES, Emergency Chorus!"
- Rachael Clerke, artist
“Precise, elegant, ridiculous, committed. I don’t see anyone else making work like this in the UK. Understated, unlikely, and so delicious. Bravo!”
- Paul Paschal, artist
Ways of Knowing: two dancesA short film directed by Will Hazell, emerging out of rehearsal material as part of our BOLD Makers residency. A sister piece to Ways of Knowing, featuring early choreographic ideas and restlessly shifting between light & dark, day & night.