Interview: Marikiscrycrycry on depicting horror through dance in Goner
With their performance piece Goner on a worldwide tour, we sit down with performer and choreographer Malik Nashad Sharpe (a.k.a. Marikiscrycrycry)...
By
Adam Wells
April 9, 2024
Touring various art venues and festivals over the next year, Goner offers a unique blend of dance, horror and social exploration. Through psychological, suspense-filled vignettes, the show explores the sensibilities of the horror genre from a marginalised perspective, challenging audiences to question their perceptions of alienation, violence and what makes a ‘monster’.
We sat down with performer and choreographer Malik Nashad Sharpe (a.k.a. Marikiscrycrycry) to discuss the process of creating the performance, and what they hope audiences take away from it…
I found the mention of Jordan Peele as an influence in the press release particularly interesting, since his horror is quite uniquely cinematic - was the inspiration primarily this art form, or did others come into play in the development of the piece?
I am trying to innovate within the choreographic form - Horror is a genre that is typically relegated to film, TV, and literature, and so much of my knowledge of its formal tools comes from those forms. There are some parallels between film, cinema, and the moving image and choreographic practice; I watched countless shows and movies, and I admit these are some of the easier places to source inspiration because they are so visual. Jordan Peele was definitely an inspiration because he invigorated a tradition of horror-making from a marginalised perspective, expanding upon and transforming the socio-political into narrative and cinematic fantasy. I watched a lot of Korean zombie horrors, like the Netflix series All Of Us Are Dead, and #Alive, particularly because the horror in those media is so body-based. But I really looked everywhere. There is no shortage of horror to be found in our everyday lives, right outside of our front doors.
How long did the performance take to develop? The imagery is often very visceral and immediate, so it would be interesting to hear whether this came about fully-formed or was constructed bit-by-bit.
From conceptualisation to production, it took around a year and a bit to make. My process is almost always body-based first, before narrative, story, and even visual dress. And some of those more visceral images are purposefully built to have just enough of the material left open-ended so I can make live choices inside of the work. For example, my choreographic ‘score’ in the ending has tasks that I set for myself which leaves me room to make choices live which is in contrast to Goner’s opening, which is more mathematical, more calculated, and less open-ended. If I don’t count those steps, or if I don’t do the right direction changes, the whole thing falls apart. Most of my work is built like this - it is fun to do both, to leave room for the immediate, but also to rely on material that is more rigid. It is how I work with dynamics.
The title, Goner, suggests a certain level of resignation and acceptance; do you see the figure of the ‘goner’ as one with an inevitable fate, or one that can be avoided?
One of the main purposes of Goner is to give a figure with little agency, the ability to speak, to act. But of course, you are touching on the dilemma of this proposition, and one of the main questions I want to leave with audiences: is it possible to redeem the irredeemable? We live in a culture that is highly addicted to consumption and discarding. We have practised erasing, or getting rid of people who we do not deem as having worth. I am really asking everyone the question, is it inevitable? Or can we avoid this, for another possible future?
Every element of the show coheres so well that it’s almost surprising to look at the programme and see how many different people contributed - how collaborative was the final project?
The whole project was conceived with so much input. Every aspect of the show had many other people looking at it, questioning it and, in turn, affecting everyone’s contributions to it. It is tight because I give my collaborators a lot of creative freedom to shape my work - counterintuitive, but that is the best way. Over the whole project, your collaborators go into the deep with you, and mine are incredible. Many of us have worked together before, so it's also not our first, or last project together. They know the vibes!
The performance features a lot of incredibly striking images which have stuck with me since seeing it; did these images come before the development of the narrative, or did they come up naturally as it came along?
Some came before, some are repetitive images that I have been mining in my practice for years, and some came later. My practice is inevitably very visual, I like to bring audiences through something and to an image that we might know, but have spent much of our lives avoiding looking at.
Many of the work’s inspirations seem to lean heavily into body horror, causing discomfort from the distortion of the human form. Was it a challenge to evoke these same fears in an art form so reliant on the human body?
You may be surprised but not particularly - I have been doing some version of these physical practices for more than twelve years. I can really treat it as formal when doing it live - not many personal emotions are in there.
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Elements of the show seem very self-aware, particularly when the lines between the performance and reality become blurred; could you talk through some of your decision-making for these moments?
Well, at one point in the development of the work, that monologue was actually much more poetic, and maybe more nebulous. I worked closely with Jay Miller, the dramaturg, to try and make this speech more effective, and his ingenious suggestion to me was, why not make this character, this speech, something eerily close to my own life - the horror then becomes more unnerving because some of what I say is so viable, that it blurs things in a helpful way at that point of the show. Is it me, did I do these things, am I a pathological liar, are those people real, do I like pork, am I a choreographer? It unnerves the audience at the right moment to settle this horror journey.
And finally: what do you hope audiences to take from the show?
That our criminal and punitive justice system is archaic - we all have a very active hand in the monsters that society creates. And no matter how hard we try, we won’t be able to erase those who do wrong, or make grave mistakes, from view. Everything we do as human beings is like rehearsal. If we practice a culture of erasure, we will get further and further away from what it is to be human.
Goner by Marrikiscrycrycry is showing at:
Tue 16 Apr 2024 - Cambridge Junction, Clifton Way, Cambridge, UK
Fri 19 Apr 2024 - Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham, UK
Sat 27 Apr 2024 - Live Collision International Festival, Dublin Ireland
Thurs 23 and Fri 24 May - Mayfest, Bristol
Thurs 30 May 2024 - Gender House Queer Arts Festival, Aarhus, Denmark
7 - 8 June 2024 - Audra Festival, Kaunas, Lithuania
Fri 13 - Sat 14 Sep 2024 Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Portland, USA
Thu 19 - Sun 22 Sep 2024 - Abrons Arts Centre, New York City, USA
Sat 28 Sep 2024 - The Place, London, UK
Fri 18 Oct 2024 - Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff, UK
March 2025 - Undisciplined Festival, Brighton, UK
May 2025 - 9 Performance run Venue TBC, London, UK
Touring various art venues and festivals over the next year, Goner offers a unique blend of dance, horror and social exploration. Through psychological, suspense-filled vignettes, the show explores the sensibilities of the horror genre from a marginalised perspective, challenging audiences to question their perceptions of alienation, violence and what makes a ‘monster’.
We sat down with performer and choreographer Malik Nashad Sharpe (a.k.a. Marikiscrycrycry) to discuss the process of creating the performance, and what they hope audiences take away from it…
I found the mention of Jordan Peele as an influence in the press release particularly interesting, since his horror is quite uniquely cinematic - was the inspiration primarily this art form, or did others come into play in the development of the piece?
I am trying to innovate within the choreographic form - Horror is a genre that is typically relegated to film, TV, and literature, and so much of my knowledge of its formal tools comes from those forms. There are some parallels between film, cinema, and the moving image and choreographic practice; I watched countless shows and movies, and I admit these are some of the easier places to source inspiration because they are so visual. Jordan Peele was definitely an inspiration because he invigorated a tradition of horror-making from a marginalised perspective, expanding upon and transforming the socio-political into narrative and cinematic fantasy. I watched a lot of Korean zombie horrors, like the Netflix series All Of Us Are Dead, and #Alive, particularly because the horror in those media is so body-based. But I really looked everywhere. There is no shortage of horror to be found in our everyday lives, right outside of our front doors.
How long did the performance take to develop? The imagery is often very visceral and immediate, so it would be interesting to hear whether this came about fully-formed or was constructed bit-by-bit.
From conceptualisation to production, it took around a year and a bit to make. My process is almost always body-based first, before narrative, story, and even visual dress. And some of those more visceral images are purposefully built to have just enough of the material left open-ended so I can make live choices inside of the work. For example, my choreographic ‘score’ in the ending has tasks that I set for myself which leaves me room to make choices live which is in contrast to Goner’s opening, which is more mathematical, more calculated, and less open-ended. If I don’t count those steps, or if I don’t do the right direction changes, the whole thing falls apart. Most of my work is built like this - it is fun to do both, to leave room for the immediate, but also to rely on material that is more rigid. It is how I work with dynamics.
The title, Goner, suggests a certain level of resignation and acceptance; do you see the figure of the ‘goner’ as one with an inevitable fate, or one that can be avoided?
One of the main purposes of Goner is to give a figure with little agency, the ability to speak, to act. But of course, you are touching on the dilemma of this proposition, and one of the main questions I want to leave with audiences: is it possible to redeem the irredeemable? We live in a culture that is highly addicted to consumption and discarding. We have practised erasing, or getting rid of people who we do not deem as having worth. I am really asking everyone the question, is it inevitable? Or can we avoid this, for another possible future?
Every element of the show coheres so well that it’s almost surprising to look at the programme and see how many different people contributed - how collaborative was the final project?
The whole project was conceived with so much input. Every aspect of the show had many other people looking at it, questioning it and, in turn, affecting everyone’s contributions to it. It is tight because I give my collaborators a lot of creative freedom to shape my work - counterintuitive, but that is the best way. Over the whole project, your collaborators go into the deep with you, and mine are incredible. Many of us have worked together before, so it's also not our first, or last project together. They know the vibes!
The performance features a lot of incredibly striking images which have stuck with me since seeing it; did these images come before the development of the narrative, or did they come up naturally as it came along?
Some came before, some are repetitive images that I have been mining in my practice for years, and some came later. My practice is inevitably very visual, I like to bring audiences through something and to an image that we might know, but have spent much of our lives avoiding looking at.
Many of the work’s inspirations seem to lean heavily into body horror, causing discomfort from the distortion of the human form. Was it a challenge to evoke these same fears in an art form so reliant on the human body?
You may be surprised but not particularly - I have been doing some version of these physical practices for more than twelve years. I can really treat it as formal when doing it live - not many personal emotions are in there.
Elements of the show seem very self-aware, particularly when the lines between the performance and reality become blurred; could you talk through some of your decision-making for these moments?
Well, at one point in the development of the work, that monologue was actually much more poetic, and maybe more nebulous. I worked closely with Jay Miller, the dramaturg, to try and make this speech more effective, and his ingenious suggestion to me was, why not make this character, this speech, something eerily close to my own life - the horror then becomes more unnerving because some of what I say is so viable, that it blurs things in a helpful way at that point of the show. Is it me, did I do these things, am I a pathological liar, are those people real, do I like pork, am I a choreographer? It unnerves the audience at the right moment to settle this horror journey.
And finally: what do you hope audiences to take from the show?
That our criminal and punitive justice system is archaic - we all have a very active hand in the monsters that society creates. And no matter how hard we try, we won’t be able to erase those who do wrong, or make grave mistakes, from view. Everything we do as human beings is like rehearsal. If we practice a culture of erasure, we will get further and further away from what it is to be human.
Goner by Marrikiscrycrycry is showing at:
Tue 16 Apr 2024 - Cambridge Junction, Clifton Way, Cambridge, UK
Fri 19 Apr 2024 - Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham, UK
Sat 27 Apr 2024 - Live Collision International Festival, Dublin Ireland
Thurs 23 and Fri 24 May - Mayfest, Bristol
Thurs 30 May 2024 - Gender House Queer Arts Festival, Aarhus, Denmark
7 - 8 June 2024 - Audra Festival, Kaunas, Lithuania
Fri 13 - Sat 14 Sep 2024 Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Portland, USA
Thu 19 - Sun 22 Sep 2024 - Abrons Arts Centre, New York City, USA
Sat 28 Sep 2024 - The Place, London, UK
Fri 18 Oct 2024 - Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff, UK
March 2025 - Undisciplined Festival, Brighton, UK
May 2025 - 9 Performance run Venue TBC, London, UK
Touring various art venues and festivals over the next year, Goner offers a unique blend of dance, horror and social exploration. Through psychological, suspense-filled vignettes, the show explores the sensibilities of the horror genre from a marginalised perspective, challenging audiences to question their perceptions of alienation, violence and what makes a ‘monster’.
We sat down with performer and choreographer Malik Nashad Sharpe (a.k.a. Marikiscrycrycry) to discuss the process of creating the performance, and what they hope audiences take away from it…
I found the mention of Jordan Peele as an influence in the press release particularly interesting, since his horror is quite uniquely cinematic - was the inspiration primarily this art form, or did others come into play in the development of the piece?
I am trying to innovate within the choreographic form - Horror is a genre that is typically relegated to film, TV, and literature, and so much of my knowledge of its formal tools comes from those forms. There are some parallels between film, cinema, and the moving image and choreographic practice; I watched countless shows and movies, and I admit these are some of the easier places to source inspiration because they are so visual. Jordan Peele was definitely an inspiration because he invigorated a tradition of horror-making from a marginalised perspective, expanding upon and transforming the socio-political into narrative and cinematic fantasy. I watched a lot of Korean zombie horrors, like the Netflix series All Of Us Are Dead, and #Alive, particularly because the horror in those media is so body-based. But I really looked everywhere. There is no shortage of horror to be found in our everyday lives, right outside of our front doors.
How long did the performance take to develop? The imagery is often very visceral and immediate, so it would be interesting to hear whether this came about fully-formed or was constructed bit-by-bit.
From conceptualisation to production, it took around a year and a bit to make. My process is almost always body-based first, before narrative, story, and even visual dress. And some of those more visceral images are purposefully built to have just enough of the material left open-ended so I can make live choices inside of the work. For example, my choreographic ‘score’ in the ending has tasks that I set for myself which leaves me room to make choices live which is in contrast to Goner’s opening, which is more mathematical, more calculated, and less open-ended. If I don’t count those steps, or if I don’t do the right direction changes, the whole thing falls apart. Most of my work is built like this - it is fun to do both, to leave room for the immediate, but also to rely on material that is more rigid. It is how I work with dynamics.
The title, Goner, suggests a certain level of resignation and acceptance; do you see the figure of the ‘goner’ as one with an inevitable fate, or one that can be avoided?
One of the main purposes of Goner is to give a figure with little agency, the ability to speak, to act. But of course, you are touching on the dilemma of this proposition, and one of the main questions I want to leave with audiences: is it possible to redeem the irredeemable? We live in a culture that is highly addicted to consumption and discarding. We have practised erasing, or getting rid of people who we do not deem as having worth. I am really asking everyone the question, is it inevitable? Or can we avoid this, for another possible future?
Every element of the show coheres so well that it’s almost surprising to look at the programme and see how many different people contributed - how collaborative was the final project?
The whole project was conceived with so much input. Every aspect of the show had many other people looking at it, questioning it and, in turn, affecting everyone’s contributions to it. It is tight because I give my collaborators a lot of creative freedom to shape my work - counterintuitive, but that is the best way. Over the whole project, your collaborators go into the deep with you, and mine are incredible. Many of us have worked together before, so it's also not our first, or last project together. They know the vibes!
The performance features a lot of incredibly striking images which have stuck with me since seeing it; did these images come before the development of the narrative, or did they come up naturally as it came along?
Some came before, some are repetitive images that I have been mining in my practice for years, and some came later. My practice is inevitably very visual, I like to bring audiences through something and to an image that we might know, but have spent much of our lives avoiding looking at.
Many of the work’s inspirations seem to lean heavily into body horror, causing discomfort from the distortion of the human form. Was it a challenge to evoke these same fears in an art form so reliant on the human body?
You may be surprised but not particularly - I have been doing some version of these physical practices for more than twelve years. I can really treat it as formal when doing it live - not many personal emotions are in there.
Elements of the show seem very self-aware, particularly when the lines between the performance and reality become blurred; could you talk through some of your decision-making for these moments?
Well, at one point in the development of the work, that monologue was actually much more poetic, and maybe more nebulous. I worked closely with Jay Miller, the dramaturg, to try and make this speech more effective, and his ingenious suggestion to me was, why not make this character, this speech, something eerily close to my own life - the horror then becomes more unnerving because some of what I say is so viable, that it blurs things in a helpful way at that point of the show. Is it me, did I do these things, am I a pathological liar, are those people real, do I like pork, am I a choreographer? It unnerves the audience at the right moment to settle this horror journey.
And finally: what do you hope audiences to take from the show?
That our criminal and punitive justice system is archaic - we all have a very active hand in the monsters that society creates. And no matter how hard we try, we won’t be able to erase those who do wrong, or make grave mistakes, from view. Everything we do as human beings is like rehearsal. If we practice a culture of erasure, we will get further and further away from what it is to be human.
Goner by Marrikiscrycrycry is showing at:
Tue 16 Apr 2024 - Cambridge Junction, Clifton Way, Cambridge, UK
Fri 19 Apr 2024 - Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham, UK
Sat 27 Apr 2024 - Live Collision International Festival, Dublin Ireland
Thurs 23 and Fri 24 May - Mayfest, Bristol
Thurs 30 May 2024 - Gender House Queer Arts Festival, Aarhus, Denmark
7 - 8 June 2024 - Audra Festival, Kaunas, Lithuania
Fri 13 - Sat 14 Sep 2024 Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Portland, USA
Thu 19 - Sun 22 Sep 2024 - Abrons Arts Centre, New York City, USA
Sat 28 Sep 2024 - The Place, London, UK
Fri 18 Oct 2024 - Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff, UK
March 2025 - Undisciplined Festival, Brighton, UK
May 2025 - 9 Performance run Venue TBC, London, UK
Touring various art venues and festivals over the next year, Goner offers a unique blend of dance, horror and social exploration. Through psychological, suspense-filled vignettes, the show explores the sensibilities of the horror genre from a marginalised perspective, challenging audiences to question their perceptions of alienation, violence and what makes a ‘monster’.
We sat down with performer and choreographer Malik Nashad Sharpe (a.k.a. Marikiscrycrycry) to discuss the process of creating the performance, and what they hope audiences take away from it…
I found the mention of Jordan Peele as an influence in the press release particularly interesting, since his horror is quite uniquely cinematic - was the inspiration primarily this art form, or did others come into play in the development of the piece?
I am trying to innovate within the choreographic form - Horror is a genre that is typically relegated to film, TV, and literature, and so much of my knowledge of its formal tools comes from those forms. There are some parallels between film, cinema, and the moving image and choreographic practice; I watched countless shows and movies, and I admit these are some of the easier places to source inspiration because they are so visual. Jordan Peele was definitely an inspiration because he invigorated a tradition of horror-making from a marginalised perspective, expanding upon and transforming the socio-political into narrative and cinematic fantasy. I watched a lot of Korean zombie horrors, like the Netflix series All Of Us Are Dead, and #Alive, particularly because the horror in those media is so body-based. But I really looked everywhere. There is no shortage of horror to be found in our everyday lives, right outside of our front doors.
How long did the performance take to develop? The imagery is often very visceral and immediate, so it would be interesting to hear whether this came about fully-formed or was constructed bit-by-bit.
From conceptualisation to production, it took around a year and a bit to make. My process is almost always body-based first, before narrative, story, and even visual dress. And some of those more visceral images are purposefully built to have just enough of the material left open-ended so I can make live choices inside of the work. For example, my choreographic ‘score’ in the ending has tasks that I set for myself which leaves me room to make choices live which is in contrast to Goner’s opening, which is more mathematical, more calculated, and less open-ended. If I don’t count those steps, or if I don’t do the right direction changes, the whole thing falls apart. Most of my work is built like this - it is fun to do both, to leave room for the immediate, but also to rely on material that is more rigid. It is how I work with dynamics.
The title, Goner, suggests a certain level of resignation and acceptance; do you see the figure of the ‘goner’ as one with an inevitable fate, or one that can be avoided?
One of the main purposes of Goner is to give a figure with little agency, the ability to speak, to act. But of course, you are touching on the dilemma of this proposition, and one of the main questions I want to leave with audiences: is it possible to redeem the irredeemable? We live in a culture that is highly addicted to consumption and discarding. We have practised erasing, or getting rid of people who we do not deem as having worth. I am really asking everyone the question, is it inevitable? Or can we avoid this, for another possible future?
Every element of the show coheres so well that it’s almost surprising to look at the programme and see how many different people contributed - how collaborative was the final project?
The whole project was conceived with so much input. Every aspect of the show had many other people looking at it, questioning it and, in turn, affecting everyone’s contributions to it. It is tight because I give my collaborators a lot of creative freedom to shape my work - counterintuitive, but that is the best way. Over the whole project, your collaborators go into the deep with you, and mine are incredible. Many of us have worked together before, so it's also not our first, or last project together. They know the vibes!
The performance features a lot of incredibly striking images which have stuck with me since seeing it; did these images come before the development of the narrative, or did they come up naturally as it came along?
Some came before, some are repetitive images that I have been mining in my practice for years, and some came later. My practice is inevitably very visual, I like to bring audiences through something and to an image that we might know, but have spent much of our lives avoiding looking at.
Many of the work’s inspirations seem to lean heavily into body horror, causing discomfort from the distortion of the human form. Was it a challenge to evoke these same fears in an art form so reliant on the human body?
You may be surprised but not particularly - I have been doing some version of these physical practices for more than twelve years. I can really treat it as formal when doing it live - not many personal emotions are in there.
Elements of the show seem very self-aware, particularly when the lines between the performance and reality become blurred; could you talk through some of your decision-making for these moments?
Well, at one point in the development of the work, that monologue was actually much more poetic, and maybe more nebulous. I worked closely with Jay Miller, the dramaturg, to try and make this speech more effective, and his ingenious suggestion to me was, why not make this character, this speech, something eerily close to my own life - the horror then becomes more unnerving because some of what I say is so viable, that it blurs things in a helpful way at that point of the show. Is it me, did I do these things, am I a pathological liar, are those people real, do I like pork, am I a choreographer? It unnerves the audience at the right moment to settle this horror journey.
And finally: what do you hope audiences to take from the show?
That our criminal and punitive justice system is archaic - we all have a very active hand in the monsters that society creates. And no matter how hard we try, we won’t be able to erase those who do wrong, or make grave mistakes, from view. Everything we do as human beings is like rehearsal. If we practice a culture of erasure, we will get further and further away from what it is to be human.
Goner by Marrikiscrycrycry is showing at:
Tue 16 Apr 2024 - Cambridge Junction, Clifton Way, Cambridge, UK
Fri 19 Apr 2024 - Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham, UK
Sat 27 Apr 2024 - Live Collision International Festival, Dublin Ireland
Thurs 23 and Fri 24 May - Mayfest, Bristol
Thurs 30 May 2024 - Gender House Queer Arts Festival, Aarhus, Denmark
7 - 8 June 2024 - Audra Festival, Kaunas, Lithuania
Fri 13 - Sat 14 Sep 2024 Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Portland, USA
Thu 19 - Sun 22 Sep 2024 - Abrons Arts Centre, New York City, USA
Sat 28 Sep 2024 - The Place, London, UK
Fri 18 Oct 2024 - Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff, UK
March 2025 - Undisciplined Festival, Brighton, UK
May 2025 - 9 Performance run Venue TBC, London, UK
Touring various art venues and festivals over the next year, Goner offers a unique blend of dance, horror and social exploration. Through psychological, suspense-filled vignettes, the show explores the sensibilities of the horror genre from a marginalised perspective, challenging audiences to question their perceptions of alienation, violence and what makes a ‘monster’.
We sat down with performer and choreographer Malik Nashad Sharpe (a.k.a. Marikiscrycrycry) to discuss the process of creating the performance, and what they hope audiences take away from it…
I found the mention of Jordan Peele as an influence in the press release particularly interesting, since his horror is quite uniquely cinematic - was the inspiration primarily this art form, or did others come into play in the development of the piece?
I am trying to innovate within the choreographic form - Horror is a genre that is typically relegated to film, TV, and literature, and so much of my knowledge of its formal tools comes from those forms. There are some parallels between film, cinema, and the moving image and choreographic practice; I watched countless shows and movies, and I admit these are some of the easier places to source inspiration because they are so visual. Jordan Peele was definitely an inspiration because he invigorated a tradition of horror-making from a marginalised perspective, expanding upon and transforming the socio-political into narrative and cinematic fantasy. I watched a lot of Korean zombie horrors, like the Netflix series All Of Us Are Dead, and #Alive, particularly because the horror in those media is so body-based. But I really looked everywhere. There is no shortage of horror to be found in our everyday lives, right outside of our front doors.
How long did the performance take to develop? The imagery is often very visceral and immediate, so it would be interesting to hear whether this came about fully-formed or was constructed bit-by-bit.
From conceptualisation to production, it took around a year and a bit to make. My process is almost always body-based first, before narrative, story, and even visual dress. And some of those more visceral images are purposefully built to have just enough of the material left open-ended so I can make live choices inside of the work. For example, my choreographic ‘score’ in the ending has tasks that I set for myself which leaves me room to make choices live which is in contrast to Goner’s opening, which is more mathematical, more calculated, and less open-ended. If I don’t count those steps, or if I don’t do the right direction changes, the whole thing falls apart. Most of my work is built like this - it is fun to do both, to leave room for the immediate, but also to rely on material that is more rigid. It is how I work with dynamics.
The title, Goner, suggests a certain level of resignation and acceptance; do you see the figure of the ‘goner’ as one with an inevitable fate, or one that can be avoided?
One of the main purposes of Goner is to give a figure with little agency, the ability to speak, to act. But of course, you are touching on the dilemma of this proposition, and one of the main questions I want to leave with audiences: is it possible to redeem the irredeemable? We live in a culture that is highly addicted to consumption and discarding. We have practised erasing, or getting rid of people who we do not deem as having worth. I am really asking everyone the question, is it inevitable? Or can we avoid this, for another possible future?
Every element of the show coheres so well that it’s almost surprising to look at the programme and see how many different people contributed - how collaborative was the final project?
The whole project was conceived with so much input. Every aspect of the show had many other people looking at it, questioning it and, in turn, affecting everyone’s contributions to it. It is tight because I give my collaborators a lot of creative freedom to shape my work - counterintuitive, but that is the best way. Over the whole project, your collaborators go into the deep with you, and mine are incredible. Many of us have worked together before, so it's also not our first, or last project together. They know the vibes!
The performance features a lot of incredibly striking images which have stuck with me since seeing it; did these images come before the development of the narrative, or did they come up naturally as it came along?
Some came before, some are repetitive images that I have been mining in my practice for years, and some came later. My practice is inevitably very visual, I like to bring audiences through something and to an image that we might know, but have spent much of our lives avoiding looking at.
Many of the work’s inspirations seem to lean heavily into body horror, causing discomfort from the distortion of the human form. Was it a challenge to evoke these same fears in an art form so reliant on the human body?
You may be surprised but not particularly - I have been doing some version of these physical practices for more than twelve years. I can really treat it as formal when doing it live - not many personal emotions are in there.
Elements of the show seem very self-aware, particularly when the lines between the performance and reality become blurred; could you talk through some of your decision-making for these moments?
Well, at one point in the development of the work, that monologue was actually much more poetic, and maybe more nebulous. I worked closely with Jay Miller, the dramaturg, to try and make this speech more effective, and his ingenious suggestion to me was, why not make this character, this speech, something eerily close to my own life - the horror then becomes more unnerving because some of what I say is so viable, that it blurs things in a helpful way at that point of the show. Is it me, did I do these things, am I a pathological liar, are those people real, do I like pork, am I a choreographer? It unnerves the audience at the right moment to settle this horror journey.
And finally: what do you hope audiences to take from the show?
That our criminal and punitive justice system is archaic - we all have a very active hand in the monsters that society creates. And no matter how hard we try, we won’t be able to erase those who do wrong, or make grave mistakes, from view. Everything we do as human beings is like rehearsal. If we practice a culture of erasure, we will get further and further away from what it is to be human.
Goner by Marrikiscrycrycry is showing at:
Tue 16 Apr 2024 - Cambridge Junction, Clifton Way, Cambridge, UK
Fri 19 Apr 2024 - Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham, UK
Sat 27 Apr 2024 - Live Collision International Festival, Dublin Ireland
Thurs 23 and Fri 24 May - Mayfest, Bristol
Thurs 30 May 2024 - Gender House Queer Arts Festival, Aarhus, Denmark
7 - 8 June 2024 - Audra Festival, Kaunas, Lithuania
Fri 13 - Sat 14 Sep 2024 Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Portland, USA
Thu 19 - Sun 22 Sep 2024 - Abrons Arts Centre, New York City, USA
Sat 28 Sep 2024 - The Place, London, UK
Fri 18 Oct 2024 - Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff, UK
March 2025 - Undisciplined Festival, Brighton, UK
May 2025 - 9 Performance run Venue TBC, London, UK
Touring various art venues and festivals over the next year, Goner offers a unique blend of dance, horror and social exploration. Through psychological, suspense-filled vignettes, the show explores the sensibilities of the horror genre from a marginalised perspective, challenging audiences to question their perceptions of alienation, violence and what makes a ‘monster’.
We sat down with performer and choreographer Malik Nashad Sharpe (a.k.a. Marikiscrycrycry) to discuss the process of creating the performance, and what they hope audiences take away from it…
I found the mention of Jordan Peele as an influence in the press release particularly interesting, since his horror is quite uniquely cinematic - was the inspiration primarily this art form, or did others come into play in the development of the piece?
I am trying to innovate within the choreographic form - Horror is a genre that is typically relegated to film, TV, and literature, and so much of my knowledge of its formal tools comes from those forms. There are some parallels between film, cinema, and the moving image and choreographic practice; I watched countless shows and movies, and I admit these are some of the easier places to source inspiration because they are so visual. Jordan Peele was definitely an inspiration because he invigorated a tradition of horror-making from a marginalised perspective, expanding upon and transforming the socio-political into narrative and cinematic fantasy. I watched a lot of Korean zombie horrors, like the Netflix series All Of Us Are Dead, and #Alive, particularly because the horror in those media is so body-based. But I really looked everywhere. There is no shortage of horror to be found in our everyday lives, right outside of our front doors.
How long did the performance take to develop? The imagery is often very visceral and immediate, so it would be interesting to hear whether this came about fully-formed or was constructed bit-by-bit.
From conceptualisation to production, it took around a year and a bit to make. My process is almost always body-based first, before narrative, story, and even visual dress. And some of those more visceral images are purposefully built to have just enough of the material left open-ended so I can make live choices inside of the work. For example, my choreographic ‘score’ in the ending has tasks that I set for myself which leaves me room to make choices live which is in contrast to Goner’s opening, which is more mathematical, more calculated, and less open-ended. If I don’t count those steps, or if I don’t do the right direction changes, the whole thing falls apart. Most of my work is built like this - it is fun to do both, to leave room for the immediate, but also to rely on material that is more rigid. It is how I work with dynamics.
The title, Goner, suggests a certain level of resignation and acceptance; do you see the figure of the ‘goner’ as one with an inevitable fate, or one that can be avoided?
One of the main purposes of Goner is to give a figure with little agency, the ability to speak, to act. But of course, you are touching on the dilemma of this proposition, and one of the main questions I want to leave with audiences: is it possible to redeem the irredeemable? We live in a culture that is highly addicted to consumption and discarding. We have practised erasing, or getting rid of people who we do not deem as having worth. I am really asking everyone the question, is it inevitable? Or can we avoid this, for another possible future?
Every element of the show coheres so well that it’s almost surprising to look at the programme and see how many different people contributed - how collaborative was the final project?
The whole project was conceived with so much input. Every aspect of the show had many other people looking at it, questioning it and, in turn, affecting everyone’s contributions to it. It is tight because I give my collaborators a lot of creative freedom to shape my work - counterintuitive, but that is the best way. Over the whole project, your collaborators go into the deep with you, and mine are incredible. Many of us have worked together before, so it's also not our first, or last project together. They know the vibes!
The performance features a lot of incredibly striking images which have stuck with me since seeing it; did these images come before the development of the narrative, or did they come up naturally as it came along?
Some came before, some are repetitive images that I have been mining in my practice for years, and some came later. My practice is inevitably very visual, I like to bring audiences through something and to an image that we might know, but have spent much of our lives avoiding looking at.
Many of the work’s inspirations seem to lean heavily into body horror, causing discomfort from the distortion of the human form. Was it a challenge to evoke these same fears in an art form so reliant on the human body?
You may be surprised but not particularly - I have been doing some version of these physical practices for more than twelve years. I can really treat it as formal when doing it live - not many personal emotions are in there.
Elements of the show seem very self-aware, particularly when the lines between the performance and reality become blurred; could you talk through some of your decision-making for these moments?
Well, at one point in the development of the work, that monologue was actually much more poetic, and maybe more nebulous. I worked closely with Jay Miller, the dramaturg, to try and make this speech more effective, and his ingenious suggestion to me was, why not make this character, this speech, something eerily close to my own life - the horror then becomes more unnerving because some of what I say is so viable, that it blurs things in a helpful way at that point of the show. Is it me, did I do these things, am I a pathological liar, are those people real, do I like pork, am I a choreographer? It unnerves the audience at the right moment to settle this horror journey.
And finally: what do you hope audiences to take from the show?
That our criminal and punitive justice system is archaic - we all have a very active hand in the monsters that society creates. And no matter how hard we try, we won’t be able to erase those who do wrong, or make grave mistakes, from view. Everything we do as human beings is like rehearsal. If we practice a culture of erasure, we will get further and further away from what it is to be human.
Goner by Marrikiscrycrycry is showing at:
Tue 16 Apr 2024 - Cambridge Junction, Clifton Way, Cambridge, UK
Fri 19 Apr 2024 - Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham, UK
Sat 27 Apr 2024 - Live Collision International Festival, Dublin Ireland
Thurs 23 and Fri 24 May - Mayfest, Bristol
Thurs 30 May 2024 - Gender House Queer Arts Festival, Aarhus, Denmark
7 - 8 June 2024 - Audra Festival, Kaunas, Lithuania
Fri 13 - Sat 14 Sep 2024 Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Portland, USA
Thu 19 - Sun 22 Sep 2024 - Abrons Arts Centre, New York City, USA
Sat 28 Sep 2024 - The Place, London, UK
Fri 18 Oct 2024 - Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff, UK
March 2025 - Undisciplined Festival, Brighton, UK
May 2025 - 9 Performance run Venue TBC, London, UK
Touring various art venues and festivals over the next year, Goner offers a unique blend of dance, horror and social exploration. Through psychological, suspense-filled vignettes, the show explores the sensibilities of the horror genre from a marginalised perspective, challenging audiences to question their perceptions of alienation, violence and what makes a ‘monster’.
We sat down with performer and choreographer Malik Nashad Sharpe (a.k.a. Marikiscrycrycry) to discuss the process of creating the performance, and what they hope audiences take away from it…
I found the mention of Jordan Peele as an influence in the press release particularly interesting, since his horror is quite uniquely cinematic - was the inspiration primarily this art form, or did others come into play in the development of the piece?
I am trying to innovate within the choreographic form - Horror is a genre that is typically relegated to film, TV, and literature, and so much of my knowledge of its formal tools comes from those forms. There are some parallels between film, cinema, and the moving image and choreographic practice; I watched countless shows and movies, and I admit these are some of the easier places to source inspiration because they are so visual. Jordan Peele was definitely an inspiration because he invigorated a tradition of horror-making from a marginalised perspective, expanding upon and transforming the socio-political into narrative and cinematic fantasy. I watched a lot of Korean zombie horrors, like the Netflix series All Of Us Are Dead, and #Alive, particularly because the horror in those media is so body-based. But I really looked everywhere. There is no shortage of horror to be found in our everyday lives, right outside of our front doors.
How long did the performance take to develop? The imagery is often very visceral and immediate, so it would be interesting to hear whether this came about fully-formed or was constructed bit-by-bit.
From conceptualisation to production, it took around a year and a bit to make. My process is almost always body-based first, before narrative, story, and even visual dress. And some of those more visceral images are purposefully built to have just enough of the material left open-ended so I can make live choices inside of the work. For example, my choreographic ‘score’ in the ending has tasks that I set for myself which leaves me room to make choices live which is in contrast to Goner’s opening, which is more mathematical, more calculated, and less open-ended. If I don’t count those steps, or if I don’t do the right direction changes, the whole thing falls apart. Most of my work is built like this - it is fun to do both, to leave room for the immediate, but also to rely on material that is more rigid. It is how I work with dynamics.
The title, Goner, suggests a certain level of resignation and acceptance; do you see the figure of the ‘goner’ as one with an inevitable fate, or one that can be avoided?
One of the main purposes of Goner is to give a figure with little agency, the ability to speak, to act. But of course, you are touching on the dilemma of this proposition, and one of the main questions I want to leave with audiences: is it possible to redeem the irredeemable? We live in a culture that is highly addicted to consumption and discarding. We have practised erasing, or getting rid of people who we do not deem as having worth. I am really asking everyone the question, is it inevitable? Or can we avoid this, for another possible future?
Every element of the show coheres so well that it’s almost surprising to look at the programme and see how many different people contributed - how collaborative was the final project?
The whole project was conceived with so much input. Every aspect of the show had many other people looking at it, questioning it and, in turn, affecting everyone’s contributions to it. It is tight because I give my collaborators a lot of creative freedom to shape my work - counterintuitive, but that is the best way. Over the whole project, your collaborators go into the deep with you, and mine are incredible. Many of us have worked together before, so it's also not our first, or last project together. They know the vibes!
The performance features a lot of incredibly striking images which have stuck with me since seeing it; did these images come before the development of the narrative, or did they come up naturally as it came along?
Some came before, some are repetitive images that I have been mining in my practice for years, and some came later. My practice is inevitably very visual, I like to bring audiences through something and to an image that we might know, but have spent much of our lives avoiding looking at.
Many of the work’s inspirations seem to lean heavily into body horror, causing discomfort from the distortion of the human form. Was it a challenge to evoke these same fears in an art form so reliant on the human body?
You may be surprised but not particularly - I have been doing some version of these physical practices for more than twelve years. I can really treat it as formal when doing it live - not many personal emotions are in there.
Elements of the show seem very self-aware, particularly when the lines between the performance and reality become blurred; could you talk through some of your decision-making for these moments?
Well, at one point in the development of the work, that monologue was actually much more poetic, and maybe more nebulous. I worked closely with Jay Miller, the dramaturg, to try and make this speech more effective, and his ingenious suggestion to me was, why not make this character, this speech, something eerily close to my own life - the horror then becomes more unnerving because some of what I say is so viable, that it blurs things in a helpful way at that point of the show. Is it me, did I do these things, am I a pathological liar, are those people real, do I like pork, am I a choreographer? It unnerves the audience at the right moment to settle this horror journey.
And finally: what do you hope audiences to take from the show?
That our criminal and punitive justice system is archaic - we all have a very active hand in the monsters that society creates. And no matter how hard we try, we won’t be able to erase those who do wrong, or make grave mistakes, from view. Everything we do as human beings is like rehearsal. If we practice a culture of erasure, we will get further and further away from what it is to be human.
Goner by Marrikiscrycrycry is showing at:
Tue 16 Apr 2024 - Cambridge Junction, Clifton Way, Cambridge, UK
Fri 19 Apr 2024 - Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham, UK
Sat 27 Apr 2024 - Live Collision International Festival, Dublin Ireland
Thurs 23 and Fri 24 May - Mayfest, Bristol
Thurs 30 May 2024 - Gender House Queer Arts Festival, Aarhus, Denmark
7 - 8 June 2024 - Audra Festival, Kaunas, Lithuania
Fri 13 - Sat 14 Sep 2024 Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Portland, USA
Thu 19 - Sun 22 Sep 2024 - Abrons Arts Centre, New York City, USA
Sat 28 Sep 2024 - The Place, London, UK
Fri 18 Oct 2024 - Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff, UK
March 2025 - Undisciplined Festival, Brighton, UK
May 2025 - 9 Performance run Venue TBC, London, UK
Touring various art venues and festivals over the next year, Goner offers a unique blend of dance, horror and social exploration. Through psychological, suspense-filled vignettes, the show explores the sensibilities of the horror genre from a marginalised perspective, challenging audiences to question their perceptions of alienation, violence and what makes a ‘monster’.
We sat down with performer and choreographer Malik Nashad Sharpe (a.k.a. Marikiscrycrycry) to discuss the process of creating the performance, and what they hope audiences take away from it…
I found the mention of Jordan Peele as an influence in the press release particularly interesting, since his horror is quite uniquely cinematic - was the inspiration primarily this art form, or did others come into play in the development of the piece?
I am trying to innovate within the choreographic form - Horror is a genre that is typically relegated to film, TV, and literature, and so much of my knowledge of its formal tools comes from those forms. There are some parallels between film, cinema, and the moving image and choreographic practice; I watched countless shows and movies, and I admit these are some of the easier places to source inspiration because they are so visual. Jordan Peele was definitely an inspiration because he invigorated a tradition of horror-making from a marginalised perspective, expanding upon and transforming the socio-political into narrative and cinematic fantasy. I watched a lot of Korean zombie horrors, like the Netflix series All Of Us Are Dead, and #Alive, particularly because the horror in those media is so body-based. But I really looked everywhere. There is no shortage of horror to be found in our everyday lives, right outside of our front doors.
How long did the performance take to develop? The imagery is often very visceral and immediate, so it would be interesting to hear whether this came about fully-formed or was constructed bit-by-bit.
From conceptualisation to production, it took around a year and a bit to make. My process is almost always body-based first, before narrative, story, and even visual dress. And some of those more visceral images are purposefully built to have just enough of the material left open-ended so I can make live choices inside of the work. For example, my choreographic ‘score’ in the ending has tasks that I set for myself which leaves me room to make choices live which is in contrast to Goner’s opening, which is more mathematical, more calculated, and less open-ended. If I don’t count those steps, or if I don’t do the right direction changes, the whole thing falls apart. Most of my work is built like this - it is fun to do both, to leave room for the immediate, but also to rely on material that is more rigid. It is how I work with dynamics.
The title, Goner, suggests a certain level of resignation and acceptance; do you see the figure of the ‘goner’ as one with an inevitable fate, or one that can be avoided?
One of the main purposes of Goner is to give a figure with little agency, the ability to speak, to act. But of course, you are touching on the dilemma of this proposition, and one of the main questions I want to leave with audiences: is it possible to redeem the irredeemable? We live in a culture that is highly addicted to consumption and discarding. We have practised erasing, or getting rid of people who we do not deem as having worth. I am really asking everyone the question, is it inevitable? Or can we avoid this, for another possible future?
Every element of the show coheres so well that it’s almost surprising to look at the programme and see how many different people contributed - how collaborative was the final project?
The whole project was conceived with so much input. Every aspect of the show had many other people looking at it, questioning it and, in turn, affecting everyone’s contributions to it. It is tight because I give my collaborators a lot of creative freedom to shape my work - counterintuitive, but that is the best way. Over the whole project, your collaborators go into the deep with you, and mine are incredible. Many of us have worked together before, so it's also not our first, or last project together. They know the vibes!
The performance features a lot of incredibly striking images which have stuck with me since seeing it; did these images come before the development of the narrative, or did they come up naturally as it came along?
Some came before, some are repetitive images that I have been mining in my practice for years, and some came later. My practice is inevitably very visual, I like to bring audiences through something and to an image that we might know, but have spent much of our lives avoiding looking at.
Many of the work’s inspirations seem to lean heavily into body horror, causing discomfort from the distortion of the human form. Was it a challenge to evoke these same fears in an art form so reliant on the human body?
You may be surprised but not particularly - I have been doing some version of these physical practices for more than twelve years. I can really treat it as formal when doing it live - not many personal emotions are in there.
Elements of the show seem very self-aware, particularly when the lines between the performance and reality become blurred; could you talk through some of your decision-making for these moments?
Well, at one point in the development of the work, that monologue was actually much more poetic, and maybe more nebulous. I worked closely with Jay Miller, the dramaturg, to try and make this speech more effective, and his ingenious suggestion to me was, why not make this character, this speech, something eerily close to my own life - the horror then becomes more unnerving because some of what I say is so viable, that it blurs things in a helpful way at that point of the show. Is it me, did I do these things, am I a pathological liar, are those people real, do I like pork, am I a choreographer? It unnerves the audience at the right moment to settle this horror journey.
And finally: what do you hope audiences to take from the show?
That our criminal and punitive justice system is archaic - we all have a very active hand in the monsters that society creates. And no matter how hard we try, we won’t be able to erase those who do wrong, or make grave mistakes, from view. Everything we do as human beings is like rehearsal. If we practice a culture of erasure, we will get further and further away from what it is to be human.
Goner by Marrikiscrycrycry is showing at:
Tue 16 Apr 2024 - Cambridge Junction, Clifton Way, Cambridge, UK
Fri 19 Apr 2024 - Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham, UK
Sat 27 Apr 2024 - Live Collision International Festival, Dublin Ireland
Thurs 23 and Fri 24 May - Mayfest, Bristol
Thurs 30 May 2024 - Gender House Queer Arts Festival, Aarhus, Denmark
7 - 8 June 2024 - Audra Festival, Kaunas, Lithuania
Fri 13 - Sat 14 Sep 2024 Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Portland, USA
Thu 19 - Sun 22 Sep 2024 - Abrons Arts Centre, New York City, USA
Sat 28 Sep 2024 - The Place, London, UK
Fri 18 Oct 2024 - Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff, UK
March 2025 - Undisciplined Festival, Brighton, UK
May 2025 - 9 Performance run Venue TBC, London, UK
Touring various art venues and festivals over the next year, Goner offers a unique blend of dance, horror and social exploration. Through psychological, suspense-filled vignettes, the show explores the sensibilities of the horror genre from a marginalised perspective, challenging audiences to question their perceptions of alienation, violence and what makes a ‘monster’.
We sat down with performer and choreographer Malik Nashad Sharpe (a.k.a. Marikiscrycrycry) to discuss the process of creating the performance, and what they hope audiences take away from it…
I found the mention of Jordan Peele as an influence in the press release particularly interesting, since his horror is quite uniquely cinematic - was the inspiration primarily this art form, or did others come into play in the development of the piece?
I am trying to innovate within the choreographic form - Horror is a genre that is typically relegated to film, TV, and literature, and so much of my knowledge of its formal tools comes from those forms. There are some parallels between film, cinema, and the moving image and choreographic practice; I watched countless shows and movies, and I admit these are some of the easier places to source inspiration because they are so visual. Jordan Peele was definitely an inspiration because he invigorated a tradition of horror-making from a marginalised perspective, expanding upon and transforming the socio-political into narrative and cinematic fantasy. I watched a lot of Korean zombie horrors, like the Netflix series All Of Us Are Dead, and #Alive, particularly because the horror in those media is so body-based. But I really looked everywhere. There is no shortage of horror to be found in our everyday lives, right outside of our front doors.
How long did the performance take to develop? The imagery is often very visceral and immediate, so it would be interesting to hear whether this came about fully-formed or was constructed bit-by-bit.
From conceptualisation to production, it took around a year and a bit to make. My process is almost always body-based first, before narrative, story, and even visual dress. And some of those more visceral images are purposefully built to have just enough of the material left open-ended so I can make live choices inside of the work. For example, my choreographic ‘score’ in the ending has tasks that I set for myself which leaves me room to make choices live which is in contrast to Goner’s opening, which is more mathematical, more calculated, and less open-ended. If I don’t count those steps, or if I don’t do the right direction changes, the whole thing falls apart. Most of my work is built like this - it is fun to do both, to leave room for the immediate, but also to rely on material that is more rigid. It is how I work with dynamics.
The title, Goner, suggests a certain level of resignation and acceptance; do you see the figure of the ‘goner’ as one with an inevitable fate, or one that can be avoided?
One of the main purposes of Goner is to give a figure with little agency, the ability to speak, to act. But of course, you are touching on the dilemma of this proposition, and one of the main questions I want to leave with audiences: is it possible to redeem the irredeemable? We live in a culture that is highly addicted to consumption and discarding. We have practised erasing, or getting rid of people who we do not deem as having worth. I am really asking everyone the question, is it inevitable? Or can we avoid this, for another possible future?
Every element of the show coheres so well that it’s almost surprising to look at the programme and see how many different people contributed - how collaborative was the final project?
The whole project was conceived with so much input. Every aspect of the show had many other people looking at it, questioning it and, in turn, affecting everyone’s contributions to it. It is tight because I give my collaborators a lot of creative freedom to shape my work - counterintuitive, but that is the best way. Over the whole project, your collaborators go into the deep with you, and mine are incredible. Many of us have worked together before, so it's also not our first, or last project together. They know the vibes!
The performance features a lot of incredibly striking images which have stuck with me since seeing it; did these images come before the development of the narrative, or did they come up naturally as it came along?
Some came before, some are repetitive images that I have been mining in my practice for years, and some came later. My practice is inevitably very visual, I like to bring audiences through something and to an image that we might know, but have spent much of our lives avoiding looking at.
Many of the work’s inspirations seem to lean heavily into body horror, causing discomfort from the distortion of the human form. Was it a challenge to evoke these same fears in an art form so reliant on the human body?
You may be surprised but not particularly - I have been doing some version of these physical practices for more than twelve years. I can really treat it as formal when doing it live - not many personal emotions are in there.
Elements of the show seem very self-aware, particularly when the lines between the performance and reality become blurred; could you talk through some of your decision-making for these moments?
Well, at one point in the development of the work, that monologue was actually much more poetic, and maybe more nebulous. I worked closely with Jay Miller, the dramaturg, to try and make this speech more effective, and his ingenious suggestion to me was, why not make this character, this speech, something eerily close to my own life - the horror then becomes more unnerving because some of what I say is so viable, that it blurs things in a helpful way at that point of the show. Is it me, did I do these things, am I a pathological liar, are those people real, do I like pork, am I a choreographer? It unnerves the audience at the right moment to settle this horror journey.
And finally: what do you hope audiences to take from the show?
That our criminal and punitive justice system is archaic - we all have a very active hand in the monsters that society creates. And no matter how hard we try, we won’t be able to erase those who do wrong, or make grave mistakes, from view. Everything we do as human beings is like rehearsal. If we practice a culture of erasure, we will get further and further away from what it is to be human.
Goner by Marrikiscrycrycry is showing at:
Tue 16 Apr 2024 - Cambridge Junction, Clifton Way, Cambridge, UK
Fri 19 Apr 2024 - Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham, UK
Sat 27 Apr 2024 - Live Collision International Festival, Dublin Ireland
Thurs 23 and Fri 24 May - Mayfest, Bristol
Thurs 30 May 2024 - Gender House Queer Arts Festival, Aarhus, Denmark
7 - 8 June 2024 - Audra Festival, Kaunas, Lithuania
Fri 13 - Sat 14 Sep 2024 Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Portland, USA
Thu 19 - Sun 22 Sep 2024 - Abrons Arts Centre, New York City, USA
Sat 28 Sep 2024 - The Place, London, UK
Fri 18 Oct 2024 - Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff, UK
March 2025 - Undisciplined Festival, Brighton, UK
May 2025 - 9 Performance run Venue TBC, London, UK
Touring various art venues and festivals over the next year, Goner offers a unique blend of dance, horror and social exploration. Through psychological, suspense-filled vignettes, the show explores the sensibilities of the horror genre from a marginalised perspective, challenging audiences to question their perceptions of alienation, violence and what makes a ‘monster’.
We sat down with performer and choreographer Malik Nashad Sharpe (a.k.a. Marikiscrycrycry) to discuss the process of creating the performance, and what they hope audiences take away from it…
I found the mention of Jordan Peele as an influence in the press release particularly interesting, since his horror is quite uniquely cinematic - was the inspiration primarily this art form, or did others come into play in the development of the piece?
I am trying to innovate within the choreographic form - Horror is a genre that is typically relegated to film, TV, and literature, and so much of my knowledge of its formal tools comes from those forms. There are some parallels between film, cinema, and the moving image and choreographic practice; I watched countless shows and movies, and I admit these are some of the easier places to source inspiration because they are so visual. Jordan Peele was definitely an inspiration because he invigorated a tradition of horror-making from a marginalised perspective, expanding upon and transforming the socio-political into narrative and cinematic fantasy. I watched a lot of Korean zombie horrors, like the Netflix series All Of Us Are Dead, and #Alive, particularly because the horror in those media is so body-based. But I really looked everywhere. There is no shortage of horror to be found in our everyday lives, right outside of our front doors.
How long did the performance take to develop? The imagery is often very visceral and immediate, so it would be interesting to hear whether this came about fully-formed or was constructed bit-by-bit.
From conceptualisation to production, it took around a year and a bit to make. My process is almost always body-based first, before narrative, story, and even visual dress. And some of those more visceral images are purposefully built to have just enough of the material left open-ended so I can make live choices inside of the work. For example, my choreographic ‘score’ in the ending has tasks that I set for myself which leaves me room to make choices live which is in contrast to Goner’s opening, which is more mathematical, more calculated, and less open-ended. If I don’t count those steps, or if I don’t do the right direction changes, the whole thing falls apart. Most of my work is built like this - it is fun to do both, to leave room for the immediate, but also to rely on material that is more rigid. It is how I work with dynamics.
The title, Goner, suggests a certain level of resignation and acceptance; do you see the figure of the ‘goner’ as one with an inevitable fate, or one that can be avoided?
One of the main purposes of Goner is to give a figure with little agency, the ability to speak, to act. But of course, you are touching on the dilemma of this proposition, and one of the main questions I want to leave with audiences: is it possible to redeem the irredeemable? We live in a culture that is highly addicted to consumption and discarding. We have practised erasing, or getting rid of people who we do not deem as having worth. I am really asking everyone the question, is it inevitable? Or can we avoid this, for another possible future?
Every element of the show coheres so well that it’s almost surprising to look at the programme and see how many different people contributed - how collaborative was the final project?
The whole project was conceived with so much input. Every aspect of the show had many other people looking at it, questioning it and, in turn, affecting everyone’s contributions to it. It is tight because I give my collaborators a lot of creative freedom to shape my work - counterintuitive, but that is the best way. Over the whole project, your collaborators go into the deep with you, and mine are incredible. Many of us have worked together before, so it's also not our first, or last project together. They know the vibes!
The performance features a lot of incredibly striking images which have stuck with me since seeing it; did these images come before the development of the narrative, or did they come up naturally as it came along?
Some came before, some are repetitive images that I have been mining in my practice for years, and some came later. My practice is inevitably very visual, I like to bring audiences through something and to an image that we might know, but have spent much of our lives avoiding looking at.
Many of the work’s inspirations seem to lean heavily into body horror, causing discomfort from the distortion of the human form. Was it a challenge to evoke these same fears in an art form so reliant on the human body?
You may be surprised but not particularly - I have been doing some version of these physical practices for more than twelve years. I can really treat it as formal when doing it live - not many personal emotions are in there.
Elements of the show seem very self-aware, particularly when the lines between the performance and reality become blurred; could you talk through some of your decision-making for these moments?
Well, at one point in the development of the work, that monologue was actually much more poetic, and maybe more nebulous. I worked closely with Jay Miller, the dramaturg, to try and make this speech more effective, and his ingenious suggestion to me was, why not make this character, this speech, something eerily close to my own life - the horror then becomes more unnerving because some of what I say is so viable, that it blurs things in a helpful way at that point of the show. Is it me, did I do these things, am I a pathological liar, are those people real, do I like pork, am I a choreographer? It unnerves the audience at the right moment to settle this horror journey.
And finally: what do you hope audiences to take from the show?
That our criminal and punitive justice system is archaic - we all have a very active hand in the monsters that society creates. And no matter how hard we try, we won’t be able to erase those who do wrong, or make grave mistakes, from view. Everything we do as human beings is like rehearsal. If we practice a culture of erasure, we will get further and further away from what it is to be human.
Goner by Marrikiscrycrycry is showing at:
Tue 16 Apr 2024 - Cambridge Junction, Clifton Way, Cambridge, UK
Fri 19 Apr 2024 - Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham, UK
Sat 27 Apr 2024 - Live Collision International Festival, Dublin Ireland
Thurs 23 and Fri 24 May - Mayfest, Bristol
Thurs 30 May 2024 - Gender House Queer Arts Festival, Aarhus, Denmark
7 - 8 June 2024 - Audra Festival, Kaunas, Lithuania
Fri 13 - Sat 14 Sep 2024 Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Portland, USA
Thu 19 - Sun 22 Sep 2024 - Abrons Arts Centre, New York City, USA
Sat 28 Sep 2024 - The Place, London, UK
Fri 18 Oct 2024 - Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff, UK
March 2025 - Undisciplined Festival, Brighton, UK
May 2025 - 9 Performance run Venue TBC, London, UK
Touring various art venues and festivals over the next year, Goner offers a unique blend of dance, horror and social exploration. Through psychological, suspense-filled vignettes, the show explores the sensibilities of the horror genre from a marginalised perspective, challenging audiences to question their perceptions of alienation, violence and what makes a ‘monster’.
We sat down with performer and choreographer Malik Nashad Sharpe (a.k.a. Marikiscrycrycry) to discuss the process of creating the performance, and what they hope audiences take away from it…
I found the mention of Jordan Peele as an influence in the press release particularly interesting, since his horror is quite uniquely cinematic - was the inspiration primarily this art form, or did others come into play in the development of the piece?
I am trying to innovate within the choreographic form - Horror is a genre that is typically relegated to film, TV, and literature, and so much of my knowledge of its formal tools comes from those forms. There are some parallels between film, cinema, and the moving image and choreographic practice; I watched countless shows and movies, and I admit these are some of the easier places to source inspiration because they are so visual. Jordan Peele was definitely an inspiration because he invigorated a tradition of horror-making from a marginalised perspective, expanding upon and transforming the socio-political into narrative and cinematic fantasy. I watched a lot of Korean zombie horrors, like the Netflix series All Of Us Are Dead, and #Alive, particularly because the horror in those media is so body-based. But I really looked everywhere. There is no shortage of horror to be found in our everyday lives, right outside of our front doors.
How long did the performance take to develop? The imagery is often very visceral and immediate, so it would be interesting to hear whether this came about fully-formed or was constructed bit-by-bit.
From conceptualisation to production, it took around a year and a bit to make. My process is almost always body-based first, before narrative, story, and even visual dress. And some of those more visceral images are purposefully built to have just enough of the material left open-ended so I can make live choices inside of the work. For example, my choreographic ‘score’ in the ending has tasks that I set for myself which leaves me room to make choices live which is in contrast to Goner’s opening, which is more mathematical, more calculated, and less open-ended. If I don’t count those steps, or if I don’t do the right direction changes, the whole thing falls apart. Most of my work is built like this - it is fun to do both, to leave room for the immediate, but also to rely on material that is more rigid. It is how I work with dynamics.
The title, Goner, suggests a certain level of resignation and acceptance; do you see the figure of the ‘goner’ as one with an inevitable fate, or one that can be avoided?
One of the main purposes of Goner is to give a figure with little agency, the ability to speak, to act. But of course, you are touching on the dilemma of this proposition, and one of the main questions I want to leave with audiences: is it possible to redeem the irredeemable? We live in a culture that is highly addicted to consumption and discarding. We have practised erasing, or getting rid of people who we do not deem as having worth. I am really asking everyone the question, is it inevitable? Or can we avoid this, for another possible future?
Every element of the show coheres so well that it’s almost surprising to look at the programme and see how many different people contributed - how collaborative was the final project?
The whole project was conceived with so much input. Every aspect of the show had many other people looking at it, questioning it and, in turn, affecting everyone’s contributions to it. It is tight because I give my collaborators a lot of creative freedom to shape my work - counterintuitive, but that is the best way. Over the whole project, your collaborators go into the deep with you, and mine are incredible. Many of us have worked together before, so it's also not our first, or last project together. They know the vibes!
The performance features a lot of incredibly striking images which have stuck with me since seeing it; did these images come before the development of the narrative, or did they come up naturally as it came along?
Some came before, some are repetitive images that I have been mining in my practice for years, and some came later. My practice is inevitably very visual, I like to bring audiences through something and to an image that we might know, but have spent much of our lives avoiding looking at.
Many of the work’s inspirations seem to lean heavily into body horror, causing discomfort from the distortion of the human form. Was it a challenge to evoke these same fears in an art form so reliant on the human body?
You may be surprised but not particularly - I have been doing some version of these physical practices for more than twelve years. I can really treat it as formal when doing it live - not many personal emotions are in there.
Elements of the show seem very self-aware, particularly when the lines between the performance and reality become blurred; could you talk through some of your decision-making for these moments?
Well, at one point in the development of the work, that monologue was actually much more poetic, and maybe more nebulous. I worked closely with Jay Miller, the dramaturg, to try and make this speech more effective, and his ingenious suggestion to me was, why not make this character, this speech, something eerily close to my own life - the horror then becomes more unnerving because some of what I say is so viable, that it blurs things in a helpful way at that point of the show. Is it me, did I do these things, am I a pathological liar, are those people real, do I like pork, am I a choreographer? It unnerves the audience at the right moment to settle this horror journey.
And finally: what do you hope audiences to take from the show?
That our criminal and punitive justice system is archaic - we all have a very active hand in the monsters that society creates. And no matter how hard we try, we won’t be able to erase those who do wrong, or make grave mistakes, from view. Everything we do as human beings is like rehearsal. If we practice a culture of erasure, we will get further and further away from what it is to be human.
Goner by Marrikiscrycrycry is showing at:
Tue 16 Apr 2024 - Cambridge Junction, Clifton Way, Cambridge, UK
Fri 19 Apr 2024 - Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham, UK
Sat 27 Apr 2024 - Live Collision International Festival, Dublin Ireland
Thurs 23 and Fri 24 May - Mayfest, Bristol
Thurs 30 May 2024 - Gender House Queer Arts Festival, Aarhus, Denmark
7 - 8 June 2024 - Audra Festival, Kaunas, Lithuania
Fri 13 - Sat 14 Sep 2024 Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Portland, USA
Thu 19 - Sun 22 Sep 2024 - Abrons Arts Centre, New York City, USA
Sat 28 Sep 2024 - The Place, London, UK
Fri 18 Oct 2024 - Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff, UK
March 2025 - Undisciplined Festival, Brighton, UK
May 2025 - 9 Performance run Venue TBC, London, UK
