Developed on residency in the UNESCO designated Cradle of Humankind, South Africa, Bassline is the second in a trilogy of performance works that explore the idea of extended cognition - a term used to describe the idea that thinking should be seen as a dynamic exchange between our minds and the stuff of the material world. The more-than-human environments we inhabit play an active role in how we think and act, defining the trajectory of our individual and collective evolution. The three performances use the human body as a drawing device to work with some of the fundamental geometries that exist below the surface of things
Researchers suggest that before our early human ancestors made symbolic marks they would probably have used voice and dance to bring about a state of trance in which they were likely to have experienced geometric visions including grid and point patterns known today as entoptic forms. These patterns are believed to have a direct relationship to the architecture of the human brain and may be the source of inspiration for the oldest human marks we know of. Lit by strobe light, their breathing and heartbeat captured using body mics and amplified, the performers use their bodies to make marks that form grid and point networks in red, iron-rich earth from the Cradle of Humankind. Bassline combines movements and gestures from prehistoric and contemporary trance dance cultures - collapsing millennia of human evolution into a brief moment in time