The ICA presents Dykegeist, a newly commissioned choreographic work from Manchester-born London-based artist and performance maker Eve Stainton. With a live sound score conceived and performed by musician Mica Levi.

Dykegeist is interested in unravelling and complicating the archetypal narratives assigned to the lesbian predator creature. 

During the current of the evening, aesthetics will shift between a supernatural gothic thriller, a ’90s sci-fi spider lair, a haunted Manchester club scene, an abstract and warping horror-scape, a social situation to discuss threat / the phobic / consent / otherness, choreography and suspended encounters, gateways gravel grunge, emptiness and charged-ness.

Stainton understands the audience as active agents contributing to what will become the world of Dykegeist over the duration of the event and beyond – in flux and dependent on what / who is in the room. The audience is asked to transition through different modes of presence: participant, onlooker, listener, collaborator, consensual prey. Extra attention and care will be given to make it comfortable to decline any invitation offered. This new commission has brought Stainton back into connection with Manchester’s club scene, specifically tracking their affinity with Speed Garage sounds, originating in African American soul and exploding in the North of England in the ’90s. These spaces, sounds, dances were formative to Stainton’s current research into the power of the queer somatic encounter mediated through frequencies, vibrations, grotty-ness and subversive necessity.

Continuing their formal concerns with clashing and co-occurrence, Stainton has created new collage pieces and welded steel sculptures that further load the multidisciplinary world between Stainton, Levi and audience.

A series of limited edition digital collage prints by Eve Stainton is now available to buy via ICA Artists’ Editions.

£10 Full, £7.50 Concessions, £5 Green/Blue Members

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Capacity is limited for the performances in line with social distancing. We ask that audience members wear face masks, unless exempt.

Access Information:

You are free to leave the theatre space at any point during the performance, readmittance may not be possible. The theatre has level access. The performance is standing with some seating available in the space if preferred/ needed at any point.

Audience members may be asked to participate at different moments during the performance. This will happen through conversation and will never be assumed. 

Audience members may engage in touch with the performer at specific, guided moments. This will only happen with clear consent. These moments will involve non-alcoholic antibac gel.

Actions in the performance may be sensual in nature, and will be handled sensitively.

Sound levels will fluctuate from very loud to very quiet.

This performance has strobe lighting.