On Friday night my very dear girlfriend Gill and I pitched up to the Deal Court car park in London’s Thamesmead to watch a Tilted Production’s performance of BELONGING(s).

The piece is performed by an inter-generational troupe, and provokes thoughts on the notion of belonging, migration and the fleeting nature of what surrounds us. Our friend Cecil, whom I have known for over 30 years, has been with the dance group for over three years and is now living his dream as a dancer. We watch him perform in the fierce and unusual London heat, stretch his fibers to the core, and lift a fellow performer with intense grace as if he was a feather, simply amazing.

In all honesty, Gill and I approached the starting venue, located in a dated housing estate in a not so nice part of London SE2, with a sense of trepidation. As we walked past a gypsy encampment, several pubs which Cecil had warned against approaching, it was refreshing to meet fellow thespian enthusiasts on a warm and humid night, ready to challenge ones own boundaries through dance and performance.

As Act I, Scene I opened in a car park, with some ten professional performers using cardboard boxes and gramophone records to portray industrialisation, automation and the decimation of both, timed perfectly to well-chosen music, one was immediately drawn into the many concepts of what the dancers where conveying. It was mesmeric. Graceful. Thought provoking. And, as we and the audience followed one of the dancers along the streets to the next scene, each of us had our own ideas of what we had just witnessed and what it each meant to us. And, as we debated, and Cecil joined us, there are no wrong answers and, interestingly enough we are still thinking about it!

From Left: Cecil, one of Tilted Production’s performers, girlfriend Gill, and me. I have known Cecil for 30+ years, Gill for 20+ years and the one thing we always do is laugh!

Gramophone records featured throughout the performance of BELONGING(s)! Cecil is second from right.

Act III of BELONGING(s) took place in a field overlooking Greenwich peninsula where to my delight there were three working wind turbines!