1998
Roundhouse Community and Arts Centre
Vancouver, BC

Unruly Body is the third part of Terezakis’ Quest of the Human Condition trilogy that started with A Parcel of Men’s Knowledge and Café Nocturne. 

The piece explores how human beings are confined within the bounds of conformity and social structure. The group’s movements are contrasted with those of a lone individual and illustrate how power, control and rejection can all lead to alienation and loneliness.

The individual act of putting on a boot, becomes the seed from which larger meaning is grown. With the strong use of symmetry and repetition, the five dancers create an emotional tableau, which suggests ideas of self, the other and a frustrated reconciliation.

Visually reminiscent of a black-tie affair, the notion of glass and ice splintering reminds us of our essential vulnerability. The dancers, glasses in hand, resemble cocktail party goers depending on this prop for moral support.

Terezakis cites the book An Intimate History of Humanity by Theodore Zeldin as one inspiration for the piece. “A most striking quote,” Terezakis says, “is the one about the fear of loneliness.”

“The fear of loneliness has been like a ball and chain restraining ambition, as much of an obstacle to a full life as is persecution, discrimination or poverty. Until the chain is broken, freedom, for many, will remain a nightmare.”
Theodore Zeldin