White Porcelain Doll

New contemporary works often make their way onto the art scene amid acclaim and savage criticism. This one breaks with convention – it is neither an installation nor an art work to hang in a gallery. A cross-arts performance piece, it embraces music, movement, theatre, lighting, sound and video arts. This is 3D tragic silent performance.

White Porcelain Doll was inspired by the recent discovery in America of women who had been kidnapped as girls and kept in captivity until one escaped. It is Lizzie and Zaimon Vilmanis’s attempt to depict the suffering, resilience and determination of a woman in that situation.

Early scenes are accompanied by the repetitive sound like a muffled drum stick across corrugated iron. We meet ‘him’ (Zaimon) moving erratically about a simple pink day dress spread over the back of an armchair. Then ‘she’ (Lizzie) appears and he tries to put the dress on her. She fights his attempts until he dumps her, dress and all in a big metal trunk. From that point we feel insecure.

Dan Black’s lighting and Rayadan Jeavon’s eclectic sound design set the pattern from here on: leading us from despair to acceptance – even fondness – between the protagonists. Bruce McKinven’s elevated stage reveals a trapdoor to an underground storage space, out of which ‘he’ often drags ‘her’.

The audience was spellbound. It’s impossible to escape your own thoughts. Even after the applause and bows, the audience, still caught up in the thrall, were reluctant to move. 

Jay McKee