I Know You Are But What Am I ?

©Steffie Boucher, excerpts of show at Skylines Dance & Films
in Winnipeg, 2023

The story reminds us that the force and the construction of one’s identity are not just the result of a putting in place of scaffolding that is built from within, it is a psychic event; a fixing in place as much from an exterior force as an interior one. Information for self-formation is flowing outwards and inwards, afferent and efferent; a becoming that projects onto one a sense of self. In this case it comes from the commanding presence of others, far from the interior workings of self-hood.

In “I know you are but what am I?” we witness the disorienting experience of an individual becoming confronted by the disabling allowances of his world after losing his hearing.

© Steffie Boucher, 2023
Cai Glover, Caroline Namts and Léa Noblet Di Ziranaldi in “I Know You Are But What Am I?”

“I didn’t climb above the clouds today

envious and upright

I settled, instead, for the creases in your face

envious and uptight

I climbed their peaks

I ran the valleys

I waded in the banks of a sloping marsh

There was mud trickling, unwillingly, from my legs and back into you

I feel your disgusting need for me

it’s heavy

like mud

It’s scalding

Like a sunburn

My measured pace and careful steps

Are easy to follow

and you

Lagging behind me like a matted, tired tail

Like a beaten, forgotten trail

I settle, instead, for the creases in the sidewalk

Sealing cracks with my footprint

weaving

in a complicated pattern of survival

The air grows hot and thick around us

The stakes take on an arrogant severity

Their structure etched and permanent

Hardened as conversation

You’re choking, at last, on yourself

As I have been for days, on you

Gaping and fasting on nothing but this bland abundance of you

Picking your ineffective substance from my teeth

hacking into you

for my sake

to be separate

to breathe

to stare, at last, in horror

at what I am

what I’m not.

Presentation
Fringe Montreal, Montreal, June 2023
Skylines Dance & Films , Winnipeg, Sept. 2023
[upcoming] Mainline theatre, Montreal, Sept. 2024

back