The Place Sensations Weekend online

Sensations Weekend runs from Thursday 18 – Sunday 21 February and is free to watch. Recorded events are available until Thursday 4 March.
Click here for access.


One of the questions currently preoccupying public and mental health practitioners is the effect of the absence of touch and lack of sensations on people living alone through lockdown, and all of us increasingly experiencing the world digitally.

These questions provide the raw material for Sensations Weekend, the second Covid-inspired initiative by The Place, London's premier contemporary dance venue.

Following on from the first such festival, The Place's Sensations Weekend explores senses such as touch, sight, and hearing alongside movement and asks how dance and performance can remind us of what makes us feel alive. It resorts to a variety of dance and movement programmes, as well as audio works and a panel discussion.

You can find the full programme on The Place website. Below you'll find a selection of dance highlights.

• Friday 19 February – a mixed bill of short films exploring sensation through a range of experiences:

Maelstrom Under Glass is the work of the newly formed company Yewande 103, led by choreographer and writer Alexandrina Hemsley. The film uses movement, text and collage to look at recovery from prolonged dissociation and trauma.

Stimming, named after the rhythmic and repetitive movements that people make to regulate sensory input, is a series of films by Susanna Dye and Manon Oimet exploring how it can feel to live in a world that's too loud, too bright, too fast and too tight.

Transitions I : Movement in Spirit by Toby Adebajo considers textures and sound that pay homage to the vibrations of life.

The Screensaver Series by Janine Harrington is a video essay that shows a dance unfold and then fold back in itself rather like the flowing shapes in a kaleidoscope.