Heartland is a collaboration between Candoco Dance Company, Scarabeus and the writer Nicky Singer exploring a story of imprisonment and freedom, and the longing for the lands of home and heart - based on the Minotaur/Icarus legends.

The Minotaur/Icarus theme has been brought up to date, where Minotaur is body and land and Icarus is soul and sky, and where we have looked at notions of perfection/imperfection, being imprisoned/free and also that yearning for different sorts of 'homelands'.

The performance is set in a dome rig (or a geodesic dome), threaded with black fabrics, symbolising the prison in which both the Minotaur and Icarus are kept.  

Both longing for freedom and their own homeland. Beyond the space where they are confined, they both know, there is blue sky.  

Around them the audience, voyeuristically watch the freak and caged ‘beast’.  The choreography is emotionally charged and the two performers (one disabled and one non-disabled) are at times physically intertwined; aesthetically the performers become opposite, shadow, reflection and continuation of each other.

A hauntingly beautiful soundtrack mixes music with a poetic, provocative text.

“The concept and performance are really beautiful”. Bradley Hemmings (Greenwich & Docklands Festival)