Battersea’s One-on-One Festival

I’ve been kidnapped. A boy runs up to me and urges me in French to come quick. He grabs my hand, we run out of the building and I’m taken to a parked car with blacked out windows. I get in. Behind the steering wheel sits an imposing figure dressed in black. Slowly he pulls out his hands and cups them. I close my eyes; a noise pierces the darkness…

Boom boom cha, cha boom boom cha, chiggy chiggy riggy!

I’m being held hostage by the BAC Beatbox Academy in The Car – just one of a variety of personal performances on offer at the Battersea Arts Centre’s One-on-One Festival.

Whatever type of experience you’re looking for chances are you’ll find it here – and more. This particular event is unticketed, so anyone can ‘participate’ but most of the 30 plus performances need to be booked in advance, which include anything from receiving mild electric shocks to being washed and cradled whilst naked – so even the masochistically-inclined and intimacy-starved aren’t left out.

My first event, ‘Folk in a Box’, involved walking into what looked like a priest’s confessional and asked by a man clutching a guitar whether I like stories. I have to admit, I’ve never been a big fan of audience participation, but as there was no one else around the usual self-conscious feeling wasn’t there. He then proceeded to sing and strum a lovely number about what it’s like to stay up all night with people you care about, holding my gaze throughout. My socially-awkward radar ought to have been making a cardiac arrest sound by then, instead I was charmed.

Perhaps the highlight of my journey was Ontrorend Goed’s ‘The Smile Off Your Face’. Blindfolded, hands tied, strapped down in a wheelchair and pushed into a room, it invoked the same sort of foreboding you get when starting a ghost train ride – or maybe just the sort of foreboding any sane person would feel when being subjected to the above.

However, it was weirdly calming. The ambient music made you feel as if you were trapped inside a tortoise track and I found it very easy to abandon myself to the confusion of sensory experience. A flame was held close to my leg, someone gently pushed their face into my hands and rubbed their cheeks against my palms, I was pulled down onto a bed and asked in a soothing voice what makes me happy. It was all, well, kind of therapeutic. And at the end of this 20-minute long journey the blindfold was removed to reveal others experiencing the same routine, making you suddenly aware of the limitations of your spatial and cognitive perceptions.

In a way it’s not surprising that this festival is showing at the BAC – the building is perfect for exploring every nook and cranny and the centre has a history of putting on interactive theatre, such as The Mask of the Red Death. But this time the innovative performance space has really outdone itself with this truly unique event.

Not to be missed.

The One-on-One Festival runs until 18 July at:

Battersea Arts Centre
Lavender Hill
Battersea
SW11 5TN

Box office: 020 7223 2223

Image courtesy of Stephen Dobbie