Experimentica 26 – Rhys Slade-Jones: Hatchet, your head, the dead, pottery and pipes (things which are buried)

Rhys Slade-Jones brings Hatchet, your head, the dead, pottery and pipes (things which are buried) to Chapter Theatre on Friday 23 October, as part of the venue's performance programme here in Cardiff. It's a theatre piece that looks at the relationship between spectacle, power and violence — the kind of heavy, open-ended territory that usually gives you plenty to chew on long after you've left the room.

The title itself sets the scene: a hatchet, a head, the dead, pottery and pipes. All things that get buried. It's a list of objects and bodies that suggests a certain kind of digging, and the performance works its way through that, pulling these things back up to the surface to see how they connect. The focus is on the intersection of spectacle and power, and the violence that often sits between them, so it's as much about how we watch as it is about what we're watching.

On the sound side, Brain Rays is on the design, which means the audio will be a proper part of the experience rather than just something running in the background. Between the text and the sound, it's a piece that asks you to sit with some uncomfortable questions about how power is performed and who gets to hold the tools.

It's on Friday 23 October, starting at 7.30pm at Chapter Theatre, and BSL is available for the performance.