PROJECT

Commitment Phobe is a project about doubt, ambiguity, and (not) taking a position by Ira Brand. Ira’s research begins from experiencing herself as a ‘person of doubt’ in a world that seems to predominantly value certainty. She is trying to understand what underlies cultural and social values of clarity, sureness and consistency – ways that we are taught it is worthwhile and understandable for a person to be. And to explore how to move with nuance in a time when we are asked to take strong, binary, personal and political positions on – almost everything.

How can we conceive of doubt as a tool? How might we stay in nuance and ambiguity, without this being necessarily disempowered, passive, or apathetic? What are the risks both of taking a position, and of not? The work hopes to make a proposal for embracing doubt, for keeping moving, and for inhabiting grey areas – as necessities for dealing with each other, and for a joyous, vital life.

At wpZimmer, Ira is working to discover the embodied, affective, aesthetic, theatrical and playful articulations of these ideas. She will be working on labours or practices of construction, atmospheric and visual transformations of space, and the shifting dynamics between performers and audience.

Commitment Phobe will premiere in 2023. It is produced by Frascati Producties, in co-production with wpZimmer, Festival Cement, and The Yard.