In the solo performance, Despina Sanida Crezia moves through a series of intense physical and emotional states. NEAR MISSES succeeds as a strong collective proposition through a single body that appears profoundly alone on stage. Spoken words, raw facial expressions and gestures of self-defence build a constantly changing bodily landscape, while metal objects cover her body, acting as both armour and burden: they protect her, but weigh her down. Their restless rattling becomes part of the sound of the performance.
After the performance, we sat down with Fotini, joined by Despina, to talk about how this world came into being.
“It was more like a memory,” Fotini said of the work’s starting point. She recalled her grandmother’s house, its relics and small personal objects, and the women from the community who gathered there. From this memory, our conversation moved to protective objects, Balkan and Byzantine references, and ex-votos: offerings that give material form to a vow, a hope for healing or gratitude for protection. One of the strongest ideas we returned to was that armour is both protection and burden. The things we develop to survive something can become the very things that restrict us. And armour is not necessarily something we simply take off once we are safe; sometimes we become attached to it.
We spoke about the line “I died ten times this month,” about the different stages of revealing the body, and about the ways we can romanticise resilience. Sometimes failure is simply failure; sometimes damage does not contain a lesson. Can choosing not to persist be an act of strength as well? NEAR MISSES shows there is room for surrender.
