Off touch-off balance: are we still in touch?

‘it is through moving towards and away from others or objects that individual bodies become aligned with some others and against other others, a form of alignment that temporarily “surfaces” as the skin of the community’ (Ahmed 2005: 104). So what happens to individuals and communities, particularly theatre communities, when physical proximity and physical contact is restricted due to a pandemic such as COVID-19? And then, in general, if we consider the deprivation of a familiar embodied state as a condition that can set our diverse bodies off balance (or off alignment, using Ahmed’s word), are there any possibilities of tactile interactions while working remotely? This short film draws from the Practice-as-Research project From haptic deprivation to haptic possibilities: researching the embodiment of caring and creative touch while practising physical distancing. It is a somatic invitation to each viewer. *The film includes subtitles. Created for TaPRA2021 PaR Gallery by Christina Kapadocha.