It is the latest creative project of the Anglo-Spanish experimental theatre company Sleepwalk Collective.
Through a series of imagined pools, arranged like the ascending levels of a retro video game, a sequence of intimate monologues unfolds, all balanced on the fine edge that separates revelation from delirium. As our protagonists whisper and perform their confessions through the voices and bodies of the four women who inhabit the scene, the pool itself is again conceived as a kind of artificial utopia, a miniature paradise, a place for ecstatic miracles and otherworldly beauty.
Fearlessly wrestling with the particular demons of the early 21st century —ruthless capitalism, toxic masculinity, cyber boredom and emotional fatigue—, Swimming Pools is a psychedelic new piece about desire and melancholy, and how it seems we might live together under the blinding glare of the future.
It had its world premiere at Teatro de la Abadía in December 2020.
Photos by The Black Dahlia.
