What Makes A Body Terrifying is a queer exploration of two strikingly similar folk tales: the Slavic Rusalke and the Celtic Selkies. These two folk tales centre around mythical sea-people - said to shed their skins and become dangerous, beautiful human-forms, who seduce sailors and lure them to their deaths. This piece explores how they use narrative and rhetorical devices to create fear, and how these parallel with the ways fear is generated against queer bodies.

Taking a curious approach, this piece asks questions about how we are persuaded to be scared of the sea, as a way of understanding how we are persuaded to be scared of others.

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Doing so through two strikingly similar folk tales - the Slavic Rusalke and the Celtic Selkies - The Not-God Complex embrace this topic with a physical, multidisciplinary approach. The result is a show that plays with pace, structure and form. The company deftly uncover the lines been storytelling and real-life impact, between the sea and the land, between human and non-human, between straight and queer and between fear and safety. Drawing on elements of dance, theatre and poetry, this piece has something for any audience member willing to be open to questions.

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Praise for What Makes a Body Terrifying? :

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Everything Theatre 

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‘The pair lead us through strange performance dance, recitals, singing (including in foreign tongues). There’s even some delightful puppetry. It’s all very… abstract. Weird. Confusing. It’s questionable how much anyone outside of performers and director fully understands. But again, does it matter? Because there is an absolute beauty to this piece. Because Glen and Grace are truly captivating as they glide across the spaces between us. Captivating like the Celtic “Selkie” and Slavic “Rusalke” they represent, two mythical creatures who lure people to their deaths.’

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There ought to be clowns

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‘Blending movement, puppetry, folk songs, audio clips, pseudo-verbatim passages, folk dancing, sound design and more besides, a richly evocative but highly abstract collage is built up over the space of an hour. And in the manner of much devised theatre, it proves to be equal parts beautiful and baffling.’ 

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To view the digital programme for the show, click here.

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We have plans for a UK tour of the show in summer 2023. Please check back for tour dates