Skin Hunger

DANTE OR DIE THEATRE COMPANY, Tim Crouch, Ann Akinjirin, Sonia Hughes, Dante or Die Theatre Company

• Publisher: Salamander Street Ltd.
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9781914228292
• eBook ISBN:
  9781914228285
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Performance Art
• Index: Literature

"If you wanted to hold me. If you wanted to hold me. Hold me and tell me it's okay"

Skin Hunger is about the power of touch - a vital aspect of humanity that so many of us didn't realise we needed until it was restricted.

Written by Ann Akinjirin, Tim Crouch and Sonia Hughes Skin Hunger is a powerful live theatre experience which explores the fundamental role that touch plays in our lives, with refreshing humour and insight.

OFFIES WINNER 2022: IDEA Performance 

Inspired by the plastic hug tunnels in Brazilian care homes, Dante or Die's Artistic Directors devised a one-on-one performance exploring the role of touch in our lives. Skin Hunger gathers the writing of pioneering playwrights Ann Akinjirin, Tim Crouch & Sonia Hughes, along with reflections from the creative team, a foreword from a neuroscientist specialising in touch, and images from the original production that took place in a hidden chapel in London's West End.

"My cheek is folded into his neck. He's speaking into my ear and I can feel his chest rising and falling against me. This hug is long, gentle, intimate and alien. Thanks to the huge sheet of plastic squeezed between us, covering us from head to toe and several feet further, it's also completely risk-assessed."

– The Guardian

Dante or Die is an award-winning, independent theatre company, led by Daphna Attias & Terry O'Donovan, that has been creating new performances in unexpected places since 2006. You could experience one of their shows in your local leisure centre or café, the self-storage unit down the road, or on your mobile phone. They collaborate with local people, academics and experts to create a distinctive Dante or Die world, telling stories that grapple with knotty topics through intimate, witty and poignant experiences. 

@danteordie

www.danteordie.com

Our Hands by Ann Akinjirin

Do you want to know the body part that I’m most insecure about? Ummm

I’m actually embarrassed to say, it’s silly

But…

It’s my hands! I don’t have soft hands.

When I was 14, at that age when the shift is happening. That shift, that seemingly overnight shift, where I went from not noticing or frankly giving a fuck what people thought about me to hanging on to every word.

I went to shake someone’s hand. In a large group, innocently and politely, I gave them my hand and they flinched. They pulled away so quickly and in front of everyone, at the top of their lungs, they said

“You don’t have soft hands!” They asked

“Why are your hands so rough?” And…

I didn’t have an answer, because not only did I not know… but I didn’t know! I didn’t know that my palms weren’t soft. It was the first moment I realised that other people must have palms that felt different to mine. That moment the seed was planted that if I offered someone my palm, they may flinch

I was 14 and I’ve never forgotten

And so the body part that I’m most insecure about isn’t my bum or my height or my stomach or whatever the fuck! But it’s my hands…

From that moment onwards, every time I fell in lust or love I never wanted people to touch my hands… until I met

You

When we were moving from strangers to lovers, I started my usual dance of avoiding hands. The subtle sway and redirection of my palms when I noticed that your hands were journeying towards mine. But one day, just before I had the chance to move, our palms connected and I froze. I’d perfected these moves over the years and the excuses but you could see through me. You saw into me. You saw me.

“Don’t you want to hold my hand?” You asked

My inner 14 year old self looked to the floor. I just couldn’t meet your eyes, as I had to admit…

“I don’t have soft hands”

You put your hand to my chin. You touched my skin to lift my gaze to yours and you said “You’re perfect”

Offers hands

(To audience) You said…

(You’re Perfect)

Oh mayn! I was done in from that moment! Finished!

My hands fit yours; I don’t want to say like a glove, it’s not like that. They fit like… I dunno, snug?

And I was smug about it! So smuggy smug!!

Like my hands were formed to fit perfectly into the gaps between yours and the texture of my palms were made to compliment yours and only yours. They were made for you!

They were just waiting for you Perfect!

I love the journey our hands go on.

The way that, my hands especially, get to love you And how I get to be loved by you through yours.

I love the way you hold my hand

On Sunday mornings we do my favourite thing. We sit on the sofa, silently together, and we read. Seemingly separate but always connected through our hands. I’m touching the nape of your neck and your hand on my knee.

Silent Separate Together

And then we find palms. Your thumb always softly strokes my hand when our fingers are combined

You are so funny. I’m going to be bold and say you’re the funniest person I know. We laugh until our stomachs hurt and I curl over, hand to your chest and giggle

Hard

I curl into you and we are enveloped in laughter. Your hand on the back of my head

Laughing Touching Together

And then we hold hands. Our fingers intertwined… I love the way you hold my hand Your face

There’s a special way that your face feels on my fingertips

Whenever you’re confused your nose wrinkles. I giggle just seeing it in my mind’s eye Your nose wrinkles and it gives you away.

My index finger smoothes out your nose with a stroke and you catch yourself

I love the way my fingers can comfort you

Uncomfortable Comfortable Together

I hate being close to people in bed. I don’t get how people do it? How do they do it?

I’m so hot and sweaty and I just feel trapped. So I always start in an embrace but then it’s like a race for me to see how quickly I can unwind from you as soon as you nod off. But I always awake, always! And find that no matter how far away I am from you in bed your hand would be touching me. Whether it was my back, my legs sometimes even just the tip of my fingers

Tip to tip! Just perfect

Your hand always finds me in bed

Apart Connected Forever

Even when we argue we are touching My impulse is to walk/

To run away

Immediately

Far away

But you grab my hands and you say

“We may be fighting but we have to stay connected I don’t want you to let me go!”

You say, “I don’t want you to let me go” (I don’t want you to let me go)

My heart!

I first notice we are drifting apart because our hands aren’t meeting

Even when they do, there is something about the way that your hands twist that makes mine feel like they don’t fit

They don’t fit?

They don’t fit yours!

There’s something about your energy shift that’s making me feel my palm against yours. They don’t feel soft anymore

I can feel them

I’d never felt them, with you

But your palms are rejecting mine

Together Touching Resisting

What’s happening?

Your hands don’t want me like the...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Foreword by Professor Francis McGlone, Research Centre in Brain & Behaviour, Liverpool John Moores University
• About Dante or Die
• Original Production Credits
• Introduction by Daphna Attias – Co-Artistic Director & Director
• The Production
• Reflection by Ann Akinjirin – Writer
• Our Hands by Ann Akinjirin
• Reflection by Ayse Tashkiran – Movement Director
• Reflection by Tim Crouch – Writer
• The Sessions by Tim Crouch
• Reflection by Terry O’Donovan – Co-Artistic Director & Performer
• Reflection by Sonia Hughes – Writer
• Touch the Flesh by Sonia Hughes
• Reflection from The Audience