🧵Jump Stitch

Setup and Launch

Do not ask the audience for a suggestion — the show starts without one. The team starts backstage. A slow tango works well. The original song used was Santa Maria (del Buen Ayre) by Gotan Project.

Flow

The show is generally done in a 20–25 minute block. It consists of three beats — three rounds of scenes — with a musical-dance interlude between each beat.

1. Dance to the music

The stage is dark as the music starts playing. The actors enter the stage as the lights slowly come up. They move to the music and stop on each beat of the music. The actors move all around the stage, between and through the musical beats. The rhythm of the music drives the action. After 20–30 seconds the music stops and the actors freeze.

2. The first scene

Two actors start a scene. Their starting point is the position they froze in and how close they stand to each other. The rest of the actors remain frozen in place on the stage. The actors in the scene can use the frozen actors as props. A frozen actor can unfreeze to support a scene silently. They can become a tree, a refrigerator, a cabinet, a door — whatever the scene calls for. Once they are no longer needed, they return to the exact position they froze in.

3. The scoop

Listening is key here. The next scene starts with an actor scooping the last line of the current scene: repeating it exactly and using it as the first line of the new scene. Once the actors in the current scene hear the scoop, they stop their scene immediately and freeze where they are. Scooping happens a few times within a beat. A stopped scene is revisited: it restarts where it left off. Sometimes the scoops happen very rapidly, and one scene passes to the next. Sometimes the scoops happen more slowly.

4. The beat edit

Any actor can edit the beat — end it. While one scene is going on, the actor starts or restarts another scene with a phrase that is not a scoop. At that point all the scenes on stage restart at once. There is cacophony until the music starts.

5. The musical interlude

When the music starts, the actors go silent and get back into dance mode: they move with the music as they did at the start of the show. Everything is wiped away during the music. There is no return to the scenes of the previous beat, although minor callbacks are fun. The music continues for about 20 seconds. Once it stops, the second beat starts. The second beat is conducted the same way as the first. So is the third beat.

6. The ending

At the cacophony of the third beat the lights go to black, all the actors go silent, and the show ends.