The Show [2018]
Open duration solo performance-installation for intimate space and small audience

A solo performer stands and walks behind a curtain as a small audience await an anticipated theatrical reveal. When this visual spectacle never arrives, the drama of ‘the show’ plays out in the subtle tension and power play between spectator and performer who cannot see one another.

‘Rowland Hill’s performance The Show is an exercise in high drama which is arresting in its simplicity. The work reduces the act of performing to its bare bones. Upon entering a small dark room, you are surrounded on all sides by a glimmering gold curtain raised a few inches from the floor, to reveal a pair of black stilettos attached to an unknown person on the other side. Much like the big reveal in the Wizard of Oz and the fantasy that precedes it; the dark glamour that Hill projects removes us from everyday truths in a way only true theatre can.’
- Elephant, 10 Artists to Watch, July 2018

‘Brilliant. Like being in Suspiria.’
- Mark Leckey

Images from the Slade Grad Degree Show 2018. Photo credit: Zinna Mac-Eochaidh