Screensaver Series: Sleeper Softwares, a work by J Neve Harrington focusing on access and neurodivergence, celebrated its German premiere at St. Elisabeth Church from 27 to 29 August 2025 as a part of Tanz im August. On the morning of 29 August, Harrington led a workshop for neurodivergent movers under the title Scaffold and Decoration.
As I walk into the St.Elisabeth church, I marvel at its grandness: it is huge, with a very high ceiling and rusty brick walls that hint at an extended passage of time. In contrast to this bigness, the stage is contained to a small narrow area in the middle of the space, consisting of a light grey rectangular dance floor where five dancers sit in a line. Everywhere else is open for the audience to sit, lie, stand, and walk around as they please.
In the beginning, the pre-recorded voice of J Neve Harrington—the piece’s director and choreographer, as well as one of the five performers—travels through the six speakers surrounding the room, inviting the audience to “find a temporary place to rest: to listen, to watch,” and “to change your perspective throughout.” As a neurodivergent person who experiences hypersensitivity across all senses, I find resting impossible in the midst of the restless motions and sounds of audience members searching for their seats and shifting around.
Despite the subdued turbulence of their surroundings, the dancers’ focus seems to create an eye in the middle of the storm. Their outfits saturated with various colors and patterns contrast with their internal gaze and controlled gestures. In an unwavering cadence, they work collectively at a simple yet rigorous score: To maintain symmetry in all their movements while moving continuously. The performers are often in physical contact and weight sharing with one another in order to balance and change locations within the line made of five bodies. Ten arms, ten hands, and fifty fingers intertwine and articulate. Breathing as one organism, their coordination reveals a trust and intimacy forged through practice. The reliability of this unchanging score calms me, while, at the same time, I get accustomed to wrestling with the unreliability that pervades my daily life. To embody such reliability requires diligence, discipline, and devotion, and to be in the presence of it feels like an exhaling relief for me.
As time passes, the audience grows quieter and more orderly in their wanderings around the room. My concentration and interest grow as I sense the dancers sinking deeper and deeper into the score. I enjoy capturing different sorts of intimate moments as I shift my viewpoints. When I sit as close as possible to the performers, I see an entire body shivering while holding a headstand. I watch sweat drop from their faces. I catch fleeting smiles between two of them when, for example, their mouths and noses touch.
I notice the soundscore composed of field recordings, voices, bass, and drone moving through the speakers. I try, however, to block the sound out, especially when pre-recorded voices speak in English and German. The words distract me from the choreography, as I feel they try to impose meanings on the dance.
The performance ends with the dancers coming to stillness and closing their eyes as the lights fade. Bright natural light flooding in from the windows creates a soothing and tender atmosphere for a brief moment before the first clap breaks the silence.
The following morning, I attend a workshop led by Harrington, which offers some insight into her choreographic process and intentions. The space looks similar to how I had found it the evening before; there are benches, cushions, and bean bags spread around the stage area. I join the other participants by lying on one of the bean bags and closing my eyes.
Soon, in a small group of ten participants, we are guided through the first part of the performance score: Resting and reorganizing. It begins by lazily exploring possibilities to rest. Gradually, we are encouraged to make the transitions between our relaxed positions more dynamic and keep our eyes softly open in order to take in the visual stimulus as a part of our decision-making process. Through this exercise, I come to understand that resting forms the base of the entire dance of Screensaver Series: Sleeper Softwares.In the midst of the demanding score, the performers always return to short moments of rest, and perhaps that is how they stay engaged in their “transitory moments” of symmetrical motions.
Later when we explore becoming symmetrical creatures ourselves, Harrington shares some imagery and textures used in the performance score: Our bodies are land. The ground is the sea. Other spaces around us are the air. We can make decorations in the air by drawing lines and shapes and can also reach out into it for stability. She reminds us that it is helpful to always come back to land and the sea to center ourselves. We can touch other pieces of land, which are objects and other bodies that support us. We can observe the landscape and feel its textures. I imagine us as travelers, novice researchers venturing into new territories. Experiencing how enjoyable yet challenging it is to carry out the score, I note that persistent interest, boldness, and practice would be required to become a skilled researcher.
At the end, we try the score in pairs. Having friends to be symmetrical with eases a lot of struggle and brings in humor! When I am in front of my partner, I can follow my desires and offer gentle challenges. When I am in the back, I can be inspired by my partner’s outlines, respond to their choices, and support them by sensing their physical signals and offering them space or counterbalance. Harrington mentions that the other person provides a framework, thus relieving us from having to keep producing ideas alone. Together, she adds, we can go to places that we can’t go alone.
I think back to a tender moment in the show. One dancer is lying down. Another kneels behind, gradually lowering their torso. When their faces touch lightly, they both close their eyes and stay still for three seconds. A moment of rest. They then open their eyes and continue on. This breath of grounding intimacy in the midst of a tightly defined score reflects how strict restrictions are not obstacles. Instead, they can serve as a container that helps to notice and release habits, opening space for new possibilities. When I approach limitations with softness and humor, and allow for rest along the way, the process becomes an interesting journey of problem-solving that leads to unfamiliar landscapes and creatures. And when I fully sink in, I can become a creature myself—a freeing experience that offers respite from the everyday human world.
Screensaver Series: Sleeper Softwares, by J Neve Harrington, celebrated its German premiere at St. Elisabeth Church from 27 to 29 August 2025 as a part of Tanz im August.
