PAST EVENT: This was part of the EAF25 programme.

Through conditioning, we create a machine. Through unlearning, we return to the animal.

Closing out EAF25 was Bornsick, a new performance from London-born queer movement artist Lewis Walker. Co-commissioned with Serpentine, the endurance gymnastics and dance performance sees a body built, piece by piece: a character assembled through learned movements, imposed behaviours, and artificial layers. 

Set in the cavernous, industrial FirstStage Studios on the Port of Leith, Bornsick used Walker’s breathtaking power of movement to reflect on the idea that we inherit illness, born into a system that shapes us before we can define ourselves.

The cycle continues, revealing that there is no final, fixed truth, only endless adaptation. Bornsick suggests that humanhood is a paradox; we search for something real, yet everything we are is borrowed.

Choreographer + Performance: Lewis Walker
Hypnotherapist + Live Narrator: Michele Occelli
Music: Oliver Coates, “Throb, shiver, arrow of time” and “skins n slime”; Underworld, “Born Slippy” (Nuxx)
Look Engineer: Straytukay
Lighting Designer: Laurie Loads
Lighting Programmer + Codesigner: Edward James Saunders
Sound Technician: Philly Holmes
Production Coordinator: Millie Player
Graphic Designer: Marco Andrea Cacioni
Set Designer: David White
Poster Photographer: YISKID
Videographers: Leah Walker Brown, Lewis Landini, Diana Dumi
Physiotherapist + Acupuncturist: Atsue Morinaga
Dramaturg + Rehearsal Director: Elisabeth Mulenga
R+D Gymnast: Louis Alexander

Curated and produced by:
EAF, Edinburgh: Kim McAleese, Director; Eleanor Edmondson, Curator.
Serpentine, London: Kostas Stasinopoulos, Curator, Live Programmes, Daisy Gould, Assistant Curator, Live Programmes, Isobel Peyton-Jones, Producer, Serpentine and Andy Downie, Velocet.

Related Programme

See more related events and exhibitions:
→ Lewis Walker + Michele Occelli: MOVE HYPNO Workshop at Dance Base, Old Town + South