SHIFT+SPACE | Between Us by Present Tense

Between Us is a dance-theatre work that weaves movement, sound, and scenography to explore intimacy in its most unconventional forms. Rooted in real conversations, improvisations, and personal memory, the piece traces the invisible threads that bind us; across time, across distance, and outside normative scripts of love. What does it mean to be close? To touch without touching? To stay when language falls short?Using string as both symbol and structure, the performers navigate tenderness, friction, and vulnerability, where longing lives not only in bodies, but in absence, gesture, and breath. The work resists resolution, favouring moments of tension and ambiguity as sites of connection."Between Us" is a meditation on the choreography of care, built on interdisciplinary collaboration between movement and voice practitioners, and invites audiences into a space where the boundaries of intimacy are questioned, stretched, and reimagined.

About this performance

Age guidance: This performance is recommended for ages 16+

Content warning: There are no content warnings for this performance.

Interval: This performance does not have an interval.

Post show discussion: This performance does not have a post show discussion.

Accessibility

See our Accessibility Guide for information about access in our venue.

Find out more about Present Tense

Present Tense is an artist collective founded by Tajiyah Sulwana and Pearl Seraphina Lee, whose practices emerge from the intersections of theatre and dance. Rooted in Southeast Asian perspectives and diasporic identities, Present Tense experiments with interdisciplinary approaches to spark conversations about resistance, memory, and the politics of presence.Their work moves across physical theatre, movement, and voice, exploring how the body holds knowledge, and transformation. Committed to decolonial and care-driven methodologies, the collective invites audiences and collaborators into spaces of collective inquiry, where silences speak and gestures unravel untold stories.Present Tense is dedicated to making art that listens, lingers, and lives in the now—urgent, shifting, and always in dialogue.

Instagram: @tjsulwana and @pearlseraphina

SHIFT+SPACE

This performance is part of the SHIFT+SPACE programme

Theatre Deli’s SHIFT+SPACE programme is a free performance opportunity for artists to present their work that needs an audience to develop, where artists keep 100% of the Box Office!

Find out more about the SHIFT+SPACE programme here.