The Nearest Exit

The Nearest Exit began as part of a month-long residency in Yokohama, Japan. It is a piece about flight, about aeroplane disasters, about the delirium of long-haul travel, about desire, about departure and arrival – and about only having two minutes left to live.

It uses the notion of a two minute ‘golden period’, referring to the pop science idea that the maximum time you have to make your way off a plane in the event of surviving a crash is two minutes. The show is based on a strict structure, using a countdown timer to create repeating sections.

Ira – part fallen angel part flight attendant – uses video, dance, and a variety of texts and tasks, from the factual to the surreal, to explore what you might do with a two minute window of escape, or with your last two minutes alive. Two minutes of fighting to survive or resigning yourself to the opposite, two minutes to honour your life or two minutes wasted on the mundane, two minutes to make peace with the world – or to go down kicking and screaming.

Developed as part of Rules and Regs with ST Spot, Yokohama. The piece was shown in-development at the Tokyo Performing Arts Meeting in February 2013, and subsequently at The Nightingale in Brighton, Forest Fringe at The Gate, and at Matadero Madrid as part of Fringe Madrid 2014.