Preview: Inside Papillons' Radical Approach to Openness at Lakeside Arts

There’s a limit to what can be understood about a performance before it’s seen. Process can be described, intentions articulated, structures outlined, but the work itself remains, necessarily, out of reach. The process is visible - a genuine, deeply embedded collaboration, presented as part of the work itself. But more revealing, is the logic beneath it. Access is not positioned as an addition. It’s embedded in the work’s form and its construction. And so, a simple proposition: access not as an addition to the work. It is the work.

Process as material

Papillons began with Sept Papillons, Kaija Saariaho’s 2000 composition for solo cello: seven brief musical miniatures written in the aftermath of her opera L’Amour de Loin. Saariaho described the work as a movement away from grand structure and towards “a metaphor of the ephemeral: butterfly.”

It’s that sense of fragmentation and transformation that became the foundation for Papillons. But from the outset, Manchester Collective’s interest extended beyond interpretation and into perception itself.
Enter Thick & Tight.

“We were drawn not just to what Thick & Tight make,” says Creative Director Jasmine Kent Rodgman, “but how they make it. Their process, their ethos - is part of the work.”

And it’s that principle that appears to shape Papillons' structure. Rather than presenting music and movement as sealed, polished forms, the work seems interested in exposing the mechanics beneath them: choreography, composition, discussion and reflection placed alongside one another, each circling the same source material but from different angles.

“We each made our own work,” Thick & Tight explain, “but what’s shared is how we think about it. The process becomes visible.” That idea feels central to the project. Saariaho’s Sept Papillons is itself a work of fragmentation and recurrence - gestures appear briefly, shift and disappear almost as quickly as they arrive. Papillon appears to extend that logic outward, treating collaboration not as a route towards singularity, but as a series of evolving responses between the performers, the musicians and the audience alike.

Collaboration without collapse

Artistic and creative co-creation, in theory at least, implies total equality. In practice, though, it requires deeply defined structure, flexibility, and a willingness to relinquish control at the right moments.

“Collaboration is hard,” Rodgman admits, “And co-creation doesn’t mean an absence of leadership - it means knowing when to step forward and when to step back.” In Papillons, authorship appears both clearly defined and deliberately porous. Thick & Tight shape the choreographic language, while Manchester Collective hold the musical framework. Alongside Saariaho and Holst’s existing works sits a new commission by interdisciplinary composer and artist CHAINES, whose work - super analytical, deeply performative and concerned with perception itself - feels naturally aligned with the project’s wider concerns.

But what emerges from the conversations around Papillons is less a hierarchy than a continuous negotiation between forms. The script was developed through a shared discussion: I imagine a process of exploring how each artist heard the passage of music, what imagery or emotion it evoked, how those responses might then feed back into movement, sound, or text.

“The framework might be held by someone,” Rodgman explains, “but it’s moulded by everyone.” That principle seems to extend beyond process into the work’s formal logic. Rather than collapsing its collaborators into a single unified voice, Papillons appears interested in preserving difference: distinct artistic sensibilities held in conversation with one another, sometimes converging, sometimes pulling apart.

Whether that produces harmony or productive tension is something the live performance itself will reveal.

Collaboration without collapse

Artistic and creative co-creation, in theory at least, implies total equality. In practice, though, it requires deeply defined structure, flexibility, and a willingness to relinquish control at the right moments.

“Collaboration is hard,” Rodgman admits, “And co-creation doesn’t mean an absence of leadership - it means knowing when to step forward and when to step back.”

In Papillons, authorship appears both clearly defined and deliberately porous. Thick & Tight shape the choreographic language, while Manchester Collective hold the musical framework. Alongside Saariaho and Holst’s existing works sits a new commission by interdisciplinary composer and artist CHAINES, whose work - super analytical, deeply performative and concerned with perception itself - feels naturally aligned with the project’s wider concerns.

But what emerges from the conversations around Papillons is less a hierarchy than a continuous negotiation between forms. The script was developed through a shared discussion: I imagine a process of exploring how each artist heard the passage of music, what imagery or emotion it evoked, how those responses might then feed back into movement, sound, or text. “The framework might be held by someone,” Rodgman explains, “but it’s moulded by everyone.”

That principle seems to extend beyond process into the 

work’s formal logic. Rather than collapsing its collaborators into a single unified voice, Papillons appears interested in preserving difference: distinct artistic sensibilities held in conversation with one another, sometimes converging, sometimes pulling apart. Whether that produces harmony or productive tension is something the live performance itself will reveal.

Access as Form

Accessibility is often framed as a practical concern. Here though, it’s structural. Captioning, audio description, and direct address are all embedded right into the piece - not as translation, but as the basis of its composition. “There’s an assumption that you need prior knowledge,” Thick & Tight say, “We’re trying to remove that barrier.” For the Collective, this extends into the conditions of performance itself. “A lot of classical spaces carry rigidity,” Rodgman says. “Silence, stillness, distance. We’re interested in loosening that.”

Relaxed performance principles - visible house lights, permission to move, to respond as one feels - are fully integrated into Papillons. Deliberately. As part of a broader attempt to rethink how audiences encounter performance, particularly within the rigid conventions still associated with classical music spaces.

What’s striking, though, is the tone of that attempt. Accessibility here is not framed as correction or disruption, but real openness. “It’s an invitation, not a demand,” Thick & Tight explain. And that distinction feels important. In a cultural environment increasingly shaped by immediacy, and instructed (and forced) engagement, Papillons appears to move in the opposite direction: gently loosening the rules around attention, interpretation and participation. 

A direction that trusts audiences enough to meet the work on their own terms. Crucially, that openness seems to extend inward as well as outward. The collaborative structure of Papillons appears to ask the same vulnerability of its performers and makers that it asks of its audience: responsiveness rather than control, presence rather than performance.

For Thick & Tight, that marks something of a departure.Much of the duo’s previous work draws heavily on external figures, cultural references and acts of characterisation. Here, the focus narrows a little. “It’s not about anyone else,” they explain. “It’s about the people in the room.” That includes collaborators, musicians and audience alike. Without the scaffolding of reference or persona, the work seems to rely more directly on immediacy and human connection. “It felt uncertain at first,” they admit. “But once we started rehearsing, it was there.”

A slower form of attention

Structurally, Papillons appears to resist immediacy. “It builds gradually,” Thick & Tight explain. “Layer by layer.” That pacing feels quietly at odds with the current cultural demand for instant legibility and immediate capture. Instead, Papillons seems to propose a different kind of audience contract altogether: one rooted less in spectacle than attention; in patience, accumulation and openness. “There’s a lot of information,” they note. “But through that, space opens up.”

And maybe that space is exactly the point. Not necessarily clarity, nor ambiguity for ambiguity’s sake, but as a means of creating room for audiences to encounter the work without being pushed too quickly towards conclusion or interpretation.

When asked what they ultimately hope audiences take from the piece, neither collaborator offers anything resembling a fixed answer.
“Engagement,” Thick & Tight say simply. “A range of responses.” For Jasmine Kent Rodgman, the question underpinning the work feels broader still: “How do you perceive? Music, light, each other.” It’s a question that sits both inside and outside the performance itself. Aesthetic, certainly, but also (and perhaps most importantly) quietly social. How attention is directed. How meaning is formed. How people occupy a shared space together.

Of course, all of this still exists at the level of process, conversation and intention. The live encounter itself remains unseen: the chemistry of the room, the rhythm of the piece, the ways these ideas either cohere or resist coherence in performance. And that gap matters.

Because Papillons, by design, seems resistant to pre-definition. It proposes something experiential rather than declarative: a work that can be described, discussed and circled around, but not fully understood until it is collectively inhabited and experienced. 

For now, these conversations offer something closer to a map than a verdict - a sketch of the thinking, structures and questions underpinning the work before stepping into the room itself.
The performance comes next.

Papillons performs at Lakeside Arts on Wed 6 May 2026.