KLAZO. Theatre Deli.

Klazo in ancient Greek means ‘to scream’. Klazomania describes a compulsion towards repetitive shouting, grunting, and barking, a mental state with some similarities to the vocal tics often seen in Tourette’s Syndrome. Daniel Jones, Maddie Mellon, and Emilia Nurmukhamet’s 25-minute work about living with Tourette’s, KLAZO, is more of a petition for understanding than a scream. Nevertheless, the piece, part dance and part performance art, still carries some emotional heft.

Performers Jones and Mellon both have vocal and motor tics. The former has been diagnosed with Tourette’s and the latter with symptoms of the condition. Mellon is the more adept dancer and takes the major solo role. Both impress in the elegance with which tics have been incorporated into the rhythm of movement and words.

Perhaps what comes across most powerfully is the infectious joy the pair feel expressing movements and words that in other circumstances they may struggle to suppress. There is anger too. Jagged black lines, etched in charcoal, track the nervous pathways in the body through which the urge to tic travel.

Much of the piece sees the duo perform with each other, at times playfully embracing and at times indignantly pushing apart. Other elements see the performers interact with plaster cast representations of their body parts. The isolated torsos, faces, and limbs dangling from the ceiling presumably intend to communicate the detachment, even fury, some individuals with Tourette’s feel towards the elements of their body that tic. “Can they take it, so we can rest?” Mellon asks of a disembodied white arm.

Composer Kay Rowan’s top-notch musical accompaniment to KLAZO, heavy on new age strings and piano, sees a single main theme articulated in a variety of different ways. Tainted Saint’s lacily gothic white costumes are tremendous too, even though the performers switch them early on for sweatpants.

KLAZO has been through two iterations already and still feels like work in progress. For those who know little about the lived experience of Tourette’s, the 30-minute Q&A at the end of the show may well be the most intellectually enlightening component of the evening. Indeed, one wonders whether, at 25 minutes, there is enough here to justify a solo showing. But there is humour, pathos, and joyfulness here too.

Co-Creators: Daniel Jones, Maddie Mellon and Emilia Nurmukhamet