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Regional secretary with the National Education Union
Follow the Movement: August 16, 2023
Matthew Hawkins reviews of A Couple of Humans, Party Scene, You & Me, Woodhill
Shyam Dattani and Giacomo Pini in You & Me [Leslie Martin]

NINE years in the making, Whole Hog’s official version of Makoto Shinkai’s 2013 anime film is a love story based on the original Japanese “koi,” meaning love as a longing for someone in solitude rather than the later, Westernised idea of romance. The engaging story explores seven individuals living in the crush of a metropolis struggling to connect to those that are close to them. 

The “everyperson” inference in the work’s title does not fully summarise this pair’s idiosyncratic honing of a presentation that could be described as live sculpture or off-beat installation.

They feature low-tech knits and nylons. They deploy lavish live camera-work and deft illusion. They obsessively make a world of surprise and wonder that proffers universal access. 

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