ZAO // Umbhäs 

Z.A.O. - Zombies, Aliens and Others. The project was a world building activity that gave birth to our ZAO, the Umbhas. Together with my group, we imagined the Umbhas to be from another dimension where trust is innate rather than built. They came to Earth after their dimension became unbalanced and they arrived in order to restore their equilibrium and spread the trust among humans. Thus, the concept of the project was born. The research began with the focus on the notion of alienation, particularly in what we regard as criminals, which then evolved to the idea of sensory deprivation. 

​

By being sensory deprived, in our case blind, we would be more vulnerable to the people in front of us and thus have more reason to spread trust. Tightly connected with this aspect was that of rhythm. While blindfolded we started creating beats with our hands and feet. We needed to trust each other in order to be able to perform while blindfolded, in front of other people. 

These two notions, trust and rhythm, are what came to define the Umbhas. Our communication became our outcome in the way that we wanted people to participate and engage with the performance.