FringeReview Scotland 2025
DUSSSKK
Snap-Elastic
Genre: Neurodiverse
Venue: The Platform, Easterhouse
Festival: FringeReview Scotland
Low Down
DUSSSKK is a blend of artistic adventure and narrative vocal structure which combines to engage an audience in a very unique and moving way which changes in every single performance. Aimed at and developed along with neurodivergent teenagers, DUSSSKK uses voice as a means of communication but with movement and costume completely integrated allow the experience to be enjoyed by its target audience. It is therefore a performance which can at times work, at other times needs to readjust itself to become more engaging with those that it wants to engage.
Review
Snap Elastic are now a multi-year funded organisation through Creative Scotland who have been working for the last five years in developing DUSSSKK. What they have developed is an engaging performance where success is judged, not by the applause but by the influence of the audience on the performers.
It makes this journey unique as every performance takes on the personality and the diversity of those who come through the door for the experience.
It leads to a different set of expectations which allow the experience to be enjoyed more than to be challenged.
Songs and repetitive movements are used to anchor the performance allowing performers to have places where they can come back and converge and the audience can feel that they are part of something that is structured.
We end up with a parade where on the day that I saw almost all of the audience engaged as a finale.
It is a challenge for those of us who are not neurodivergent because to engage with DUSSSKK, ironically, is unavailable to us in a way that neurodivergent teenagers have been denied access to the arts. They are often denied because their behaviours and needs do not fit within the constraints of a “theatrical” experience.
This asks – what is a theatrical experience?
Having spoken to the company prior to reviewing the piece, one of the concerns raised was how reviewers would view it. I could understand their concern because in terms of viewing this with the usual reviewer toolbox it would lead to being critical in ways that are likely to stop you from understanding the purpose, the point, and indeed the enjoyment of the target audience. I am, however being as stereotypical of reviewers as people can be around the neurodivergence.
On the day that I was in, I had one young man who had hearing aids who found the noise a little bit much and was asking at what time it all finished. He was also uncomfortable with being touched. It was a barrier that performers sought to accommodate but what they got by the end was the barrier dropping, testimony to the effect they had achieved. Having slipped back in towards the end and found the viewing of it more palatable, he came up at the end to give one of the actors a hug. That simple connection of human upon human contact is the point of DUSSSKK. This is not, meant to be a narrative structure where you begin with the beginning, it meets an issue, there’s rising action leads to a climax followed by falling action and resolution at the end.
This is experiential and the performers are imbued with the quality of respect and not the arrogance of talent to allow a young person who wants a quiet moment to be off in a corner, to not get troubled by that. And if they have a member of the audience, wanting to touch and spend time with them or copy their movement, then they engage with that. If the audience want to direct the movement, the performers are led by the audience rather than the other way about. All is allowable and encouraged, allowing the audience to feel they have something for them, about them, but also more importantly, with them.
What you experience is impactful in a way that traditional forms, or forms of theatre have sometimes lost. That’s the impact of DUSSSKK.
In more than one sense, I wanted to turn to the children and young people who were in the audience and ask them to review rather than I, because their opinion would be much more valid.
What I saw was engagement many theatre companies would give their eye teeth for. Aside from the one aforementioned young person, this hard to reach group, difficult to contain class, volatile section of society was laughing on the cushions, dancing on the stage, taking and working with detachable costume, wearing what they would and traversing the space with creative ease within an arena designed for them. Prejudices and clichés aside, it took a little bit of time for some of the audience to engage fully with it. But they all were still there at the end – performing.
Environmentally the lighting was used to give a calmness and softness. It worked best when the sound was mellow, almost soporific but also relaxing to the point at which you left in such a better mood. On at least one occasion it was a little bit too loud and pushed the boundaries a little bit. However, it felt like they learnt from that and brought some of the volume down.
The costumes were great, exceptionally outlandish, and I don’t think I’m going to see purple quite in the same way again. The textures of the material clearly designed to give textural opportunities.
DUSSSKK demonstrates that the arts are for everybody, but not all of the arts are open to everybody. It is important that we engage not just with the idea of performance being an art form that is defined by artists, but performance is an artform which is designed democratically, by the very people it is supposed to serve. Work like DUSSSKK gives credence, credibility and respect to a marginalized group who are ill-served.
And special mention to the stage manager and producer who right at the very beginning were approached by audience members and instead of hiding in their backstage roles, they were incredibly comfortable and encouraging. An entire company approach in action.
