“His performance is visceral… Ratnamohan has a gift for holding his audience through his artful journey…” – The West Australian

Creator, performer and former soccer player Ahilan Ratnamohan draws from the sweaty, skilled physicality of the beautiful game’ in a startling, dance-inspired work. Described by Ratnamohan as a kind of ‘football dance theatre’, SDS1 immerses audiences in the surreal, visceral, momentous and poetic experience of the match.

SDS1 explores a language not only physical, but theatrical and psychological as well. Drawing on his personal experiences as a player, Ratnamohan delves into the psyche of the vulnerable warrior of the pitch – striving, loved, hated, worshipped, scorned or triumphant. Through sheer athletic prowess, both with and without the ball, he extracts the essences, emotions and gestures of the game to create a work that sees the player caught in the performance, rather than in control of it.

This is soccer as theatre: physically charged, stripped back, extracted, frozen, repeated and abstracted. Beautiful and ugly at once.