Edward Thomasson's The Whole Routine is a musical performance about control and desire. Thomasson's text is a collection of slippages, where strangers collide with unexpressed longing, discipline is put under pressure, and the possibility of falling out of time begins to emerge. The Whole Routine addresses the delicate friction of the public in our private spaces and the private in our public selves.
‘Edward Thomasson’s The Whole Routine captures something exquisitely delicate about the experience of unease – and easefulness – in one’s own body. When I first saw the performance, I remember thinking yes, that’s exactly what it's like, having never before seen the tender pains and pleasures of having a body reflected back to me with such clarity. This text carries that same charge: brilliant, strange, euphoric.’ – Oisín McKenna, author of Evenings and Weekends
‘Edward Thomasson has made a collective score out of the place where longing and discipline collide; a tender space where the desire to move in perfect harmony tips into the desire to control, and the only honest response is to keep going anyway, differently. An intimate witness to the wobbly risk of being in relation when everyone is in pain, The Whole Routine is a manual for the dangers and pleasures of poetics in action.’ – Jemma Desai, writer, convenor, and artist
‘Between risk and safety, performance and rehearsal, public and private, in The Whole Routine Thomasson presents a work of radical vulnerability that explores what it means to perform, both on stage and in life, and the propulsive force of being a desiring subject. It asks what it might mean to stage vulnerability as a show, how falling apart can be a tool for coming together, and serves as a reminder of the importance of the musical form for contemporary art. The Whole Routine will be an essential resource for all those interested in performance and provides an insight into Thomasson’s singular artistic practice.’ – Fiontán Moran, Curator, International Art, Tate Modern