Clara Potter-Sweet and Ben Kulvichit give every impression of having something to say. The two performers of Emergency Chorus open with a curious duet, striking a series of poses like human semaphore signs. Hard to know what it is all about, but it is the start of the show and they do it with poise and concentration so you give them the benefit of the doubt.
Indeed, things then seem to come into focus with a scene about barometers and the pioneering days of weather forecasting. The Victorians knew they were on to something when they realised they could measure changes in air pressure, but it took time to interpret the signs. A jokey scene much later on, in which Potter-Sweet plays an earnest and garrulous interviewer at a science conference quizzing Kulvichit as a taciturn, long-bearded mystic hermit, confirms Ways of Knowing is about attempts to predict the future.
But this raises two questions. One is what the intervening scenes are supposed to add. There is a vigorous dance sequence in which the two stamp out a syncopated beat for rather a long time, which could mean anything, and a gloomy section crawling around a coal mine – a reference, perhaps, to deep time and the bedding down of carbon over centuries. Or perhaps not.
The other question is, even if we could puzzle out a meaning from this deliberate collision of scenes and styles, what do Potter-Sweet and Kulvichit have to say about it? It is true that in this time of climate emergency, artists find it hard to conceive of a future. But this introspective show, one of the winners of the 2025 Underbelly Untapped award, seems nervous about even doing that much. Yes, predicting the future is a fool’s errand, but so what?
At Underbelly, Cowgate, Edinburgh, until 24 August
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