Since the summer of 2022, Chimera has been brewing a new performance about, with and for medical students. It's about an important rite of passage into medical professionalism: students' first encounter with the body of a deceased donor as part of their learning of Anatomy. This can be an emotional experience: existential and ethical anxiety mix with awe, wonder and morbid fascination. We're drawing from observations and interviews with first year medical students about their time in the King's iconic Dissecting Rooms. Our plan is that medical students will also be our first audience, with the performance offering an opportunity to reflect back on this seminal experience and to discuss how it might impact their interactions with living patients in the future. In March 2023 we shared our interim findings and experiments at an event at Science Gallery London (see images below).
My collaborators on this project include puppetry expert Alicia Britt and Jon M Armstrong, an experience designer working across light, performance magic and theatre. Both Alicia and Jon are King's Artists. Matt Urmenyi is making sounds and regular collaborators Phil and Bex complete the creative team. The project is also supported by colleagues at King's College London, including Dr Tanya Shaw, Dr Mandeep Gill Sagoo, Kirsty Massetti and Dr Bernadette O'Neill.
film by Ffion Prichard
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