The open­ing scene of Con­flu­ence (Akram Khan and Nitin Sawney, Sadlers Wells 2010) is a story about hav­ing your pass­port taken away for check­ing. The bor­der guards watch you, their eyes con­tain the power of the state. You watch your pass­port leave the room, you hope it reappears. Akram Khan and Nitin Sawney, the dan­cer and the musi­cian, are in per­fect uni­son of words and ges­tures as they per­form this. Although it’s Khan’s story, the tan­dem present­a­tion by Sawney means it could be anyone’s. The eyes have power, they con­tain con­trol, says Khan. 


Here’s the trailer, though you can’t hear the exchange about passports. 

At the UK bor­der there are signs remark­ing on (not apo­lo­gising for) the delays in passing through bor­der con­trol. These signs invite you, the good cit­izen, to cel­eb­rate the stricter checks for block­ing incomers, they nor­m­al­ise and insti­tutiton­al­ise your fear of the other. The eyes of the bor­der guard needn’t worry you, red pass­port holder, you’re allowed through. But they’re sharp eyes, non­ethe­less and you might still flinch at the gaze of power. 

So when the bor­der guard is star­ing down the queue, not at the per­son in front of her, you won­der what, who she’s look­ing for. But she’s got soft eyes, that’s unex­pec­ted. She’s look­ing for the cry­ing baby, and stands up to go and bring the baby’s fam­ily to the front of the queue. There’s a moment of care in amongst the regime of control. 

I won­der if jobs that are made up of look­ing are tedi­ous because they require repet­it­ive glances at bland faces, or excit­ing because there is always some­thing to see – someone new. I won­der also what it’s like to look for the shock, the unex­pec­ted, the wrong, the absent, the abnor­mal. It’s a dif­fi­cult men­tal pro­cess, I guess. And I won­der also at the pleas­ures of power.