The original novel was created as a collage from medical and anthropological textbooks and cheap Victorian novels. It is a violent criticism of man, told through a nightmarish succession of sexually subversive and religiously abusive images where love somehow remains ever present.

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Operating as a collective, the devising process saw each of the company members take the role of choreographer in turn. Using each page of the novel as a starting point for a minute of choreography, Impermanence stitched the fragments together, echoing Ernst's original process of creating the novel.

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The piece is dream-like with stark and rapid changes in sound and scene, encouraging the audience to enter into the surrealist logic of the work. Highly theatrical, with absurd facial expressions, visually striking costumes and an original soundtrack accompanied by live voice from the performers who regularly change characters, assuming images and people from the book, including a priest, two halves of a schizophrenic child, a wolf, a leech, two butterflies and a shark. It is relentlessly physical with fast-paced ensemble sections, animated tableau and intricate choreography.

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★★★★ 'Precision-crafted and subversively beautiful' The Guardian

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★★★★★ 'This is what dance should be.' Three Weeks

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★★★★★ 'Utterly captivating... a triumph' Fresh Air Radio

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★★★★ 'The dancers... are phenomenal' TVBomb

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★★★★ 'If David Lynch made multi-layered dance performance..' To Do List

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