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Reconnect: Digital Raving

One man’s lockdown is too much to bear until he reconnects with friends for a remote rave.

Alone and anxious, beatboxer, live looper and theatre-maker SK Shlomo struggles to cope with the pain of bereavement in lockdown until he reconnects with friends, strangers and the music he loves best in a spontaneous ‘remote rave’.

A theatrical mix of storytelling and live-looped beatboxing, Reconnect: Digital Raving is a short film adaptation of Reconnect, the postponed ‘rave-theatre’ solo show that was due to premiere at the 2020 Edinburgh Festival before Covid-19 caused its cancellation.

Created in collaboration with BAFTA-nominated filmmaker Christian Britten, Reconnect: Digital Raving explores the suffering of one man’s loneliness as he grapples with the challenges of lockdown life through memories of a forgotten world. From the nostalgia of the childhood parties of his noisy Middle-Eastern immigrant family to sneaking in, underage, to witness the sheer excitement of his first rave. Reconnect pushes through the pain of loss and isolation to find joy, expression and an intriguing new way to process our emotions even when we are stuck on our own: digital raving.

Directed by award-winning theatre director Matthew Xia, and written and performed by record-breaking beatboxer SK Shlomo, Reconnect: Digital Raving is their first venture into ‘rave-theatre’. A full length solo theatre show, and an album by SK Shlomo, both called Reconnect, are planned.

Filmed in Lockdown is a series of new works of literary, musical, visual, and performance arts, commissioned for Culture in Quarantine by Arts Council England and Â鶹ԼÅÄ Arts.

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14 minutes

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