Igloos Don't Melt

Igloos Don’t Melt is a post-dramatic solo performance using ice to explore our relationship to home, the emotional impact of displacement, and the complex politics of nostalgia. Melting ice functions as both material and metaphor in an impossible task of freezing time. Through striking actions like building walls from ice, smashing ice to retrieve preserved objects, and balancing on melting ice-blocks, the work evokes the emotional instability caused by leaving a beloved place behind.

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These physical tasks are layered with found texts including: lists of objects from my childhood home, an estate agent listing, and instructions for building an igloo. 

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The work explores our complex relationship with nostalgia - how it roots us in community and identity, but also presents a danger to inhabiting progress. Today, nostalgia is a leading political movement, looking to the past for answers as people have lost hope in the future - but the past is never quite as good as we remember it to be.  

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Co-created and performed by Claire Leith 

Directed by Lorenzo Montanini

Produced by Sean Landis

Producer Fiona Clements 

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Supported by Battersea Arts Centre, The Yard Theatre, and Camden Peoples Theatre.​