CONTEMPORARY SOLO PERFORMANCE FESTIVAL

LÄBU

Body Count

by

EDWARD SKAINES
Australia

Author and performer: EDWARD SKAINES
Lighting design: ROMMI RUTTAS and LEON ALLIK
Dramaturgical support: SANDRA KÜPPER and GIACOMO VERONESI
Producers: JÜRI NAEL and ANNIKA ÜPRUS

Production: CPPM | Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre
Premiere: 6 September 2025 EMTA black box

How can the fragile, often invisible experience of male vulnerability be exposed and explored through performance?

I want to engage in a creative dialogue with my own conditioned masculinity. I want to deconstruct it, and reassemble it on stage – making something visceral, experiential by interrogating the scripts I’ve inherited: the stoicism, the suppression, the performative strength. What does it mean to choose vulnerability when it has so often been denied me in moments of crisis? How do I reclaim it as power?

This is not a confession. It is confrontation. An excavation of the body as a site of contradiction and crisis – where tenderness and violence, silence and scream, coexist.

Edward Skaines

Edward Skaines is an Australian actor, performer, and devised physical theatre maker. Drawing from a diverse training background at The Actors Centre Australia, Beverly Hills Playhouse, École Philippe Gaulier, and ATTIS Theatre, Edward brings a unique approach to his work, blending dynamic movement with inventive expression across film, television, and live performance.

His theatre practice emphasises physicality, clowning, and movement-based storytelling, allowing him to push the boundaries of traditional performance. With a deep interest in exploring human relationships, Edward’s creative focus lies in communicating complex ideas and emotions through the power of movement and physical expression within spoken frameworks.