Charlie

“What appears as a flaw can become a distinctive quality, and behind the all-encompassing label of ‘disabled’ there can be infinite expansiveness.”

"I often say that if someone has never met a person with a disability, we shouldn't expect them to be sensitive toward us. It is up to us to make ourselves visible — after that, they will no longer react to us with such awkwardness."

I used the remaining blank page to scribble some ideas down during Charlie, created by Adrienn Hód and performed by Károly Tóth. I witnessed Charlie at the Multiplié Festival on the 23rd of April, 2026.

When movement is involuntary, can we read the mover’s intention with certainty?

I overhear the visual interpreter whisper, They are shaking the bag. My brain instantly engages in an imaginary dialogue, Are they shaking the bag? Or is the shaking of the bag a result of a series of involuntary muscle contractions?

Fact, the bag is being shaken. Fact, there is no way for us to determine whether the bag is shaken intentionally or not. Fact, we can be certain that the context within which we have been called to observe the movement of this bag and the person who is interacting with the bag is intentional.

This is when I realised—in a felt-sense kind-of way—how delicate this work was. How deeply understanding of the conditions needed for movement, in all its complexity, to come to the foreground. Movement, not for what it can mean (movement as gesture, movement as symbol), but movement for how it can make us feel-think-respond-daydream (movement as texture, phenomenology, poetry). Think of Dana Michel or Meg Stuart, and the way they instrumentalise duration to foreground movement in all its complexity, exposing its affective range.

Time is measured in achievements. A cause for celebration, no matter how significant we may assume any action to be in anticipation of its outcome. Who’s to say what’s significant anyway? What’s simple, or easy? What’s challenging, or hard? A phone that needs charging needs that charger to be plugged into the socket. However long it takes to plug the charger into the socket is however long it takes to plug the charger into the socket. We celebrate the joys of the charger plugged, but quickly wish it wasn’t. Achievement brings relief, it also measures the end of a particular measure of time. Every next achievement clarifies the point. Achievement is not the point.

The red marks left on the skin from the simple act of applying deodorant. Did I ever hurt myself applying deodorant?

Repetition highlights purpose. It reminds us, this event, this ritual was set up on purpose. All time has is purpose. Duration exposes purpose. This particular achievement—the unbuttoning of the pants—measures the time of subtlety. I wish Virginia Woolf could be here tonight.

The fist, made, unmade, made unmade again. And again. The meaning of effort held tenderly in time, a smile. Affect, involuntary. I, too, am surprised in this moment, taken. I, too, am experiencing disbelief. Hyper-flexibility strained strings biomorphic songs. A snail. A branch. A spider’s catch. Remember how spiders sneak up before they pounce their pray?

The red marks left on the skin from the simple act of applying deodorant are still there.

In the performance Charlie by Adrienn Hód, the wheelchair user Károly Tóth carries out a series of everyday tasks. Plugging a cord into an outlet requires many attempts when the fingers are completely stiff. Drinking from a water bottle seems almost exhausting when the body cannot bend properly. 

The performance is intimate and vulnerable, but also humorous when the audience realizes we are allowed to laugh together with the performer. Charlie is the performance that most gives me a so-called “aha moment.” The dancer’s actions highlight how living as the character Charlie involves a shift in the experience of time, in the sense that time is subjective. Of course, I already know that life for someone with a severe disability differs from my own, but the performance elevates the theme from practicalities to something existential. 

It makes me reflect not only on how time is experienced in Charlie’s case, but also on how both small and large events in life take on new meaning as a result.

Charlie is a highlight of the festival.