Jade Hackett, Choreographer, Hex, National Theatre

What has the journey been like to get back to theatres opening for you personally?

Honestly? I feel like it’s erasing… the theatre and artistic space is about erasing the things that we gained in lockdown. Real feelings of anxiety, real feelings of impostor syndrome, doubting your talents and your skillset that you had so abundantly before it. And reengaging and reconnecting. Learning how to tell stories again, with a new, through a bit more of a new human lens. I feel, you know, we we’ve become so much more connected to human energy and with the lack of connection that we had throughout that time, physical connexion that we had, it’s just about relearning. It’s almost like a baby in starting to walk again. In some ways, do you get what I mean, having to relearn all that stuff again. It’s daunting. Yeah, it’s really frightening when you first come into it, but the theatre spaces are the best healing spaces for us to walk, to find that rhythm again.

And how is it to be back now? How are you feeling about being back in the swing of things?

What is taking me a little bit longer to get used to is the speed. Because I almost forgot how fast we move and how vibrant everything – all the molecules in the body shakes. I’d forgotten that feeling, so that is like exhilarating again and getting back to that vivaciousness of my body. Which I’m loving, I’m really loving. And working out, you know, taking off all those locked down pounds.

Can you discuss one and the thing that you enjoy most about working in theatre?

That is, that is hard to pinpoint. I feel like… there’s so many things, but if I’m honest, I just have to answer all these questions honestly. There’s a moment that I’m really looking forward to and waiting for, which is when you’ve done the performance, you’ve gone through all the rehearsal of the R&D – even before – all of the R&D process or workshops you’ve done, all of the rehearsals you’ve done all of the tech, all of… so many things have gone wrong, the lighting and all of it, and then by the time you get to that last performance, and you hear that sound. It’s like wind. It’s not even a clap, do you know what I mean? Almost like the energy. The energy of… like you can’t find that there’s no drug. There’s no alcohol, there’s no food, nothing that can replace that. That… just a wall of energy flying to your nose. Do you what I mean? It’s like the most intense feeling and I’m really, really looking forward to hearing and feeling that feeling again.