Slow-Motion Gives Forced Migrants the Chance to Move at Their Own Speed

Setting the Stage in Belgrade

In the spring of 2024, five Slavic-speaking theatre admirers who had moved to Serbia in 2022 as forced migrants met in a black box theatre in Belgrade. This project, Phiz-Drama, came about through an online invitation from Kamon-Kamon Teaching Theatre and Lika Robakidze’s New Roles studio.

Phiz-Drama, a slow-motion theatre project, developed organically out of my own migration. My theatrical training transitions between video drama and physical theatre, ranging from Slava Polunin’s Snowshow ecosystem of clowning to time-based attention practices with Katsura Kan. When I relocated to a new city, it created a significant barrier for me: the language of my dual career—theatre and medicine—was no longer the dominant one in my new environment. This shift forced me to rethink how I practice my profession as a Russian-speaking director.

In Belgrade, I began working with actress Lika Robakidze and her New Roles studio for Slavic-speaking actors who found themselves working late shifts cleaning, barista-ing, or freelancing rather than performing. I joined them in developing what we humorously termed a “gym for displaced actors”: a place where we could maintain our skills when stages and money were hard to come by. Engagement with these other individuals who had to leave their homes precipitated the major lesson I learned: that tempo is also ethical.

This “gym” eventually developed into a small community, Kamon-Kamon Teaching Theatre, which existed for over two and a half years. During that time, it hosted two productions, Penguins by W. Hub and Wasted by R. Dymshakov. Kamon-Kamon Teaching Theatre also organized a directing workshop where migrants developed short performances inspired by the dramatic works and popular films like Marvel’s The Avengers.

By the time I put out a call for the slow-motion physical theatre project, there was already a loose network of people who believed that our space could be their own—self-organized and on a small budget. The call invited participants into weekly two-hour physical theatre sessions (focused on non-verbal theatre) where we would work toward a final performance based on the short stories of Daniil Kharms. Admission to the project was by donation.

The five participants of the slow-motion project were Anya, Asya, Alina, Lika, and Vlad. My wife, Anya, a clinical psychologist, serves as the unwavering anchor of my world. Asya, an actress from Saint-Petersburg, demonstrated remarkable courage by stepping away from a thriving legal career to pursue her true passion; her path recently culminated in her recognition as a laureate in the international World of Russian-Speaking Theater competition, an honor bestowed by the journal Teatral. Alina, who hails from Kazakhstan, struck me as a truly “magical” and sincere spirit when we met during a mountain theatre camp that Lika organized. Lika, the head of New Roles studio, is an actress and producer whose unwavering belief in my projects and dedicated presence in every workshop I’ve conducted, spanning from directing to theatrical clowning, truly stands out. Unfortunately, she was unable to attend the final performance of Phiz-Drama due to her busy work schedule. Finally, Vlad, an information technology specialist in Belgrade’s gaming industry, is courageously striving to pivot into the arts. The sheer dedication he pours into this transition is truly admirable.

For our work together, every one of them brought in a passport history and a personal item they’ve carried along with them on their migration journey: a book, a mug, a blanket, a gift from a grandmother. All of this became seed material for our final production, Tales of Daniil Kharms. My responsibility was to facilitate the tempo and safety of our process and ensure that the participants’ proposals were edited into a shared composition.

It was not a therapy program, but rather a five-session community theatre project that ended in the staging of a short, wordless piece. Our shared tools were Butoh and comedic, slow-motion stage craft: We were slowing down intentionally for choice, clarity, and connection. Moving slowly sounded like an aesthetic decision but eventually became a way to rehearse consent and agency for persons whose recent lives had been determined by speeds they did not choose.

Why Slow-Motion?

Forced migration is a choreography of extremes: hurried exits and long bureaucratic waits, bodies caught between rush and freeze. Slow-motion provided a third pace and posed the question: What happens if we prioritize tempo itself instead of letting the intended emotional outcome dictate our pace?

Slowness made choices visible, intensified intention, and placed physical action on equal footing with language. Within this slow tempo, performers could sense the choice to continue, stop, or postpone. The group understood these intentions through the actions themselves rather than relying on a common language. Our tools of Butoh, attention, pantomime clarity, and clown playfulness were merely stylistic choices; they were the way we navigated the performance.

The Exercises (So You Can Repeat Them Tomorrow)

At the Phiz-Drama sessions, we developed a compact toolkit of exercises that participants could take into their lives:

1. Speed Scale

Participants move within a designated area, modulating their speed along a scale from zero, representing complete stillness, to ten, indicating maximum, explosive movement. The facilitator announces numerical values, prompting the group to embody the distinct physical qualities associated with each level. For example, level three corresponds to a deliberate crawl, whereas a level seven reflects a purposeful stride.

This activity cultivates impulse regulation and situational awareness, enabling individuals to deliberately select their internal rhythm amid demanding social or professional contexts rather than responding on autopilot.

2. Dot-and-Dash Sequences

In pairs or small groups, participants create a physical “sentence” composed of “dots” (brief, staccato actions) and “dashes” (continuous, fluid movements). The challenge lies in maintaining a clear, intentional shift between these two movement types even during rapid changes. This approach refines communicative precision by encouraging the segmentation of complex tasks or dialogues into discrete, comprehensible units, thereby preventing the core message from being obscured by ancillary motions.

3. Shadow Work

A pair of participants assume the roles of “Leader” and “Shadow.” The Leader performs slow, intentional movements, while the Shadow attempts to mimic the Leader’s actions with a purposeful delay of half a beat, paying attention not only to limb positioning but also to variations in weight distribution and muscle tension.

Shadow Work fosters deep empathy and attentive listening. It compels participants to anticipate their partner’s rhythms and requirements, cultivating a form of distributed attention crucial for effective collaborative leadership and collective problem-solving.

Each of these exercises contains exits: freezing, observing, or stop signal. In our rehearsals, slow, focused exercises were interspersed with moments of play and laughter so that the work could retain its elasticity.

The Showing: 360 Degrees of Absurdity and Objects

Our silent final performance lasted just fifteen minutes. The audience sat at the center, and the action revolved around them. We combined three texts of Daniil Kharms—The Old Women, Tyuk (Hit!), and Four Illustrations of How a New Idea Baffles a Person Unprepared for It —with the objects that had also made this journey across the border. Each piece emerged from these fundamental exercises and was gradually distilled to its essence. Our momentum came from rhythm and physical objects, which propelled the story forward. A book could transform into a shield at the passport control point, a mug into a listening device on the wall, and a blanket into a portal where someone disappeared and returned as a vampire.

When interpreting The Old Women, we relied on the Speed Scale to highlight the unyielding, almost mechanical quality of the characters’ persistence. For example, instead of depicting a quick, accidental fall, we chose to perform the act of leaning out and losing balance at a slow, deliberate tempo—a level two pace that stretched the moment painfully. This drawn-out slowness gave the absurd wish to “fall out of the window” a strangely expressive inevitability. At such a pace, what the audience witnesses is not a mishap but a repetitive, ritualistic cycle. The tension arises from the clash between the seriousness of the physical action and the irrationality behind it—and this is where the peculiar Kharmsian atmosphere takes hold, making the characters’ stubborn pursuit of the void feel almost hypnotic.

In Tyuk!, we concentrated on patterns resembling Dot-and-Dash Sequences. The sharp, staccato movements of the characters—the dots—stood against their stretched, frozen gazes—the dashes—capturing the fractured nature of Kharms’s reality with striking rhythm.

Lastly, in Four Illustrations of How a New Idea Baffles a Person Unprepared for It, we turned our attention to the profound vulnerability inherent in a creator’s ego. Kharms’s narrative presents a sequence where various professionals (including a Writer) confidently assert their identities, only for a mere passerby to dismissively label them as “shit.” This stark rejection serves as a “new idea,” embodying a reality so profoundly unsettling that it becomes, in the story’s context, a fatal blow. Our production utilized the technique of Shadow Work to illuminate the Writer’s inner turmoil as he grappled with this abrupt disintegration of his perceived self. When he proclaimed, “I am a writer!” his accompanying shadows—performers mirroring his every action with a deliberate half-beat delay—did not simply imitate; rather, they imposed a palpable heaviness on each movement, thereby converting an intangible slight into a physical encumbrance. This deliberate lag in the shadows’ responses created a kind of visual dissonance, underscoring the poignant, almost absurd chasm between the Writer’s steadfast self-perception and the jarring “new reality” that inexorably envelops him.

For the final beat, the five of us came together and shouted, “I am an artist!” three times and stopped abruptly, much like the sudden shock that pushed each of us to leave our old countries.

Context, Care, and Everyday Deescalation

Considering the delicate political situation of migrants in Belgrade, I felt a strong responsibility to ensure the safety and well-being of the participants. Although the group came together through trusted connections, we carefully managed attendees of the final performance. Invitations were tightly regulated, and we chose to exclude media presence altogether. This approach helped protect the participants navigate the sensitive environment. Participants also maintain full control over the images documenting their work, a choice we made to prevent any sense of exploitation and create a space of trust and respect. This control was especially important because the performances generated what we called “buzzing”—a lingering sensory and emotional aftereffect that often follows intense physical expression.

This buzzing reflected a heightened nervous system response, where the emotional weight of the migrants’ stories seemed to remain physically embedded in the performers’ bodies. To address it, we introduced speech sessions at the close of each rehearsal. These sessions functioned as a sort of verbal clearing house, inviting participants to name the specific sensations or mental images that continued to resonate within them. By articulating these experiences, the group externalized internal tensions, giving form to feelings that might otherwise linger unspoken. This collective acknowledgment allowed the performers to consciously release the emotional burden, effectively leaving it behind in the rehearsal space. This practice served as an essential boundary separating the intense work of performance from the participants’ daily lives and helping to prevent the re-traumatization that can arise when difficult material remains unprocessed.

What Changed

Across five meetings, a group of strangers gradually turned into a community. To maintain their bond, they set up a group chat. The participants even took the initiative to arrange informal gatherings, practicing the movement exercises together and preserving the unique connection they had created. Participants began talking about their bodies as sources of knowledge: “Slowness is when I can hear myself think,” “Slowness is safety.” One participant who had been mostly silent on the first day later shared their experience of a slow unison movement exercise, saying, “In slow motion, I found my strength.” It is clear that tempo has become a helpful tool: a slow walk through the park, a quiet dot-and-dash in the process of brushing teeth, the choice of when and whether to stop an interaction.

Takeaways for Practitioners

For colleagues working among relocated or precarious populations, the following practices can be easily adopted:

• Charge and relief: Vary between slow intensity and brief play or speed. This helps keep bodies involved without overwhelming them.
• Shared timekeeper: Invite participants to sustain a tempo with claps, taps, or breathing counts so that safety is maintained.
• Personal object-based devising: This approach uses objects as vessels for feeling, allowing participants to connect with deep emotions without having to put them into words. One might, for example, express a loss by dragging a heavy chair slowly instead of telling the story. This creates a kind of safety through distance—while the audience senses the weight of the emotion, the personal story behind it stays hidden. In doing so, private pain becomes a shared poetic symbol, opening a space where the group can collectively experience strong emotions without anyone feeling exposed.
• Clear frame: call it theatre, not therapy, even when therapeutic benefits accrue.

Questions to the Field

This small project has also raised other questions for me. How can slow practice be scaled up into larger, multilingual groups without diluting consent? What are the non-intrusive ways of tracking the longer-term effects that do not medicalize the process?

In Closing 

If I had to keep one scene, it would be the last one: five people hand in hand, their breaths on the same cycle, bowing slowly not to the audience, but to themselves, and laughing like teammates on a mission. Outside, the rhythm of the city continued uninterrupted. Inside, for fifteen minutes and five sessions, the time was fully theirs.