REVIEW: GLASS CHILD - A Shattering Dance of Sibling Love and Social Perception

Glass Child is a work of raw authenticity that transcends conventional performance boundaries. This collaboration between The Farm and Performing Lines presents the real-life relationship between Kayah Guenther, a young man with Down syndrome, and his sister Maitreyah through a captivating blend of dance, spoken word, and multimedia storytelling.

The production takes its name from a term used to describe siblings of children with additional needs, those who are sometimes "looked through" within family dynamics. But what unfolds on stage brilliantly inverts this concept, as Maitreyah doesn't merely facilitate her brother's story but actively participates in a dialogue about their shared experiences and mutual support.

From the the start, Glass Child establishes its unflinching approach. Maitreyah directly addresses the audience with an overly confident voice, but less-so after some false starts, betraying emotional cracks. Her overall protective stance however, isn't portrayed as saintly martyrdom but as a rich and complex landscape. It's one where frustration, love, and fierce advocacy coexist.

Kayah, whose verbal communication presents challenges, otherwise speaks eloquently through movement. His dance sequences express what words cannot. Particularly striking is a sequence where he performs along a strip of faux turf under a harsh light, his shadow looming larger than life behind him. This appears as a powerful metaphor for how society's perception can overshadow individual identity.

The production doesn't shy away from difficult truths. In another particularly affecting segment, Kayah is positioned as a medical specimen, highlighting the dehumanisation often experienced by people living with disability. Maitreyah's pointed observation that "his condition only started to matter because of other people" rings with painful clarity and serves as the production's emotional fulcrum.

Directors Kate Harman and Gavin Webber have crafted a work that balances righteous anger with moments of humour and tenderness. Home videos projected throughout the performance show the siblings growing up: their parents anticipating Kayah's birth, images of him in a humidicrib, and touching footage of the pair dancing together as children. These archival elements ground the performance in lived reality, preventing it from becoming abstract, theoretical or mere ethical storytelling.

Rozina Suliman's set design creates space for the performers' emotional expressions, with empty chairs representing missing members of the family we only come to know through dialogue or home video.  Chloe Ogilvie's lighting design sculpts moments of isolation and connection with equal precision, while Anna Whitaker's sound design provides an atmospheric underpinning that never overwhelms the human elements at the production's core.

Glass Child refuses to package disability as tragedy or inspiration. Instead, we witness a relationship that is mutually nurturing. The culminating dance sequence brings together all the production's threads in a powerful physical dialogue between siblings. Their movements capture everything from tender support to explosive frustration, embodying the complexity of their shared journey. It serves as both catharsis and declaration, a statement of Kayah's achievements and capabilities that transcends societal expectations.

At 70 minutes without interval, Glass Child demands significant emotional engagement. While it remains somewhat naive in parts, it's impossible to overlook its authenticity. It tasks the audience to examine why we search for difference when we share so much in common.

Ultimately Glass Child reminds us of performance's power to illuminate genuine human experience. Through their bodies and voices, Kayah and Maitreyah Guenther don't just tell their story, they invite us to reconsider our perceptions of disability, family, and the connections that define us.

WHERE: Seymour Centre, Sydney.
WHEN: Until 16 April 2025
TICKETS and INFO: https://www.seymourcentre.com/event/glass-child/

Recommended for ages 12+. Contains the use of some words that may be considered offensive to people with lived experience of disability. 
(Top image: Lowana Davies. Colour images: Kate Holmes)