RAT RAT RAT

A site-specific movement work staged inside the Old Operating Theatre Museum, one of Europe’s oldest surviving surgical theatres.
About this Event

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Welcome to the Class!

We’re so glad you could join us today.

Please take a seat, nice and quietly, eyes forward, and keep your paws where we can see them. The lesson will begin very soon.

When it’s time to obey, don’t hesitate. You’ll get used to it quickly.

It’s a lovely system, really, you might even find it comforting, the way each step follows the last without question.

Although… sometimes the lesson goes a little further than expected. Usually, it’s because we have a student who isn’t behaving properly. A bad Rat.

It’s a shame, really, even though our instructions are so clear, they still fail to follow, get distracted, and start having their own thoughts.

But it’s nothing to worry about. Everyone eventually finds their place in our system, and a way to contribute.

There’s nothing you need to do. You’re doing very well. Just keep watching.

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RAT RAT RAT is a site-specific performance staged inside the Old Operating Theatre Museum, one of Europe’s oldest surviving surgical theatres, where, long before anaesthesia, procedures were carried out in front of live audiences.

This work is an exploration of normalised violence and the systems that allow it to quietly persist. Through puppetry, movement, fragments of Saint-Saëns’ music, and the unsettling world of silent rat-students, classrooms, and operating theatres, the work reflects not on a single act of brutality, but on how societies construct structures in which brutality can continue uninterrupted.

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Drawing from the histories of animal experimentation and the atrocities of Unit 731 during the Second World War, the piece examines how violence is often justified in the name of necessity, rationality, or the “greater good”, teaching people to distance themselves from suffering and gradually accept cruelty as part of an ordinary process.

Creative & Production Team

Set Designer & Dramaturg: Selene Mingyue Hu | Movement Director: Jonathan Layton | Sound Designer: Mira Yihang Zhang | Costume Designer: Freya Yuejie Li | Costume Assistant: Livia Yifei Deng | Lighting Designer: Yaqi Sun | Props Supervisor: Joseph Jin | Producer: Zoe Yingying Xie | Assistant Producer & Sound Designer: Mira Yihang Zhang | Stage Manager: Colleen Yizhen Li

Cast

Rat A: Xintian Zhao | Rat B: Yi (Huang-Shu-Yi) | Rat C: Caiqi Yang