What’s Wrong with You?

Zuga’s new production tackles mental health. Like a large, sensitive creature, it lives in our home, in our room, under our blanket, in our heads. What does it want from us? What does it need? What’s wrong with it?

Every day, young people have war, the climate, current affairs, changing schools, their parents’ divorce and an annoying older brother weighing on their minds. That’s already enough. More than enough, even. But no: let’s add the attention economy, algorithms that demand extreme opinions, and bot armies spreading disinformation. So why, when adults are aware of all this too, do they still ask young people, “What’s wrong with you?”

The production “What’s Wrong with You?” is being created in collaboration with mental health advocate Peaasi.ee. Before beginning the creative process, Zuga visited schools to explore the topic with young people and completed mental health first aid training.

Young people’s minds seem completely different and unique to adults. Everything around young people feels either overwhelmingly big or too small; either really good or terribly bad, or simply pointless. Adults scratch their heads in bewilderment; some of the more diligent ones have locked themselves in a laboratory to finally figure out how a young person’s brain works. They describe their discoveries something like this: imagine opening the case of a fully functioning computer. You see wires, with plugs at their ends, all connected somewhere. Close your eyes and pull out some wires so they are no longer connected, and others so that one end is still connected to the computer. Imagine there are millions of these connections, and imagine that most are either completely or partially disconnected. Now close your eyes and start reconnecting those millions of connections, hoping you might succeed.

Zuga Ühendatud Tantsijad is an association of dancers and choreographers. For more than 20 years, they have been creating together through movement, involving audiences and exploring social issues. Zuga’s productions are created not only in a closed studio, but out in the world—in collaboration with communities, children, young people and audiences. Their work is characterised by warmth, immediacy and trust in the audience. Their productions for children have attracted attention and received several theatre and dance awards (the Salme Reegi Award, the Draamake Award, the Estonian Theatre Award, the Independent Performing Arts Award, etc.), and they have performed their works in Estonia and abroad.