"When I was seven, I was an audience of one. The whole world was fooling me and I decided to hide my knowing. I didn't realize that I would hide from myself..." 

Trapped in Seven is a portrait of a survivor; an intermeshing of movement and dialogue, conceived and performed by Impact Theatre’s Artistic Director, Fay Simpson. Directed by Deborah Kampmeier with additional choreography by Patrice Regnier, this work features an original music score by composers Karl Francke and Daniel Smith. This solo work explores three stages within a lifetime, through the portrayals of a  weak little girl, the angry  adult woman she becomes, and the powerful mother she becomes to her own little girl.   Developed by placing movement on memories, Trapped in Seven is a woman’s search to uncover the source of her victim mentality, and to find a cure for it.
 
At first, there is  the seven year old girl, wrapped up in girlhood frustrations, too young to keep up with her older brothers, longing to be one of the boys. Her elder brothers, in the various throes of  boyhood discoveries, use this character as their guinea pig, as an experiment for their masculine curiosities. Fighting for their approval, this little girl balls up her fists, fierce and Tom-boyish, calling out for attention, and for love.  Slamming back and forth between determination and fear, this little girl recreates the joyful innocence and physical  trauma of an unprotected seven year-old girl. 

As an adult woman, she conceals her rage within an elaborate process of denial, betraying both herself and the men close to her. Connecting these emotions with the ones that took hold of her as a child she starts to seek help for "a way out.". At the climax of physical and mental confusion, a new character intersects, her soul, in the form of a healer. She prescribes this character a cure for her victim mentality; the life-threatening HIV virus, that will focus her strength and energy, and force her to sink as a victim, or be a warrior and survive.

The poignant third section involves the relationship between mother and her seven your old daughter.
 
Trapped in Seven presents a unique perspective on the will to survive, in the face of death. Through text, song, and dance, a woman riots out of the "typical" doomed and depressed response to contracting a disease.  It is about using a “bad card” to research  self and transform. It is about faith in something greater than self.