What if people’s worst habits were viewed as their greatest sources of creativity?In the graduate student performance “Love Thy Symptom as Thyself,” which opens Wednesday in the HopKins Black Box theatre in Coates Hall, people’s obsessions and idiosyncrasies are examined as a source for creativity.Director Michael Bowman describes the piece as watching someone else’s dreams.”Everything seems to be twisted just a little bit,” said performer John LeBret, communication studies graduate student.Bowman, associate professor of communication studies, said the performance is image driven rather than plot or character driven.”There are some wonderfully creative and really beautiful moments in it that can be appreciated on their own,” he said.LeBret said the cast didn’t want to force the images into an unnecessary plot.”Communicating through poetic images or physical images we create with our bodies … those things communicate on a much more         instinctive level,” LeBret said.Bowman said the performance uses the ambience of dreams as its medium.”Dreams are ways of working out problems and anxieties in a magically wonderful, creative way,” he said.He said while dreams usually conceal what they are truly about, people can see in the performance the types of problems the cast is attempting to address.”It’s never obvious or blatant,” Bowman said. “[The piece] draws a connection between the way [habits] work and the way creative things work.”LeBret said he thinks the audience will be able to relate to “Love Thy Symptom as Thyself.””None of us have had the same life experience,” LeBret said. “But all of us can recognize when we have habits or obsessions, and even if they aren’t the same we can see they have the same root.”Bowman said the performance focuses on personal obsessions, traumas, desires, compulsions and other behaviors which would normally be considered disorders.”Instead of doing away with our symptoms, let’s celebrate them,” LeBret said.Bowman said although experimental theater often has a reputation for being “weird” or “absurd,” students should come with an open mind.”I think it’s because they are looking for things we normally find in plays,” Bowman said. “Everybody has dreams, these amazing performance art pieces going on in their heads. If people can relax and look at [the piece] in that kind of framework and allow the images and words to work on them, they can get something from it.”LeBret said he expects audience members to have different experiences.”There is no right way to watch this,” he said. “There isn’t a single thing to get out of it.”He said he hopes audience members will have moments where they feel emotions that were unexpected or cannot be explained.”I would want them to come with an open mind and walk away with a new way of viewing performance that is not the traditional way,” said Brianne Waychoff, performer and communication studies graduate student. “[It’s] a new way of thinking of themselves and images.””Love thy Symptom as Thyself” shows Wednesday through Saturday at 7 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. Donations will be accepted.—- Contact Blake Stephens at [email protected]