African dance aesthetics & border-thinking with 'Funmi Adewole 2017

In this talk, artist, activist, cultural producer and teacher Elyssa Livergant considers the complex, sometimes ambiguous relationship between concepts and practices of industry and community in the independent performing arts sector. 

Using workshops as a metaphor, Livergant explores ideas of work, one’s practice, and precarity and how they relate to the sector, its infrastructure, and its workers in London. Inviting audience members to participate in activities throughout the talk, Livergant offers the idea that workshops are the independent sector’s 'common sense' and wonders aloud about forms of exploitation and avenues for solidarity and resistance this common sense promotes.

Listen, read and watch more in Independent Dance's digital library: independentdance.co.uk/library/

Audio transcript: https://independentdance.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/CB-2017-A-common-sense_-workshops-and-the-independent-sector-with-Elyssa-Livergant.pdf

A common sense: workshops and the independent sector with Elyssa Livergant (2017)

The two artists speak sensitively about their own long practices and collaborations through the body, and their search for ‘a wholistic approach to this body-mind being’. In a meandering conversation they move through the Alexander technique, explore the roots of the word soma, poetics of movement practice and the wild allure of watching a performer who is tasting each moment.

Listen, read and watch more in Independent Dance's digital library: independentdance.co.uk/library/.

Audio transcript: https://independentdance.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Nature-of-the-Body-with-Miranda-Tufnell-and-Eva-Karczag.pdf

The nature of the body with Miranda Tufnell and Eva Karczag (2011)

This talk, part of the Movement and Meaning Research Lab, was given shortly before Gill Clarke died in 2011,  and offers an overview of her lifelong investigation into dance as a mode of knowledge formation, a laboratory of practice where theoretical information can be tried and tested through the body.

She speaks about her investigations of the social sciences which were driven by her work as a performer and teacher. Gill traces her own path to 'expanding the frame' of dance to include our perceptions and body patterning, and acknowledging that we, as humans, are 'grounded in relationship and conversation with the environment,' and that this relationship is one of constant movement. She references leading figures in philosophy and the social and cognitive sciences, such as Tim Ingold, Guy Claxton, Bruno Latour, Nigel Thrift, and Amartya Sen. 

Gill's interest in transdisciplinary research led to her instigation of the Movement and Meaning research lab (supported by PAL) in 2011. The residency fostered an exchange of ideas between leading experts from dance, music, neuroscience, philosophy of education, and psychology, over a five day period.

Artist Bio

Gill Clarke studied English and Education at York University and has spent her career as an independent dance artist, performer, teacher, choreographer/director and advocate. She was co-director of Independent Dance from 1996-2011.

Gill was a founding member of Siobhan Davies Dance Company and also performed and collaborated with other choreographers including Rosemary Butcher, Rosemary Lee, Janet Smith, Kate Brown and Marina Collard. Gill regarded teaching as an integral part of her artistic practice. She regularly led masterclasses and workshops internationally for students, professionals and companies, and collaborated with filmmaker Becky Edmunds on a multi-screen installation – Stones and Bones. Head of Performance Studies at LABAN from 2000-2006, she founded MA Creative Practice : Dance Professional which ID continues to lead in partnership with Trinity Laban and Siobhan Davies Studios. Gill was an Honorary Visiting Professor at University of Ulster, a joint NESTA fellow and a Trustee of Dance UK. She received a London Dance and Performance Award, the Jane Attenborough Award from One Dance UK and an MBE, which she returned in protest of the UK government’s foreign policy in Iraq.

Listen, read and watch more in Independent Dance's digital library: independentdance.co.uk/library/.

Audio transcript: https://independentdance.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Gill-Clarke-Movement-and-Meaning-Final-Transcript.pdf

Movement and Meaning with Gill Clarke

“How does body create mind? How do I speak to my consciousness?” A conversation between dance artist and educator Gill Clarke and experimental psychologist / Buddhist practitioner Guy Claxton, exploring the role of unconscious, body-based and intuitive intelligence, and describing the manifestation of this intelligence as the ‘welling-up’ of an organic process. They question the Cartesian dualist perspective: “We think our thoughts are born IN consciousness rather than born INTO consciousness, because the process of upwelling is often so fast and automatic that we don’t notice.”

Listen, read and watch more in Independent Dance's digital library: independentdance.co.uk/library/.

Audio transcript: https://independentdance.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/CB-2011-Welling-up_-unconscious-body-based-and-intuitive-intelligence-with-Guy-Claxton.pdf

Welling-up with Guy Claxton and Gill Clarke (2011)

In her WinLab 2017 Artist Talk, K.J. Holmes shares from her background and current practice in dance and theatre, touching on themes as diverse as madness and the character of the fool, the pelvis, the endocrine system,  and the 'fine line' between the performing and healing arts. She weaves the conversation with humour and insight, also sharing images and short film extracts from her work.

Improvisation, Somatics and the Poetics of Dance with K.J. Holmes

In this talk, choreographer Nik Haffner reflects on collaborations and the idea of shared knowledge as shared material, and how the dissemination of knowledge and feeding ideas into networks can be seen as an artistic practice. Illustrating his wide range of influences he shares video sources from Elvis Presley to Microsoft to filmmaker David Hinton.

Listen, read and watch more in Independent Dance's digital library: independentdance.co.uk/library/.

Audio transcript: https://independentdance.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Shared-Material-with-Nik-Haffner-1.pdf

Shared Material with Nik Haffner (2009)

Tere O'Connor | Crossing Borders 2009

This talk features dancer and choreographer Raimund Hoghe and visual artist Franko B in conversation with Martin Hargreaves. They speak about being ‘image makers’ – a term from Franko B. Raimund Hoghe insists on not seeing himself as a creator but rather someone creating ‘atmospheres where things can happen’. The audio includes substantial showings of video materials of the artists’ works, which we have linked to where possible / available.

This talk was part of Crossing Borders 2010, which was presented in partnership with London Contemporary Dance School and Dance Umbrella.

Audio transcript: https://independentdance.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Image-Makers-with-Raimund-Hoghe-and-Franko-B-2009.pdf 

Listen, read and watch more in Independent Dance's digital library: independentdance.co.uk/library/

Image Makers with Raimund Hoghe and Franko B

The live artist and senior lecturer in fine art talks about how she sees her art making as a form of thinking, at the same time as being acts of impulse, considering the implications of art as commodity, and sharing about projects like her conceptual persona HRH.the. She talks about the relationship of art and philosophy, and questions, 'what kind of thing is an artist?'

Listen, read and watch more in Independent Dance's digital library: independentdance.co.uk/library/

Thinking through art with Hester Reeve (2012)

Laura and Liz explore their divergent practices and approaches to ecologies, queer futurity and our relationship with the nonhuman. Laura shares her work with the River Wyre (Lancashire), engaging with the histories, ancestries and labour embedded in the stone, land and bodies, noting how these have their own autonomy. Liz then considers their flesh as an autonomous material, and discusses how this relationship has informed a non-binary perspective that is not explicitly linked to gender, but rather, embodiment, shifting ecologies, and performance practices. 

This talk was delivered in partnership with  University of Roehampton, Sadler’s Wells and the Society for Dance Research.

Listen, read and watch more in Independent Dance's digital library: independentdance.co.uk/library/

Link to audio transcript: https://independentdance.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/BurnsLauraRosenfeldLiz_AutnomousFleshAutonomousStone_2019-1.pdf

Autonomous Flesh; Autonomous Stone with Laura Burns and Liz Rosenfeld (2019)

Zinzi Minott & Greta Mendez | Crossing Borders 2019

The artists share their methodology of care – of self, others, environment. They argue that we can regard the space of alterity – of otherness – as a creative state. Bringing questions such as ‘How can we dance together, in this space and movement?’ and ‘How do we meet the other?’ they lead a session that moves between the practical and discursive, asking participants to engage with simple, but intimate instructions like using the words, ‘sorry’ and ‘thanks’ together, and reflecting together.

This talk was part of Crossing Borders 2019 and was presented in partnership with Sadler’s Wells, Society for Dance Research & Roehampton University

Listen, read and watch more in Independent Dance's digital library: independentdance.co.uk/library/

How do we meet the other? with Cristina Fernandes Rosa and Suzi Weber

Artist and researcher Anna Macdonald talks about the idea of holding as a curatorial act within her current dance and moving image practice. How can works hold time - and what about the anxiety of capture? Anna relates these concepts to ideas from psychology, particularly maternal containment.

Listen, read and watch more in Independent Dance's digital library: independentdance.co.uk/library/.

Acts of holding with Anna Macdonald (2017)

If choreography is usually perceived as an act of writing dance, what does it mean for choreography to be perceived as an act of reading dance? How does the choreographic engage in the present with what is already there, the past, the historical, but also the forgotten or irretrievable?  

Taking cues from Friedrich Nietzsche, who wrote on the positive dimension of forgetfulness, Efrosini and Susanne attempt a performative dialogue that explores choreography's potential to playfully oscillate between the remembered and the irretrievable, the unforgettable and the inaccessible.  They engage with these ideas by bringing fragments from their own and others' work, into the space, combining showing and telling, reading and reflecting.

Choreo-reading: between knowledge and life with Efrosini Protopapa & Susanne Foellmer (2018)

We Are F*cked with Jo Bannon & Maddy Costa (2018)

Kat Austen and Rosemary Lee discuss environmental empathy, questioning its role in our relationship to climate change. They also talk about how embodiment, which Rosemary Lee describes as a feeling of ‘every sense awake’ in dance and movement, makes change feel possible in each moment, contrasting this idea with large complex systems (hyper-objects), like climate change, that are impossible to perceive with the senses. They speak about what it means to be an activist, grappling with helplessness and using cooperation as a tool to ‘construct our humanity’.

This talk was part of Crossing Borders 2018, presented in partnership with University of Roehampton. 

Listen, read and watch more in Independent Dance's digital library: independentdance.co.uk/library/.

Audio Transcript: https://independentdance.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Lee-Rosemary-Austen-Kat-2018-.pdf

Don’t stop ’til you feel it: exploring environmental empathy with Kat Austen and Rosemary Lee (2018)

Artists and curators Becky Edmunds, Claudia Kappenberg and Lucy Cash explore film and video work in relation to choreographic composition as well as discussing what might be ‘dance’ in unconventional screen dance works. They draw upon their experiences of What If… festival co-curated with Christinn Whyte and Gill Clarke in 2010.

Artist Bios

Becky Edmunds trained as a dancer and choreographer at Laban Centre, London in the mid 1980’s. She produced live art and dance work, both as a solo artist and in collaboration with visual artists, photographers, scientists and dance artists until 2000, when she shifted to a screen-based practice. 

Her video work now has two distinct strands, which inform and influence each other. She has a research-led screen dance art practice, which seeks to deepen the screen application of dance practice.  In 2006, she was supported by an Arts Council International Fellowship to be artist-in-residence at the VideoDanza Festival de Buenos Aires (Argentina), creating during her time there, a series of dance shorts which toured internationally. In 2009 she continued her video practice through a residency in Sweden as a guest of the SHOOT Dance for Screen festival.

She also works as a specialist dance videographer and has collaborated with a number of dance and performance artists and organisations to produce video documentation. Becky has made a series of documentaries including the installation Working Day (2003), and the short film Have You Started Dancing Yet? (2004) which toured national and international screen dance festivals.  In 2008, she completed Living Architecture – a 40 minute documentary on Rudolf Laban.

Becky is a member of the artist-led group Movement 12, and an Associate Artist with Blast Theory.

Claudia Kappenberg is a performance and media artists and Senior Lecturer in Performance and Visual Art at the University of Brighton, UK. Her projects comprise single screen work as well as screen-based installations and live site-specific events and have been shown across Europe, the US and the Middle East. Claudia founded the Lost Parade performance company and is co-founder of the White Market project. She runs a Screendance Network and is Editor of the International Journal of Screendance.

Lucy Cash is an interdisciplinary artist. She is also an Artsadmin Associate Artist, and an Associate Artist with South East Dance for 2010 – 2012. In 2009 she was awarded a Screendance Fellowship from South East Dance in recognition of her work in performance installation and film / choreography.

Originally from a background in choreography, performance and theatre, Lucy began her career as a solo artist in 2000 with a three minute commission from the BFI / FilmFour to make Three Minute Wonder. Her work has been show on BBC2, BBC4, Channel4 and FilmFour as well as at international festivals.

In her practice she is drawn to developing playful concepts that use shifts in perception or logic as a starting point. She creates pieces that are poetic and scientific, philosophical and humorous and intimate and political at the same time. She often works with a range of people from different communities and fields of expertise and increasingly explores notions of self-invention and story-telling – often working on the edges between fiction and reality.
As well as solo projects, she also makes collaborative performance works. Recent collaborations include works with Anna Kryztstek, Christina Ciupke, Goat Island Performance and Rajni Shah. In 2010 she also collaborated on a film with Becky Edmunds – Seven Ways South – for the Siobhan Davies Space.

Adapted from bios published in 2010

Listen, read and watch more in Independent Dance's digital library: independentdance.co.uk/library/

Audio transcript: https://independentdance.co.uk/library/what-if-becky-edmunds-claudia-kappenberg-lucy-cash/

What If… we could view all this as dance? Becky Edmunds, Claudia Kappenberg and Lucy Cash (2010)

This recording is a series of excerpts from the full talk, which was a conversation between Meg and Frank Bock. Drawing on Catherine Malabou’s essay ‘Ontology of the Accident,’ Meg and Frank speak about ‘destructive plasticity,’ a change so great that we become other to ourselves, arising specifically in relation to trauma or neurological conditions such as Alzheimer’s. They contemplate death as a breakdown in the harmonious unity of the body and Meg reflects on her engagement with states of being in her practice, whether rapidly changing and prolonged staying-with.

Audio Transcript: https://independentdance.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/StuartMeg_ShiftingStates_2014.pdf

Read more on https://independentdance.co.uk/library

Shifting states with Meg Stuart (2014)

Steve Valk proposes a vision of dance for the 21st century: that rather than considering itself as an art form, dance has become a principle, a creative force, a 'vital life energy', or perhaps 'a technology of the self' at the edges of modern consciousness. In addition, Valk introduces the (then) emerging field of Social Choreography as a real-world project of transformative aesthetic practice.

Listen, read and watch more in Independent Dance's digital library: independentdance.co.uk/library/

Negative Knowledge: is dance the art form of the 21st century? with Steve Valk (2014)

Artists Miranda Tufnell, Tony Burch, Lisa Dowler and Cai Tomos discuss how creative and embodied dance practice can work alongside and in support of an overstretched healthcare system.  How can the complex, sometimes controversial interface between clinical care and the creative arts bring a more whole-body perspective to healthcare, supporting health perhaps rather than solely treating illness? Tony, Lisa, Miranda and Cai share their experience using dance and movement practices in different parts of the healthcare sector, observing its capacity to bring people together and support them to care more effectively for themselves. They argue that dance can invite us to question, explore, and discover aspects of who we are, beyond immediate difficulties or illness, strengthening our capacity to connect with each other, and to adapt to change.

Listen, read and watch more in Independent Dance's digital library: independentdance.co.uk/library/

Frontiers of Dance and Health with Miranda Tufnell and Knowing Body Network

Against value with Sam Ladkin 2015

Charlie Morrissey, live in the studio, shares recorded excerpts from and reflections on Skype conversations with Lisa Nelson, in part as they relate to touch, which was the theme of the 2016 Crossing Borders programme.

Listen, read and watch more in Independent Dance's digital library: independentdance.co.uk/library/.

Touching the thing that touches you with Charlie Morrissey and Lisa Nelson (2016)

Jayne Parker's film work explores translations of the body and ways to find the body in different forms, as series curator Frank Bock notes. In this talk she discusses her career and practice, as well as showing her 1995 black and white film 'Crystal Aquarium.' 

In her own words: 
"Much of the film work I have made over the last fifteen years or so features the performance of music in what I call 'a search to find a music equivalent within the language of film'. I have been fortunate to work with cellist Anton Lukoszevieze and pianist Katharina Wolpe, with whom I've made many films. There has always been a strong element of performance all my work — the body in action, in relation to an object, musical instrument, another body. The challenge of filming expressive action and capturing its felt experience is compelling for me – as is the process of filmmaking, in particular framing and editing."

Listen, read and watch more in Independent Dance's digital library: independentdance.co.uk/library/.

Audio transcript: https://independentdance.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/CB-2016-Reflections-on-filming-performance-with-Jayne-Parker.pdf

Reflections on filming performance with Jayne Parker (2016)

The talk will consider the 'movement' of collaboration, and the ways collaboration operates in relation to other political 'movements'.  Economic precarity creates challenges for collaborative work, but also makes it increasingly necessary, she draws on examples of her work with the group 'I'm With You,' which began as a series of events in domestic spaces, and which continues to investigate queer domesticity through, for example, the ongoing project Gorge, which looks at consumption and digestion as opportunities for collective and embodied thought and queer sociality. She references historical and contemporary examples of cooperative living, moving away from models of collaboration that aim simply for the convivial, in the hope of retaining space for speculative propositions and potentialities.

Listen, read and watch more in Independent Dance's digital library: independentdance.co.uk/library/.

Collaboration and movements with Johanna Linsley (2015)

Is choreographic authorship dead? with Anna Pakes | Crossing Borders 2017

Follow the materials, learn the movements, and draw the lines, says social anthropologist Tim Ingold in this 2011 talk. The talk has four main focuses drawn from his own research. First, he speaks about developing an approach to creativity and perception which ‘brings together the movements of making, observing and describing’, allowing us to describe things in a way that ‘joins with them.’ Second, he calls for turning our focus from the ready-made object onto the circulation of materials – which might help us to separate the notions of creativity and innovation. Third, he invites us to explore the generative dynamics of skilled practice which, because they are very precise, mean that the dancer – or craftsperson – responds to ‘moment by moment variations’ in their practice space, leading him to propose creativity as ‘improvisation, not innovation’. Finally, he suggests that drawing practice can be a link between observation and improvisation, an inscriptive practice in itself. Can we see the world as a ‘meshwork’ of interconnected pathways and crossings, rather than a ‘network’ of connected objects, in which the body is not a package, but a centre from which we move out into the world?

Listen, read and watch more in Independent Dance's digital library: independentdance.co.uk/library/

Audio transcript: https://independentdance.co.uk/library/tim-ingold-social-anthropologist-pal-movement-meaning-talk/

Materials, movements and lines with Tim Ingold (2011)

In this talk Sharon Watson, CEO and Principal of the Northern School of Contemporary Dance, shares a provocation addressing whiteness in Dance Education. Hosted by Shantel Ehrenberg, Co-Director of Centre of Performance Philosophy at the University of Surrey.

Keep Listening, Keep Talking (2020–1) is a partnership initiative by Independent Dance, Dance in Higher Education, Centre for Dance Research (C-DaRE) at Coventry University and Centre for Performance Philosophy at the University of Surrey.

Listen, read and watch more in Independent Dance's digital library: independentdance.co.uk/library/

https://independentdance.co.uk/library/keep-listening-keep-talking-3-with-sharon-watson/

Keep Listening, Keep Talking #3 with Sharon Watson

Hosted by Sarah Whatley of Centre for Dance Research (C-DaRE) and researcher, writer and academic Sara Reed with guest speaker Matthew Gough, dance artist, dramaturg, and senior lecturer at University of South Wales. This talk focuses on ‘equitable negotiations for cultural change', through accountability and representation.

Keep Listening, Keep Talking (2020–1) is a partnership initiative by Independent Dance, Dance in Higher Education, C-DaRE at Coventry University and Centre for Performance Philosophy at the University of Surrey.

Keep Listening, Keep Talking #2 with Matthew Gough

Movement artists Andrea Olsen and Kirstie Simson meet virtually in this public talk to discuss the importance of embodied knowledge for the future we are entering into. How can artistic practices build resilience, grounding, and skills to equip us for meeting life’s challenges and joys?

Experiential practices with integrated discourse have much to offer as we move forward in this time of climate crisis and global interconnectivity. Andrea and Kirstie speak from their experiences of having been immersed in dedicated movement practices for more than four decades. They consider how these practices and the moments of epiphany they have engendered have shaped their lives.

Listen, read and watch more in Independent Dance's digital library: independentdance.co.uk/library/

Moving Matters with Kirstie Simson & Andrea Olsen (2022)

Art and commerce with Chrysa Parkinson (2010)

What is needed now in how we view health, illness, the body, and the role of the arts within health care?

Miranda Tufnell, Cai Tomos and Filipa Pereira-Stubbs are joined by Lucinda Jarrett, Creative Director of Rosetta Life, for a conversation exploring dance, health and imagination. Sharing some of the experiences they have developed over decades, they discuss how bridges can effectively be made between these fields, how they can learn from each other, and how the NHS can be supported by dance at a time of depleted resources and pressure.

They address and articulate the emergent landscape that is forging a new paradigm for health. Dance as activism, how dancers/artists bring a particular way of seeing/being that can work alongside the clinical. They discuss a view of health and what it means to be well, and how that includes attending to the presence of the poetic, the imagination and the felt sense in healing.

Part of Dance Intimacy and the Civic series in partnership with Sadlers Wells and University of Roehampton. Part of International Festival of Learning supported by Arts Council England.

Listen, read and watch more in Independent Dance's digital library: independentdance.co.uk/library/.

Audio transcript: independentdance.co.uk/a-quiet-revolution-lucinda-jarrett-filipa-pereira-stubbs-cai-tomos-miranda-tufnell

A Quiet Revolution with Miranda Tufnell, Cai Tomos, Filipa Pereira-Stubbs and Lucinda Jarrett 2022

Chaired by Nic Conibere, Brian Lobel (artist & celebrant, Denise Rowe (Earth Dances) and Rebecca Swift (artist & creative director of Entelechy Arts) discuss how their practices generate a sense of collective action and belonging. It invites speculation on how and why people gather together to forge a sense of togetherness through rituals, as spirituality and to access a sense of collective consciousness, enabling thinking and feeling beyond the self. The talk navigates choreographic forms of conversation and the performative and even political nature of collective action.

Listen, read and watch more in Independent Dance's digital library: independentdance.co.uk/library/.

Audio transcript:

DIC #4: Who belongs, where and how with Brian Lobel, Denise Rowe, Rebecca Swift, Nic Conibere (2022)

A conversation with Andrea Olsen, Caryn McHose and Eeva-Maria Mutka focusing on three chapters from Olsen’s newest book, Moving Between Worlds: A Guide to Embodied Living and Communicating. 

This event included a screening of the multi-award-winning dance film (short) Matkalla (On The Journey) by Scotty Hardwig, co-created with Olsen and Mutka in Finland and Sweden. The 15-minute film is the first of a three-part project, Mothers|Lands, focused on dancers creating in their native landscapes. Matkalla has already won the Best Dance Film award at international festivals in Canada, Germany, Belgium, Greece, and Sweden and was selected for festival screening at numerous venues including the 2023 Cannes World Film Festival: Remember the Future. Conversation follows about the skills and surprises of moving on camera.

Listen, read and watch more in Independent Dance's digital library: independentdance.co.uk/library/

Moving Between Worlds with Andrea Olsen, Caryn McHose and Eeva-Maria Mutka (2023)

As artists, how do we create the conditions for real exchange between people, and how do our practices grow through encountering and engaging with difference?

Approached through the lens of Kate Marsh’s expertise on dance, disability and leadership, this conversation between Kate, Annie Hanauer and Susanna Recchia revolves around ideas and questions which surfaced during their Artistry & Access Lab, aiming to share specific practices and experiences with a wider audience. This exchange was an open invitation to anyone interested in how dance practices can continue evolving and expanding.

This talk is part of dance it, dance it, Independent Dance’s year-long programme conceived by Heni Hale and Nikki Tomlinson which aims to foreground disabled, neurodivergent and d/Deaf artists as leaders and to widen dissemination of inclusive dance practices. Partner organisations on different strands of the programme include Candoco Dance Company, Sadler’s Wells, The Work Room, Dance Umbrella and Team London Bridge. This programme is supported through public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.

Listen, read and watch more in Independent Dance's Digital Library: independentdance.co.uk/library/

Transcript: https://independentdance.co.uk/library/engaging-with-difference-a-conversation-on-dance-practice-disability-and-inclusive-leadership-led-by-kate-marsh/

Engaging with Difference led by Kate Marsh with Annie Hanauer and Susanna Recchia (2023)

Following a studio-based sharing of Last Shelter, Candoco Dance Company dancers Anna Seymour, Annie Edwards, Ben Ash, Fernanda Muñoz-Newsome, Laura Weston, Jane Mason, Sean Murray and Artistic Director Charlotte Darbyshire, share more about how the work was created. They discuss the choreographic approach, collaborative dynamics and personal narratives that have shaped this captivating piece. 

Choreographed by Jeanine During, Last Shelter is a performance experiment exploring the enduring human desire to build something together. Working with precise materials within variable scores, Last Shelter unfolds uniquely for each performance, ever shifting, teetering at the edge of what could be, somewhere between individual agency and collective will. With rigour and care, the dancers surrender to and grapple with time, place and fate, finding temporary balance in provisional structures and makeshift meanings.

Jeanine began her research with Candoco in much the same way she has begun most projects in the last decade, with a practice called nonstopping. At its core, nonstopping is a process of undoing through, paradoxically, nonstop doing. It works with uncensoring movement and speech as acts of freedom and imperative force and change.

Transcript: www.independentdance.co.uk/library/last-shelter-candoco-dance-company

Listen, read and watch more: independentdance.co.uk/library

Last Shelter: a conversation with Candoco Dance Company (2023)

One of the UK’s most influential dance organisations, Independent Dance has been led by artists since 1984. With learning and collaboration at its heart, our progressive international programme runs throughout the year, offering classes, labs, research, festivals, events and an MA.

Independent Dance’s Digital Library houses an extensive range of research material to read, watch and listen to. This material is gathered from the past 15 years of our nearly 40 year history and is drawn from work ID has programmed, or with which ID has a direct connection.

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