Dancer Georgica Pettus and I created movement sequences at the end of June which she set to music with ‘nonsense’ captioning. The result is ambiguous, comic and arresting. The strong graphic elements of the dance space – a dojo (martial arts hall for Aikido), combine with improvised dance practice, and leave us wondering and questioning.
Continue reading Dancing with Georgica Pettus
On 10 February 2022, I stood in University Parks, Oxford with 100 small sticks and paper slips between my cupped hands. Raising my hands upward, the sticks and paper were lofted into the air. As they were rising they slowed until, for a moment, they were suspended, neither rising nor falling – a cloud of sticks before me, about to scatter and return earthward in a shower.
Continue reading Remembering Hugo Demartini, artistThis dance was recorded on two occasions in January 2022. While this is a solo performance. It is also a duet. For I dance with the embodied memory of my previous dance. Thus the past is present: always present.
Continue reading Torus 2.3.3 – a dance #LandscapeDance #FoundDance #VoluismDancer Jo Blake and I created a duet. We had less than six hours dancing together, and we used a score with three parts to create this new dance. Subsequently, I submitted our dance to Dancin’ Oxford for its Moving with the Times 2021 commission.
Continue reading New dance (2021) – Coming HomeOxford City Council (as Dancin’ Oxford) asked for contributions to its Spring Awakening project. Dancers contribute video clips of themselves dancing which are edited into a final film for digital distribution. A headstand seemed to summon-up the period in which we were living – the world turned upside down by Coronavirus!
Continue reading Spring Awakening #HeadstandChallengeI’m very proud that despite a global pandemic, we still managed to create a new dance – ‘Becoming Gentleness’ – at Oxford Contact Dance. We danced with sticks – outdoors – in University Parks, Oxford on 23 October 2020. There was a beautiful sunset and a carpet of autumn leaves.
Continue reading Becoming Gentleness: performanceOn Saturday 16 November, dancer Jo Dyer, cellist Josie Webber and I, took to the stage in Oxford at the Christmas Lights Festival. We performed a revised version of the ‘In-between’ dance created earlier in the year.
Continue reading Stage dancing : Christmas Lights 2019, OxfordThe Turrill Sculpture Garden in Oxford was the venue of my latest public dancing in a performance called ‘In-between’: two dancers, two cellists and a lawn to dance on. Thankfully, it didn’t rain!
Continue reading ‘In-between’ performanceAn ornamental garden in Oxford, the light and shade of a beautiful autumn day, and much creative work lead to a great performance of ‘The Garden Dance’ by four dancers from Oxford Contact Dance on Saturday 29 September 2018. It was very special – almost enchanted.
We had a fantastic time at our Library Dance on 19 December 2017 in Oxford’s Central Library at the Westgate Centre. The library had recently reopened after a long closure while the Westgate Centre was rebuilt and renovated. Our dance celebrated its reopening.
