Four dancers move at varying speeds following a circular path. The central figure walks, the outer performer is running, changing direction they make comments to each other as they run again, increasing the speed until you in the audience start to feel caught up in it and dizzy. This new dance, A Series of Appointments choreographed by Siobhan Davies, was performed in the beautiful Roof Studio of Siobhan Davies Dance Studios. Later a film is shown of the dance shot from above and projected onto the studio floor, highlighting the patterns created by the dancers movement.
The dancers stop, seeming to take time out, sit on two benches facing each other, continuing with comments, the words are from playwright E.V. Crowe, they are performing Live Feed.
The dancers, directed by composer Matteo Fargion, stand in a line in front of music stands and perform Songbook, creating a song out of simple gestures and (often comical) noise.
Gill Clarke, known to many for her strong dance technique classes (she taught and inspired me years ago) performed in ceramicist Claire Twomey’s installation. The room was filled with unfired ceramic pots, on tables and on the floor. Ceremoniously water was poured into one pot at a time. The water collapsed the unfired pot and water flowed out on to the floor.
On the ground floor Sam Collins‘s The Conversation Revolved showing the dinner party scene from the Hitchcock film, The Suspicion fractured by mirrors and repeated in a circular formation. Really clever.
I went on the last day, I wish I’d gone on the first so I could have returned, the whole afternoon was fascinating and inspirational. I have drawn the company during rehearsals for In Plain Clothes in 2006 and Two Quartets in 2007 and The Collection during performance at Victoria Miro Gallery in 2009.