The Place Prize runs every 2 years, at The Place, London. 16 works were commissioned for this prestigious choreographic competition, the last stage is of 4 works performed each night for 10 nights. £1000 is awarded each night by the audience voting for their favourite, the overall winner selected by a panel of judges wins £25,000.
The first dance of the evening, Begin to Begin, A Piece About Lose Ends by Eva Recacha reminded me of video artist Bill Viola’s work. My drawings were insubstantial which disappointed me as I was fascinated by the dance, and so not included here. Maybe because I was watching, not concentrating on drawing, thinking of Bill Viola, trying to remember which video the dance particularly links with. (I decided it was The Passions, any comments on this?).
Below are some of my drawings of the 3 other dances.
It Needs Horses Ben Duke and Raquel Meseguer
Cameo Riccardo Buscarini and Antonio De La Fe Guedes
Fidelity Project Freddie Opoku-Addaie and Frauke Requardt
I first met and drew Frauke Requardt when she was dancing with The Cholmondeleys in 2004, I also drew her strong choreography of Pictures from an Exhibition, at Sadler’s Wells, most recently meeting Frauke again at the opening of the Chris Nash exhibition at the V&A. I drew Freddie Opoku-Addaie when Freddie and me worked on Lucy Neal‘s wonderful project Mary Neal … an undertold story. (see my drawings of this event).
Frauke and Freddie move fast creating a delicious sense of danger with the possibility that that at any moment their relationship could become an unhinged, out of control tangle of bodies and broken hearts. They rely on split-second decisions, trust and sensory memory.
It Needs Horses was the winner, congratulations to Ben Duke and Raquel Meseguer.