Nottingham Lakeside Arts University Park Nottingham NG7 2RD, 19 June 2015
Dance: Art & Research with artists Rosanna Irvine and Sara Giddens.
Dance: Art & Research with artists Rosanna Irvine and Sara Giddens.
Dance4 in partnership with Middlesex University uncovers new choreographic practices and modes of audience engagement. This research was funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council Collaborative Doctoral Award.
What happens…
when we bring the words artist and researcher together?
when this bringing together involves making art (as part of ‘the art world’) and writing on art (as part of ‘the academic world’)?
when distinctions between ‘worlds’ are not that simple?
when all this is in the context of an artist working with the history of a dance organization?
Rosanna Irvine’s performative presentation responds to these and other questions to share the processes and outcomes of her recent PhD. Her curiosity as artist/researcher has been on 21st century developments in western dance – in particular conditions of creative production that ‘force’ choreographer and performer thinking in ways other-than through will or desire, while at the same time generating the choreographic work. She introduces how this occurs in several works programmed in Nottdance Festival between 1999-2003 - when conceptual dance was introduced to UK via Dance4 while Jane Greenfield was Artistic Director - and in her own recent work.
Choreographer, Sara Giddens reflects upon her maturing practice following her recent completion of a Collaborative Post Doctorate studentship hosted by Dance4 and Middlesex University. Having made and toured work for over twenty-five years, Sara’s most recent work has engaged with the employment of stillness as a compositional and choreographic tool. Entitled Still Small Acts, Sara will reflect upon and share works made for Nottingham Contemporary, for nottdance, for the Singaporean Arts Festival, Wirksworth Arts and Architecture Trail and the Lincolnshire SO Festival as she engages with the question of how the employment of still-ing can open up an invitation to both audiences and makers alike.
