Containers I-V: Choreographic Workshops

Each week the blog will act as a resource for any notes or references mentioned during the workshop, as well as featuring at least one visual or written response from one or more of the participants.

WEEK 1

Response by Jamie Atherton,

After the workshop last week I walked to Elephant and Castle and found an Ofo leaning up against Jamiroquai’s house (sometimes referred to as the Faraday Memorial), unlocked it and headed for home. I hadn’t gone far when I realised this Ofo was a mess — its basket was half hanging off and rattling around, the gear-change casing on the handlebar was shattered and the front light had apparently been ripped off. This little Ofo was not what you’d call dexterous, agile or, for that matter, fit, but still it was capable of moving and after a while the sound of the basket banging around became kind of interesting and I came to realise I was enjoying the slightly dangerous, radical feeling of riding the crepuscular city with no headlight. There were things to be appreciated and considered about this junky bike. Nonetheless, by the time I found one of its siblings waiting patiently by Peckham Platform, I was ready to switch. It is, I think, no contradiction to find value in the fucked up while looking for something better.

References

Joe gave an overview of contemporary dance history and context, mentioning specifically the work of Yvonne Rainer, Trisha Brown, Steve Paxton, Jérôme Bel and Boris Charmatz.

Suggested reading:

A Choreographer’s Handbook by Jonathan Burrows
Exhausting Dance by Andrei Lepecki

We are happy to announce the following people will be participating in the ‘Containers’ choreographic workshop series:

Adham Faramawy
Adham Faramawy is an artist based in London. His work spans media including moving image, performance for camera, sculptural installation and print, engaging and using technology to discuss issues of materiality, touch, embodiment and identity construction.

Jamie Atherton
Jamie Atherton is an artist working with performance, drawing, video and publishing. Recent work includes Possibilities for a Pleasant Outing, commissioned by Siobhan Davies Dance and Independent Dance, and Failed States, a biannual journal of indeterminate geographies. He lives in London.

Francesca Tamse
Fran is an artist born an raised in California and currently living in London. She works with collage and photography to look at themes of masculinity and pop culture through a female gaze. Her work has been featured and exhibited in Vogue Italia, 1Granary, Self Publish Be Happy, The Plantation Journal, and Dear Dave Magazine. 

Seth Pimlott

Joshua Leon

Levi Heaton

Rafal Zajko

Ibrahim Cisse
Ibrahim (B.1991, PARIS) is a poet and cultural facilitator. He holds a MA in Curating Contemporary Art from the Royal College of Art (London). In 2017 he has started his own independent publishing house: ’Lost in Time’ an experimental platform dedicated to edit multi-medium objects in series from non-published to emerging artists. His practice as a curator focuses on co-providing processual opportunities for art to become emancipatory practices bestowing self-learning, innovative and healing properties to participants.

Phoebe Davies
Phoebe is a Welsh artist and researcher based at Somerset House Studios in London. Her practice investigates how people perceive their social framework, often working with and in response to individuals and communities, generating work through collaboration, collective action and DIT* strategies.  At the core of her practice, Phoebe often finds herself referencing and exploring collaborative models of working across sectors, from basketball plays to feminist organising and sci-fi fiction to organic farming methodologies. Her outcomes are project dependent, including: live performances, video, audio, print works and constructed social spaces.

*DIT = Do It Together.

Phoebe’s recent projects have led her to work with sports teams, sex educators, farmers, secondary school students, elderly care homes and DJs; as well as arts spaces and institutions, including: Somerset House Studios (London), Tate Modern (London), Chapter (Cardiff), Wysing Arts Centre (Cambridge), DKUK (London), Art Licks Weekend (London), Steirischer Herbst (Graz, AUT), Assembly (Portland, USA), SA-UK SEASONS 2015 (Johannesburg, ZA) and the British Council.

She currently co-facilitates three research groups: Bedfellows, a radical sex re-education research project; Synaptic Island, a womxn and non-binary DJ collective based at Corsica Studios in South London; and Art is Action, a social practice research group led by UK based producers.

Natalie Savva

Renata Minoldo
Renata Minoldo explores the physical, spiritual and emotional body through sculpture, installation and participatory workshops. Her practice flows from the haptic to the ethereal, sutile experience. She has a BA in Fashion Design and studied Fine Arts at Universidad Nacional de Rosario, Argentina. In 2015 she has been awarded with a full scholarship to attend a six week residency at Banff Centre of the Arts, Canada along with a cohort of international artists and curators. She was shortlisted twice for the arteBA Petrobras prize in Buenos Aires with collaborative projects and has been exhibiting since 2010. She currently works as an arts facilitator for adults and children exploring alternative learning and teaching methods within interdisciplinary practices. Her workshops have taken place in the UK, Netherlands and Argentina. She is a member of School of the Damned Class 2018, a self organised postgraduate school for artists in the UK.

Alexandra Davenport
Staging and tableau are commonly used terms in relation to the photographic, (staging borrowed from theatre and tableau predominantly from painting) — but I’m interested in the term ‘choreographic’ as a means of bringing us back to the body and the performativity of the photographic gesture.

Alexandra Davenport (b.1992) lives and works in London. Working between writing, photography, performance and moving image — her practice is interested in the theatricality and ‘choreography’ of image making. She has recently graduated with distinction from MA Photography at The Royal College of Art and also holds a BA (Hons) Photography from London College of Communication.

Katy Morrison.

Each week the blog will be updated with text and images from each workshop, including material from the participants themselves.