October 2019 – February 2020
Spirit Compass: Where there is movement there is changeLucy Suggate & Collaborators
As we all buckle under the weight of a collapsing system, Spirit Compass searches for a remedy through deep moving and deep listening.
Spirit Compass is a site for communal listening and embodiment – an island or a temple of sorts. Audiences are invited to relax and witness the movement while sitting or lying on a ‘shoreline’ of cushions resembling smooth stones. Suggate has a strong desire to move us towards more expansive experiences of watching; evoking feelings of heart-thumping, intense, or ecstatic absorption.
Suggate worked with an exceptional group of dance artists: Annie Hanauer, Alexandrina Hemsley, Alexah Tomey-Alleyne, Claricia Parinussa, Fernanda Muñoz-Newsome, Isabella Oberländer, Jamila Johnson-Small, Stephanie McMann, and Rowdy SS; musician Tom Page (RocketNumberNine, Neneh Cherry, The Memory Band, James Holden) and jewellery designer Lydia Hartshorn.
Together the dance artists work through 'tidal meditations,’ a practice of deep listening and moving informed by a detailed score focused on the pelvis. Beginning on the ‘shoreline’, performers ‘cast off’ into a performance space lit with changing sunset colours. Propelled by Page’s absorbing live drumming, they move through a process of internal and external detection and connection to energy. Each meditative cycle lasts approximately 45 minutes and is repeated three times. Audiences are invited to come and go at will during the 2h 15mins of each performance.
Suggate’s ‘tidal meditation’ practice relates to an expanded sense of being. It searches for the capacity of the body to go beyond logic, flesh and limitations; everything becomes re-negotiable and fluid. It seeks to remind us that our bodies are not fixed and we can always find new capacities to adapt to challenging times.
Collaborators
Dance Artists: Annie Hanauer, Alexandrina Hemsley, Alexah Tomey-Alleyne, Claricia Parinussa, Fernanda Muñoz-Newsome, Isabella Oberländer, Jamila Johnson-Small, Stephanie McMann, and Rowdy SS.
Musician: Tom Page
Costume Designer: Lydia Hartshorn
About
Lucy Suggate is a dance artist and choreographer recognised for her articulate and engaging solo performances as well as group installations informed by elements of synchronicity, cooperation and believing performance to be a communal act.
Her work is rooted in a movement practice which is an ongoing inquiry into the perceptual and physical expansion that occurs when engaged in durational moving and thinking. This work is often supported by sound and music that accelerates the process of altered states encouraging the body, the performer, into heightened states of awareness, availabilityand articulation – it’s within this space that new constellations, ideas, patterns and possibilities emerge through the sifting.
Support
Commissioned by CONTINUOUS. Supported using public funding from the National Lottery through Arts Council England, John Ellerman Foundation, and the National Lottery through Creative Scotland. With thanks to Dance Base, Wainsgate Dances, Yorkshire Dance, Cove Park, Harlequin Floors and Leeds Dance Partnership Fellowship.
Materials
Tour
18.10.19
Spirit Compass: Where there is movement there is change
BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead
19.10.19
Spirit Compass: Where there is movement there is change
BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead
20.10.19
Spirit Compass: Where there is movement there is change
BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead
26.10.19
Spirit Compass: Where there is movement there is change
Tramway, Glasgow
08.11.19
Spirit Compass: Where there is movement there is change
Turner Contemporary, Margate
09.11.19
Spirit Compass: Where there is movement there is change
Turner Contemporary, Margate
10.11.19
Spirit Compass: Where there is movement there is change
Turner Contemporary, Margate
01.02.20
Spirit Compass: Where there is movement there is change
Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham
02.02.20
Spirit Compass: Where there is movement there is change
Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham
