Vital Signs explores the creative possibilities of poetry and movement in contemporary performance. The project builds on long-standing collaboration between Scott Thurston (poet) and Sarie Mairs Slee (choreographer) and supports the creation of new transdisciplinary art work.
Vital Signs also seeks to connect with other writers, movers, and artists interested in working across poetry, movement and interdisciplinary collaboration. Vital Signs seeks to connect and expand the community working across poetry and physical performance, sharing in a range of digital and live events.
With funding support from Arts Council England, we are launching the project with the Vital Signs Festival, 28-30 September 2018. This three-day festival, in partnership with the University of Salford and The Other Room, will bring dancers, writers and other creatives together for an exciting programme of workshops and performances.
Vital Signs Double Bill I: Friday 28 September, New Adelphi Studio Theatre, 7:00 pm
(approximate end time: 9:00pm)
Reading Movement – Camilla Nelson
A 20-25 minute movement language piece that physically and sonically disrupts, extends and transforms the act of reading. This solo explores the relationship between sound and movement in the body of the reading figure. So often the reading body is stilled and silenced.
This work offers the body a chance to speak, to be seen and heard, to be liberated from the social restriction of received reading behaviour – what it is to be a “good” reader – and in doing so offers the audience an expanded sense of how language might activate their bodies differently. www.singingapplepress.com/performance/
FoMO, mofos! (Fear of Missing Out, mother***ers!) – Mary Pearson
Enter here and now. How did we get here? How do we get down from here?
Imagine a murder mystery seen through a kaleidoscope. A journey through retro technologies into the digital age. Clues are dropped via captured images, cult film references to Antonioni and Lynch. Identities blur, privacy is invaded, a Tarantino-inspired female killer vanquishes demons to return us to the here and now.
FoMO, mofos! reflects on the consequences of continuous self-exposure on the psyche. With social media hyper-connectivity comes hyper-vigilance: we watch each other, whilst being watched. How does desire multiply with screen use?
Inspired by research collaborations with: STEPHANIE AUBERVILLE (FR/Brussels), LEA KIEFFER (FR/Berlin), DEBORAH BLACK (NYC), HANNAH BUCKLEY (Leeds) and ANTHONY CAIRNS (Liverpool)
Made with: ALENA KUDERA costume design ANTHONY CAIRNS, JULES BECKMAN, ABBY CRAIN outside eyes MARY ANN HUSHLAK dramaturgical support PHIL SAUNDERS original lighting design and technical management BARRY HAN audio re-mastering
Made possible through a ‘Time and Space’ Residency at Metal Culture, Liverpool and with public funding from Arts Council England.
Further gratefully acknowledged support from residencies and early showings at Unity Theatre and Physical Fest (Liverpool), Au Brana Cultural Centre (France), and producer Leo Burtin, The Making Room.
Photo credit: MARK LOUDON
Book Launch: We Must Betray Our Potential by Scott Thurston, Saturday 29 September, second floor lounge New Adelphi Building, 6:30-7pm
Scott’s latest pamphlet of poems is dedicated to the Belgian poet-dancer Billie Hanne and comprises ‘metaphysical dialogues between the dancing and linguistic self’ (Amy McCauley). There will be a wine reception and copies of the book to buy at a special launch price.
Vital Signs Double Bill II: Saturday 29 September, New Adelphi Studio Theatre, 7:30 pm
(approximate end time: 9:00pm)
Making S p a c e s a Poetic Response – Alison Gibb & Elaine Thomas
The performance uses dance, video projection, poetry & sound to propose ‘making spaces for performance’ as a starting point and as a methodology to explore poetry and dance, gesture and language and the operation of performance as an ever-evolving site of production, experience and transformation.
A Poem in Four Movements: Wrestling Truth – Scott Thurston & Sarie Mairs Slee
That very peace can be despair,
taking the full force of the blow
into a distant dream.
— from ‘Encounters’ by S.M.Slee and S. Thurston
Photo credit: ROGER BYGOTT
What does it mean to wrestle with the truth? How do we stand our ground in the era of post-fact, and fake news? What will it take to avoid being silenced, yet not silencing the other?
The latest instalment in the artists’ long-standing enquiry into the interstices between movement and words, dance and poetry, Slee and Thurston draw on a wide-range of sources including philosophy, literature and scripture to inform this embodied exploration of the struggle to accept one’s own truth, and that of others.
Dramaturg: Kate Adams.
