Logs, 6x Performance Stills, @GlogauAIR, Sept 17th 2020
Groundwork is a project investigating our relationship with the earth and inviting exploration of our physical sense of weight, connection and belonging.
As part of this project I found myself stuck in the rainforest in Australia during the Covid-19 Pandemic that led me on a journey of dancing with trees, including burnt and logged forests. Following this trip and with much inspiration from the trees, I gathered a company of 7 dancers to explore how relationships with the earth and experiences of belonging play out through social interactions and relationships. Over the course of a 3 month residency at GlogauAIR in Berlin, I worked with these dancer to create Logs, Trees and Above Ground, 3 performances, presented in Berlin in September 2020.
Choreography: Rosalind Holgate Smith
Dancers: Leila Patzies, Sofia Sarmento, Roc Gottchalk del Pozo, Jennifer Schecker, Jodie
Kropf, Mandy Lan & Vega Luukkonen
Above Ground 45min Performance at Monopol, Berlin, 25 September 2020
Trees Performed at GlogauAIR in Berlin, 17 September 2020
Further adaptations of Trees have been performed at: St Mariens Cemetery in Berlin, commissioned by The Verwalterhaus fur Aktuelle Kunst und Kultur in Berlin, find more information about this work here and in Dartington Gardens as part of Sentient Performativities, a symposium program investigating the potential of somatic practices to foster ecological awareness and interspecies communication.
During my time in the rainforest of the Yarra Valley I was introduced to Big Pats Creek, a logging site there in Victoria, Australia, where I spent some time improvising within the landscape. I developed also a dance film with local women in the site with thanks to Cat Mckay and Karina Doughty. Photography: Paul Colcheedas
Below are some video extracts from my journey of dancing with trees in Australia.