Output details

TooMortal

(A site responsive dance work for historic churches)

This dance was created to be performed in churches and explores the vulnerability and tenacity of the human spirit within historically resonant settings. Exploring notions around churches as a place of enquiry as well as solace the work seeks to create a sense of attending to both place and event in contrast to the hubbub of the cities that lie just outside the doors.

The work was commissioned by Dance Umbrella (London), La Biennale di Venezia (Venice) and Dansens Hus (Stockholm) within ENPARTS - European Network of Performing Arts, with the support of the European Commission.

The dance work, for six dancers, is designed to be performed exclusively inside churches with box (or suitably high) pews. Themes of mortality are developed using the pews alternatively as a cradle, barrier, support and final resting place. Using the pews as the site for performance resulted in a unique opportunity to structure and present the moving body. The work is viewed from the chancel—an inversion of the usual perspective. This is established at the outset of the performance when the audience is led into the church and the unusual perspective disrupts the usual sense of order and sanctity, revealing the theatricality of the setting.

The first section contains strong references to the sea (the word 'nave' is derived from the Latin for 'ship'), and the movement is designed to convey the sense of an external journey achieved literally through the dancers' journeys over the pews. The work progresses into a sense of internal journey, and passages of more intense physicality are punctuated with extended moments of stillness in which the performers acknowledge the presence of the audience through their gaze. An enhanced sense of attending, and of time passing, is shared.