Curated by Oxford Dance Forum this occasional platform provides a welcome opportunity for Oxford dance artists to try out works in progress in a safe space, and for audiences to get an insight into the development of new works, and give feedback.  In this richly varied edition the artists are Naomi Morris with Hugh Pryor, Emma Webb and Richard Jones, Jenny Parrott, Ellie Aldegheri and Lunas Dance Project and Thomas Page Dancers.  See below for further details about the works they will be showing.

Performance:  Tuesday 25th April 7.30pm

Venue:  Arts at the Old Fire Station, 40 George Street, Oxford OX1 2AQ

Tickets:  £5

Book online here

Naomi Morris & Hugh Pryor – ‘Revealed/Exposed/Enclosed’

Our collaborative practice has been developed over 8 months studying our shared interested in abstracting the body using film and photography and various lighting states and capturing methods. We live and work in Oxfordshire and have been working at OVADA

(10 mins) 2 performers

Revealed/Exposed/Enclosed’ is the first presentation of work undertaken over an 8 month experimental collaborative period between dance and video artist Naomi Morris and multimedia artist Hugh Pryor. The aim is to find a form in which we can display the work. We use paint, wool, electro-luminescent wire, plaster and latex with UV light to produce strong illuminated images of the moving body. We distort and abstract the naked human form with light, lens and computer generated post production effects.
The question we are currently considering is whether a ‘live’ element would enhance the work and if so, how and what interaction could occur between the video and a dancer if the piece were to be installed into blacked out space or stage. Research into projection surfaces has resulted in the construction of spheres which intend to appear to hold and contain a moving body. This hopes to introduce an interactive feature and may significantly shape subsequent devised movement and the overarching aesthetic. With the addition of a soundscape we also hope to be one step closer in finding a form. We plan to take on-board any audience feedback on this, as well as movement, projection and sculptural aspects to guide us as we continue to develop the work.

Splintered Itinery – ‘The Submission’

Splintered Itinerary is an Oxford based collaboration project between movement specialist Emma Webb and mime/ clown practitioner Richard Jones.

(8-10 mins) 3 performers

This is a snippet of a work being shown at the OFFBEAT FESTIVAL.  The Submission is an episodic tale of transitions and arrivals. Three characters wind their way through paper thin premises, scrape off the wallpaper to find the horrors that lie beneath. What happens when we submit, bare our soul to a stranger, give in to a narratives forces? Both dark and funny, The Submission melds theatre clowning and choreography to explore the journeys between the stories, the longing behind the hopes and the risks we take. Splintered Itinerary are beginning to explore the creative possibilities in melding clown, mime and dance in a theatre setting, combining the lyricism of dance with the precision of mime – then splattering it all with the clowns humour. This is one episode. Set in a land of paper pushers, repetitive movement of a working day is confused by the dreams of the world outside.

Jenny Parrott – ‘Since I woke’

I have a background in contemporary dance, and occasionally create solo performance pieces grounded in dance, improvisation and speaking my thoughts / anxieties out loud.

(3-5 mins) 1 performer

A semi-improvised solo performance to a recorded vocal soundtrack taken from recent writings and observations I have made following an invitation to write a short story which I undertook (not a personal invite – it was a public call) which has led me to a habit of reading and writing in the early morning before work and other daily routines.
Referring to books I’ve been reading (including Virginia Woolf’s A room of one’s own and Patti Smith’s Woolgathering) and taking them as motivation into action. ‘It is in our idleness, in our dreams, that the submerged truth sometimes comes to the top’ – Virginia Woolf ‘A room of one’s own‘. Through reading and daydreaming I am finding my way to a performance, to find the dance and stop me talking (as I have done in previous pieces) in my first steps toward this I will record my thoughts and allow the dance to find its way out, and ask the audience to find its meaning. If I could dance as I have been writing, without thinking, without concerning myself with meaning, what can I make, what can you make of it? Please tell me…

Ellie Aldegheri / Lunas Dance Project – ‘There are no such words..’

Ellie Aldegheri is artistic director and choreographer of contemporary dance company Lunas Dance Project.

(10 mins) 4 performers

An emotive and emotionally charged piece that explores motherhood, traditions and more specifically the complex and rocky relationship between mother and daughter and families in general.

Thomas Page Dancers – ‘Touched’

A contemporary dance artist from Oxford, living and training in London with the aspirations of working in a highly collaborative nature to create thought-provoking work.

(3 mins) 1 performer

‘Touched’ is the signature solo from the company’s debut work ‘C-A-G-E-D’ and explores the psychology of oppression through the medium of contemporary dance and contortion. Exploring the ideas of sexual manipulation, physical abuse and mental exhaustion ‘Touched’ seeks to question to what extent does physical oppression become a psychological form of oppression. It seeks to evoke an uncomfortable nature in its viewers and encourage them to reflect on times when they have felt either physically or emotionally oppressed.