Choreography as an Occult Practice
Led by Charlie Ashwell, these online classes will be guided practices through a possible ‘underworld’ of dance. We will start from the assumption that dance is full of magic: its logic is partially hidden from us; it spills over, or disappears into, a different reality to our own. What practices emerge when we reach for this unknowable dimension? When we favour the impossible, the nonsensical, the unmapped or unmappable? How do we work with gaps or voids in sense, instead of trying to resolve them? What arises when we suspend the need to be convinced.
Guided movement explorations will lead us into tasks, experimenting with channelling, divination, prophecies and spells as strategies to unearth choreographic practices full of hidden, occult potential.
These classes are part of ID’s summer season curated by Seke Chimutengwende.
Charlie Ashwell is a dance artist working with choreography, writing, producing and dramaturgy. They have performed with Seke Chimutengwende & Friends, Dog Kennel Hill Project, Janine Harrington, Florence Peake and English National Opera, among others. Charlie has worked closely with Es Morgan and Seke Chimutengwende as producer and dramaturg and is currently joining theatre maker Greg Wohead as dramaturg on his new work. Charlie’s own choreography explores magic as a mode of conjuring alternative realities out of the frictions between dance and language. They teach technique, improvisation and choreography at the University of Roehampton.