Emilyn Claid, a queer dance artist in her 7th decade, is leading a two-day choreographic workshop, inspired by notions of transformation, linked to her new solo performance. Transformation as an embodied process that unravels sense making, dissolves fixed postures and crumbles what seems normal. Transformation that continuously informs performance presence through shifting visual image and by drawing upon lived experience.
Between ‘I’ and ‘eye’, being, becoming, performing, this weekend will involve playful improvisations, movement tasks, discussion, fixing – and letting go of – choreographic material. We will consider the material we find with open questioning and curiosity, to notice patterns of movement, identity, and relationship, and the impact these might have on our work, lives and loves.
Emilyn will be joined by Luke Pell as her assistant for the weekend. The workshop is open to people, across arts disciplines, who like making things with image and movement and are attentive to queer sensibilities.
Emilyn will also be performing a sharing of her new performance at Siobhan Davies Studios on Friday 14 October. This event is free and you can book tickets here.
Emilyn Claid is a dance maker/performer, a psychotherapist and an emeritus professor (University of Roehampton). Claid’s career stretches back to the 1960s when she was a ballet dancer with National Ballet of Canada and the 1970s when she was co founder of X6 Dance Space in London.
In the 1980s Claid was artistic director of Extemporary Dance Theatre and in the 1990s choreographed for companies such as Phoenix and CandoCo while creating solo shows for international touring. She has published two books, Yes? No! Maybe… Seductive Ambiguity in Dance Theatre Performance (Routledge 2006) and FALLING Through Dance and Life, (Bloomsbury 2021).
Luke Pell is an artist based in Scotland who makes work across forms, through conversation with people and place. As a maker, curator and dramaturg Luke is often a companion to other artists/organisations’ thinking through practice to navigate processes of change.
