Alexandrina Hemsley re-shares a set of creative writing materials first shared through ID in summer 2020. These are available for everyone to access and work with in their own time.
These exercises approach words as choreographic opportunities to sift through how to connect, be empathic, express desires, give permission and be responsive to ourselves. They reflect something about choosing writing as a choreographic unfolding; and the same being true of choreography as an unfolding texture.
Alexandrina Hemsley’s practice is shaped by the morphing disciplines of dance, dance for camera, live art, theatre, mentoring, creative and critical writing.
Driven by an interest in fracturing, connectivity, displacement and emotionality, they hope to find and share ways of expressing felt, lived realities. They work with intricate improvisation scores and vivid performance environments which insist on conjuring embodied enquiries into a multiplicity of voices. This includes work within organisations around diversity, disability and inclusion. It is a life-long undertaking.
Alexandrina is embarking on an interdisciplinary solo project Words Collect In my Mouth; All is Fire and Flood which attends to questions of how one (individual & communities) returns to intimacy – of self, of performing, of expression – within the aftermaths of (continual) violence. The research situates itself across and does not distinguish aesthetic value between dance, writing, film, healthcare and community work.
Alexandrina is Associate Artist at Cambridge Junction and International Associate Artist 2020/21 at Dance Ireland. Her collaborations include Project O with Jamila Johnson-Small (2010 – ) Sadler’s Wells New Wave Associates) and Seke Chimutengwende on Black Holes (2016-). Her work has been commissioned by and presented at Sadler’s Wells, Battersea Arts Centre, Southbank Centre, Chisenhale Dance Space and The Yard Theatre among others.