Dies Durch Dich, 2014
Performance and textiles series
Presented at Upominki, Rotterdam and Spike Open, Bristol (both 2014)
Dies Durch Dich uses the dance form Eurythmy to investigate the choreographic potential of translating auditory elements through objects and the body. A series of workshops, performances and artworks explore the history and legacy of Eurythmy (as. pedagogical device within a uniquely structured system) and its potential to physicalise abstract language or concepts.
Eurythmy attempts to order and translate language through the body, physicalising immaterial concepts into a flowing transformation (letter to letter, word to word). This project attempts mirror this process of translation in a series of poems that juxtapose terminology form the realms of finance, science and choreography, describing states of transformation (solid to liquid, contraction/extension, administration of assets), drawing similarities and parallels between these very different disciplines.
In collaboration with a Eurythmist, the poems are then translated into Eurythmy.
Alongside these collaborative exercises, an ongoing experiment into materialising a process of transformation results in a series of large textiles. Silk paints were frozen and then allowed to melt slowly onto fabric over different durations. The textile works reflect the ‘veils’ worn as part of Eurythmy dancers costumes - which are made in the exact measurements of the dancer’s height and arm span and created in a fluid, coloured material, seen as the ‘after-image’ of a rhythm or word. The resulting blurred colour fields on the textiles also resemble the ‘wet-on-wet’ painting technique taught in Steiner schools, which focuses on an experience of colour rather than form.
Images: Videos and stills: studies for performance (workshop with Eurythmist, Rebecca Paten) & textile works (150x200cm) frozen silk paints on silk chiffon
