Ballet in the village hall
Mum's american tan tights with the feet cut out and pink and white spotty shorts
Uncle Rowland playing the the piano
Ballet - I was good at the barre work but not the center work
Graham – I was good at the floor work but not at the center work
Jazz – I was good at the exercises but not at the dancing
Saying to my ballet teacher that I had had a big fall as a child and was scared of not being upright – lying about this to my ballet teacher as an excuse to stay upright
Being technically strong
Audition photos for Rambert
Being told to get some attack in my dancing and to go to fencing classes.
I never went.
Good morning Miss Marie
Experiencing improvisation classes for the first time circa 1984 – and I would always be the last one to leave the space
Loving them and being really excited by them
Opal Loop by Trisha Brown
Troy Games by LCDT
Ghost Dances by Rambert
My first experience of dancing on stage was awful – a solo - which I promptly forgot when I got on stage at the Old Town Arts Centre in Swindon. I wore a green jumper under a black leotard. I ran off stage. In the car on the way home my sister said that I was really good and I knew that she was lying. I knew what a lie was.
Maybe that’s why I work with improvisation now!
Pale pink all in one – my favorite
Hot pink plastic sweat pants
Sat in wide 2nd position on the floor – the teacher pokes a finger in my buttocks saying ‘lose that’.
Seeing a solo show by an American dancer – improvised – and thinking what the hell was that? I can’t think of her name right now but it will come to me.
Bad shins splits, really bad shin splits. Twice. 1985. 1987. Unable to walk let alone dance.
I was too tense.
Too rigid.
Too turned out.
Too much smashing my heels into the floor.  
Too much not bending my knees.
Too sore.
The Alexander Technique.
Contact improvisation.
Release based techniques.
Have a narrower first position – what?!
Don’t pull your knees up – what?!
And never wanting to look happy when taking a bow at the end of a show in case the audience thought I wasn’t really any good. So they knew that I knew that I wasn’t really any good. (Arts Centre in Swindon related…?)
Sunday 16 Oct, Leeds (ordered by people I’ve worked with, danced with or been taught by)
Laurie Booth
Rosie Lee
Sue MacLennan
Rosie Lee
Claire Russ
Claire Russ
Glasshouses
Kent De Spain
Kerry Francksen
Quick Shifts
Matthias Sperling
Lyndsey Kemp
Steve Paxton
Barbara Dilley
Nina Martin
Diane Madden
Xavier Le Roy
Emilyn Claid
Lois Weaver
Gay Sweatshop
Affair
Not good
JULYEN HAMILTON (capitals not on purpose)
Kirsty Simson
Gregory Nash
Fergus Early
Motionhouse
Lower Left
Leslie Dworkin
Pete Shenton
Rick Nodine
Jo Breslin
Miriam Keye
Eleanor Walker
Caroline Bowditch
Deborah Hay
Simon Ellis
Gabi Reuter
Suzanne ?
Lin Snelling
Mike Huxley
Jayne Stevens
Jovair Longo
Zena Skinner
Marie McCluskey
Terri McCluskey
Pete Purdy
Michael Quaintance
Susie Ater
Tony Thatcher

Joyous moments collection

In Kirsty Simson workshop with someone doing a duet and thinking that I think I have never felt happier when dancing. Absolute joy and elation and happiness.
Shaking, jiggling in unison, like chi quong
Lucia walker and scott clark workshop – funny old church hall near the place, got friendly with a woman who had half an index finger. We stood holding hands.
Measuring in Marfa
Stand up comedy moments – feeling like it’s working and liking it
Timing, beautiful and clever timing, feeling that sensation of joy
Steve Paxton
Renaissance, pete shenton, looking up at him in 90 degrees starting. Short sharp starts.

After dancing

So much.
Hooks\
paul douglas\
invited
change what you do with your legs
into what?
Hooks and teaching and losing the CD of that track.
Music to be murdered by.
Brass bands.
Measuring in Marfa leads to dripping pepper leads to rosie lee and splitting hands as they approach the floor.
Diving, like diving.
White feathers, circles, shifting space and feathers,
9 women in white
saw a photo of this the other day, of me in it.
I:8
Handcuffs and washing up gloves
Terminus terminux – this is the end my friend.
Renaissance, cello and guitar and lip synching.
Lip sinking.
Washing up gloves.
White gloves used in a library for ancient texts,
White rabbits, a graduate who is a magician’s assistant
Don’t forget we can get up and dance to check stuff out in this moment
Recalling watching others,
Seats, red plush. hard backed, stacked
Stacked, stocked,
Four thirty, time for tea.
Garden party in the hot house, throwing cups at each other from behind from off the table, was never good at throwing but that was alright.
Cabbages, red blood, smashing like skulls
Short and punky, pvc skirt, feathers
Feathers feature
Swans and peacocks,
Leotards from primark and peacocks, good quality cotton and they wash ok too
Numerous leotards and tights and
All in ones
Pink, black (wore that one for my Leicester polytechnic audition with an elastic waist band),
Electric blue with one shoulder.
Air on a g string,
Air on very big pants.
Not able to dance with small briefs, I need a large pair that don’t wriggle around when bending over.
Big spender
Only have one or two
Light,
Fly and don’t know that you’re flying (paraphrased wildly!)
Don’t let the audience know that you are moving in a spiral, but move in a spiral

Looking at
Being watched
Watching others
Difficult to stop
Turning whriling dervishes
Sensation
Feeling
Falling
Are we just writing memories?
Tracing my preferences through trisha brown,
Loose limbed with clarity
Lines
Loving lines!!
Horizontal or vertical or diagonal and long and short and thin and fat
Dropping dancer off in the space
Sweeping, cleaning like a brush leaving bits of debris on the floor
A dance for radio
Can you see me, hear me? Do you need to?
Do I forget it? Sometimes…

My body
Is 1mm ahead of me
here-and-there, all-at-once
and the me-driver
my self
is perhaps metabloic
or
something like a human version of snake venom if it was extracted into
a glass
or
testoterone
or
thick yellow liquid anyway
all my body all-at-once
all my past all-at-once
'all my lovers where there with me - all my past and all my future
..... and we all went to heaven in a little row boat'
7th Jan 2017 Silk Mill Derby
this is the version of now
this is the now ..... for now
for me it is not about the new but about the now ... paying attention
to the
right now
the past and the now, right now together in the now
and with the now, with it, is all of the past ... condensed
portable
carried
present
great vistas - carried in your pocket

Walking to school – father/spring blossom and Autumn leaves, snow blizzards, shadows in the sun, vit-c lozenge

Running, leapfrogging over gym ‘horse’

Playground Play - horses and houses with multiple corridors always in the same spot by the inner railings

Skipping Rope skipping

Dancing black cat – swinging long tail

Climbing frame - Spain – gouging skin out of hands by swinging on the bar – imaginary gymnast

Flying out of swing - Spain – uncle popping arm back into socket – I can’t understand them I don’t speak the language, my family are Catalans

Lagging behind dad - walking home from town

Heat the area of pain in my body – like a small animal

In the way of the hoover

Two fingers – jab and reveal Appendicitis

No flashing light or siren – too late in the evening – vomit all over

Mum - 2 am - trolly – dancing eyebrows above face mask – Black bag with tube – hard to breathe - Batman vision swirly 60’s eyes in the lift

Water and ice cubes

Bathtub – nailbrush – scrub harder

Art on the back in soap foam

Scum around the edges

Swing in the Park – very high, almost going over the top

Climbing – staircase bannister - up over – over and back down

Climbing wardrobe - flying/jumping off top onto mum and dad’s bed

Maypole – clog dancing – badminton – reaching – tapping - skipping

Yugoslav folk dance – candle dance, ht wax, chac chac – fast, steps, hopping, skipping

Library books on ballet – living room, holding the back of the dining chair - copying the positions

Dream of taking the ballet shoes on my feet in the dream back into waking life – awoke grasping my feet

It's a most unusual day - Feel like throwing my worries away - As an old native-born Californian would say

It's a most unusual day

Goose – in Mother Goose. Big flipper feet - of old carpet painted bright yellow. Pully at the back operating with left hand the beak – two pullys at the front (right and left hand) opening and closing the eyes

Running in flippers – funny – taking the last bow in spotlight

Running running running skipping skipping skipping jumping jumping jumping

Reaching reaching reaching

Sewing room – pins on floor - Stevie Wonder and Abba dance routines HEAD OVER HEELS

‘I had a very good friend’

Jacquie Pullen - Triplets to hill street blues

La Bouche – Oldham Library – The Oldham Rd, black and white photographic exhibition of boarded up shops and houses travelling from Oldham to Manchester

Jumping whilst kicking leg underneath and starfish hand on head

Mother not amused – pursed lips – hard lips

Paint – gymnasiums - Wildlife

Time out from school

Sheena Simon – Cunningham technique with Richard Alston, a piece that he didn’t choreograph much of

Dutiful Ducks – future teacher pre family

Work experience at 15 – standing in a circle with adults with learning difficulties – this was new

Chac chac

Balance balance – rocking side to side with a syncopated bounce

Candles on palms – hot wax drip on hand

Head veil – moving – spiritual

Holding hands all night long in a winding circle

Trance – togetherness – belonging without speaking

Rocking – swaying – hopping

Blue velvet, red braid, twisted leather

Turning

Surge forward

 Surging sideways

Push and drive

Rushing with the accordion

But with very clear and pointed stamps – that said YES and HERE and NOW

Here now and yes this moment all together – doesn’t matter that we speak differently – I belong to this group

A syncopation

A silent rhythm

A way a carrying vibration and drive through the body

As a support

As a trigger

As a drive

And now calmly stepping via walking with ric – very tall

Standing next to height and it’s very calm

And fibernaci

A series of oiled arm rolls

Fists and forearm acting as cogs

Legs below underpinning straight down and planted

And there is a very faint musicality – quiet but oiled, sliding

It feels – proper

It feels ‘intellectual’

I like feeling ‘intellectual’

And then a stepping out pattern – bird like – stalk

And the stalk becomes a kind of wind turbine

And our arms still and straight and up but with momentary flickering signals

Again it feels ‘intellectual’

It feels like Cunningham

It feels intellectual ..

But it seems that it is also funny

And I don’t mind that its funny

I like that it feels intellectual and funny at the same time

And I remember laying carpet tiles wearing a skirt

I am remembering the woods

Beautiful day

Diana’s funeral – so surreal in some ways

Autumn – as leaves were on the ground – but a warm sunny autumn day

Scooter

Walking in a concentric circle with the camera following

Happy then but also with a seed of doubt that this set up wasn’t good for me

Was kind enough – the transaction lacked …. Trust? Respect?

Arriving from Spain

Trying to be upbeat even though my heart had been broken

My value as a dancer shattered

And hiding it well –

Be funny be funny – wry – smart word play – intellectual but funny

But aching – but relieved to be with people who seemed nice

In Advance of Snow

Rutti – screaming – the Indian contingent – never seen snow

Delighted, excited

Infusing their body – the weird jumps on demi pointe

Shobana

A gathering in – a need for work to stop and play to happen

Trancredi

Italian Renaissance music – but with shot silk, dimmed lights, shiva

Which then leads me to Ekatarinburg

And the dark dark snowy wimter

Kaash – with machine guns in the wings trained on the audience

Minus 10 – not so bad, when you get used to minus 4, and 6 points is arbitrary

To get there we take a night flight from Moscow

And we fly through a snow storm

And we are the only plane that lands that night

And we are standing at the baggage reclaim

And lights and theatre equipment starts arriving on the belt

Literally laterns, franells, coils of wire, extension leads the lot

Piece by piece on the baggage reclaim belt

And the hotel doors open out into the corridor rather than in to the room

And I am listening to the Pyramid song over and over and over again

It seems the perfect song for where we are

And we are spinning

And I have just been back there

And it feels fuller now – somehow, in my grasp

And in my whole body

Not in just my

Heel

Or

Arms

Or hands

And I recall that this place back then

Held a grain of

(History)

some kind of fear

some kind of violence

that this violence once dealt, sticks around

as a warning

And somehow this was being repeated

Balancing on the edge of

Hope

& regret

hope

& fear

and that this ‘art’ was our hope right now

That this dancing – was something to look forward to

spinning into nothing

it was

However, new clothes for the emperor

In the city where the emperor and all his family

Were taken into a basement

And shot

Calculated

And we were supposedly dancing

Shiva

The Bhagavad Gita

The epic tale

Where Arjuna

On the battlefield

Is taught

(Realises) his role

How messed up

How brutal

Brutal man

Brutal history

Brutal to elevate it  

By calling it art