Dancer and Choreographer Louise Ahl was in residence at iC4C for 2 weeks during June.
Louise developed material for a new dance performance Heavy Metal. The work is a Tramway co-production with BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art and supported by the National Lottery through Creative Scotland.
Informed by a period of choreographic research residencies at Tasdance and Critical Path in Australia in June/July 2018 (funded by Creative Scotland and Australia Council for the Arts). During this time Louise researched a feminist approach to alchemy, and visual description as a method to create layers of meaning to abstract content. One of these weeks was spent with Sydney-based choreographer Angela Goh, where they were developing a method to make sculptures that slowly decay inside, through a process of burying a mixed content that could decompose (garlic, blood, vinegar, flowers etc.) inside sheets of aluminium that was then beaten into a sculptural form.
This period of research shaped ideas for a new durational performance work, which Louise will now be working towards in the Dance4 residency. Louise is interested in creating what alchemists talk about as ‘thought images’ – abstract imagery filled with symbolism which was made to cultivate a person’s intuitive insight into matter and form, in order to disrupt any rationalising and ‘making sense’ of a piece of art.
Her residency culminated in a studio sharing of the developed work up to this point.
Studio Sharing of Heavy Metal
Thursday 20 June 2019 at iC4C, Nottingham
Heavy Metal will draw on a feminist approach to alchemy and transformation to explore matter and form. A durational work of up to six hours incorporating alchemical methods of repetition, distillation and decay within the choreographic process, the work will involve dance, scented sculptures, a vocal composition, elements of visual description and an integrated touch tour.
Ultimate Dancer (Louise Ahl’s dance alias) and collaborators will create imagery that transforms over time, working with slowly shifting bodies, sculptural material changing shapes and accumulating in the space, a drawn out vocal composition and the visual description continually changing the interpretation to evoke new imagery.
Supported by the National Lottery through Creative Scotland.
artist involved
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Louise Ahl
(UK)
Louise Ahl is a Glasgow-based artist originally from Sweden, making experimental and choreographic performance work. She creates both solo and collaborative multi-art-form pieces under the guise of Ultimate Dancer. To challenge the form and notion of choreography underpins Louise’s artistic development with her practice revolving around improvisation, cultivating presence and atmosphere. She obsesses over systems of belief and how we experience reality. The artistic outputs of these enquiries are trippy, colourful and idiosyncratic performances with meditative qualities. Louise makes art around the metaphysical and mystical, using movement, voice, light, sonics and language. Her work has shown across the UK (including, but not limited to Southbank Centre and BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art), Ireland, Germany, France, USA and Australia and has been supported through Creative Scotland, Arts Council England and the Swedish Arts Grants Committee. Her pieces have been commissioned by Dance4 (‘Intercourse’), Edinburgh Art Festival (‘Edelweiss, Edelweiss…’) and Tramway (‘Holy Smoke’). Louise was a New Associated Artist at Yorkshire Dance in 2012, a Tramway Associated Artist in 2015/16 and a 2017/18 recipient of the Starter Artist award through the National Theatre of Scotland.
