Neon Dance – PuzzleCreature
British choreographer Adrienne Hart returns with a brand new work which combines dance, immersive set design and a surround sound score that asks us to examine our attitudes to ageing and the body.
PuzzleCreature is inspired by ‘Reversible Destiny’ artist/architect duo Arkawa and Madeline Gins, who explored what they felt was humans’ one fundamental design flaw. We don’t live forever. Rejecting mortality, the visionary creative team spent fifty years exploring ways to defy death by design – and in doing so, achieved a kind of immortality through the influential work they left behind.
The audience were invited inside an inflatable structure as The Patrick Studio was transformed into a unique immersive space shared by both the audience and three exquisite dance artists who drive the performance with wearable body sculptures. Japanese dance artist Mariko Kida, who also guests with Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, performs alongside Carys Staton and Luke Crook, both established performers on the UK dance scene.
With a newly commissioned surround sound score from Oxford based composer Sebastian Reynolds, the integration of British and Japanese Sign Language and audio description from Louise Fryer (National Theatre); for the first time Hart is inviting her audience to experience a fully immersive Neon Dance performance, up close.
Key Information
When
Wednesday 17 October & Thursday 18 October 2018
Where
DanceXchange, The Patrick Studio, Birmingham Hippodrome
ABOUT NEON DANCE
Adrienne Hart trained at Swindon Dance and London Contemporary Dance School. She works internationally as a choreographer and as Artistic Director of Neon Dance. Her work has been commissioned and supported by Arts Council England, British Council, Creative England, Modern Art Oxford, Glastonbury Festival and Art Front Gallery amongst others. Neon Dance is currently resident company at Swindon Dance and Adrienne Hart is one of the selected artists taking part in Sadler’s Wells’ Summer University programme (2015 – 2018). 2018 commissions include creating a new work for Company of Elders, Sadler’s Wells’ resident over-60s performance company and a curated Wild Card over two sold out evenings at Lilian Baylis Studio.
PuzzleCreature has been inspired by the work of the Reversible Destiny Foundation, founded in 2010 by Arakawa and Madeline Gins to promote their work. Arakawa passed away that same year and Gins 4 years later, but their legacy lives on and their thinking inspires a new generation from as diverse disciplines as mathematics, neuroscience, art and philosophy.
“Arakawa and Gins coined the term ‘organism that persons’ to describe you and I, they ‘decided not to die’ and went about doing this through ‘architectural procedures’ that resulted in some of the most inspiring architecture and artwork out there! I knew when responding to their body of work, which includes poetry, manifesto writing, painting, buildings and parks, my audience had to be in and part of it; sensing, cleaving and of course.. not dying!” – Adrienne Hart (Artistic Director, Neon Dance)
Arakawa and Gins believed our bodies to be conditioned by our surroundings, naturally adapting to our environment. They used their architectural works to keep those residing in them from fully adapting, thus living longer. Neon’s creative team have spent time living in and exploring ‘Reversible Destiny Lofts’ and The Site of Reversible Destiny – Yoro Park, both projects by Arakawa and Gins.
