Performances & Projects
This is work that we have performed at a formal setting and also work that we have collaborated with other art forms and other groups.
Tree of Life
‘Tree of Life’ explored the experience of living in a world of much beauty and brokenness. It follows 5 individuals who remember a ‘Paradise Lost’ and experience the longing to return. They are thrown into a world of everyday challenges and the mundane. But when one of them discovers the way back to the Tree, each must decide what it will take to embark on this journey. Put together in celebration of Easter, we explored themes of hope in the face of death, beauty in brokenness and a fresh look at the person of Jesus for this generation.
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This piece was put together with 3 workshops: 'Paradise Lost', Paradise Won' and 'The Return'. It was performed at Bath Spa University Theatre at the ' Tree Choreographic Platform' March 2016 with other dance groups and companies. We were also able to perform at a formal evening event held at St Bart's Church.
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We enjoyed the experience of working with moving images in this project created by designer Tim Etheridge.
Beata Cosgrove Photography
Mementos
We were privileged to be invited to take part in a community dance project in August 2015 called Mementos.
'Mementos’ was an intergenerational dance project, led by 3rd Stage Dance Company and funded by B&NES Council. It is based on the origins of the word 'memento'-'remember that you will die'. We did 3 workshops led by 3rd Stage Dance Company and created a piece that explored how we deal with loss and death. We shared this piece with other community groups on 21 October 2015.
For more details please see
http://3rdstagedance.com/mementos-project/
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Keynsham Music Festival 2018
Texture Dance Company's Performance Collective, our community dance group, was selected to perform at the Keynsham Music Festival LOVE DANCE Stage on Sunday 1 July 2018 as part of an exciting programme of dance. The piece was based on Ecclesiastes, from our 'Chasing Wind, Passing Shadows' Workshop.
A movement piece exploring the book of Ecclesiastes, from the Old Testament part of the Bible, written about 900BC, around the time of king Solomon. It reflects on the words of the ‘Teacher’ who writes about his observations of ‘life under the sun’. In his search for meaning, he purports that life is momentary like a ‘breath’, its activity like a ‘chasing after the wind’, and lives are like ‘passing shadows’.
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Chapter 1 Broken Record
We explore the Teacher’s observation of life—with its repetition, labour, pursuit of perfection - but he concludes it is ‘a chasing after the wind’, that ‘what is crooked cannot be straightened’. We look at things we do every day, over and over again, that frustrate us because perfection eludes us.
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Chapter 2 Drift
The Teacher experiments by pursuing pleasure and a productive life as he searches for meaning and purpose. We test the Teacher’s hypothesis and follow the pervading current of pleasure and work, experiencing its momentary happiness and despair.
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Chapter 3 Connection
The Teacher observes that ‘[God] has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart.’ We explore this recognition that we were made for something more. There is a flicker of purpose, a connection between the momentary and the eternal. Death is not the end. This resonates with the hope of a true Easter resurrection – ‘Where O Death is your victory? Where O Death is your sting?’
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Chapter 12 Remember
‘Remember him—before the silver cord is severed’, says the Teacher. He concludes his writing with the inevitability of the approaching years. We embrace the process of aging with realism but also with hope. We recognise that ‘to dust we may return’, but the hope of an Easter resurrection, if true, could mean there is a raw continuity between this moment and eternity when we ‘remember him’.
@sophiekelkphotography