SEGMENTS, SEQUENCES AND PHRASES
Between Walls is an ongoing series of performance-based actions developed during and after the lockdown period, designed specifically for gallery, museum, and other non-theatrical spaces. These works are not site-specific in a traditional sense but are built to respond to the conditions of the space and the people within it.
Origin and Process
Lockdown felt like time suspended. For many, it was a rupture — a sudden break from the normal flow of life. I used this period as an opportunity for concentrated research and experimentation, which led to eighteen months of intensive workshops.
Across twenty-three recorded sessions, we developed a body of material: some short, complete performance pieces; others small episodes or gestures — nearly eighty phrases and fragments in total. The aim was to create works that could be performed in varied contexts, adaptable in scale and setting. These were the blueprint - a visual sketch book of possibilities.
During this time, I returned to the work of choreographers and dancers who have long influenced me: Merce Cunningham, Steve Paxton, Yvonne Rainer, Trisha Brown, Pina Bausch, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, and the Judson Dance Theatre. Their approaches offered both structure and inspiration as I shaped new physical vocabularies.
Works and Experiments
The workshops also gave space to revisit ideas I had been carrying for years. Some of the works developed include:
• Intersection–Interaction – originally conceived for New York’s crossway junctions
• Bedlam
• Audience
• Ghosting
• Performance
• Chair
• Mirror Mirror
• Command–Control–Shift
Each work emerged through experimentation, improvisation, and reflection. Some are adaptable solos; others are ensemble-based or rely on proximity to the viewer.
The Between Walls Series
The Between Walls pieces were created with non-theatrical spaces in mind — galleries, museums, and other public or semi-public environments. They are not traditional “community art” projects, but they do invite the presence and participation of people from the surrounding context.
Performers may be drawn from local communities — not as participants in someone else’s vision, but as co-authors of the work. This is art that engages the community in the process of creativity and offers them ownership of their actions within it.
Materials and Influences
My work draws from a wide spectrum of material: music, poetry, film, documentary, architecture, and more. These sources either appear within the works or shape the underlying research — not always visible, but present in the atmosphere and structure.
I’ve collaborated with the late writer Mel Gooding on two previous projects: Site Unseen (1997) and The Foundling (2010). For each, I invited Mel to begin from the same starting point as myself. His poetic texts were not responses to the work, but parallel investigations — one of a building (in Site Unseen), the other of a historical situation The Foundling). This shared point of departure allowed the language and movement to evolve independently, yet remain in quiet conversation.
One of the ambitions I have is to return to the those intervention works after nearly 30 years and revisit the ideas with new performance works named after the cut-outs.
Isolation, loneliness, fear, social distance, mental health and wellbeing have become something many have experienced in one way or another and in particular during the stress of lockdowns, where these conditions have been amplified. These are some of the themes that have been explored or touched on in the developing sessions that began in March 2020.
My influences are endless and include artists John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Robert Rauschenberg, Bruce Nauman, Pina Bausch, Anne Teresa Keersmaeker, Samuel Beckett, Theatre of Mistakes, Station House Opera and the artist Gary Stevens. The list could go on and on and on…….
The workshops
Working with Ash McNaughton and Lise Boucon as been essential and a joy, developing a series of works under the umbrella title - Walk Stand Still. My process is playful, uncertain, tentative and I am sure annoying. But both Ash and Lise were fantastic bringing energy and curiosity, enabling us to play, take ideas and pursue them wherever they went. Paul Cheneour, the Jazz flutist/composer has been part of this project from the beginning and the British Composer John Woolrich has been key, an important colleague and influential in all aspects of this process from the very beginning
