‘Don’t Push Me’ Tour 2007
DON’T PUSH ME - April - June 2007
A triple bill of dance and aerial work directed by
Liam Steel (Stan Won’t Dance)
Jess Curtis (Gravity)
Music by Derek Nisbet (Talking Birds)
THE PROGRAMME
1. TOUCH/Don’t Touch is directed by American choreographer, Jess Curtis, founder of Physical Gravity Entertainment and winner of the 2002 Edinburgh Fringe First for his piece ‘fallen’, TOUCH/Don’t Touch adds a new dimension to disability dance by taking the dancers – Claire Cunningham and C. Derrick Jones - off the ground and exploring new ways of moving. Performed to a sound score by Derek Nisbet, the piece is the physical study of two very different performers, using contemporary dance and aerial performance. How can our contact with another body or object change the range of our movement potential? Can two people’s ‘disabilities’ combine to become virtuosic? In a balance of risk and care, TOUCH/Don’t Touch exposes the essential core of Blue Eyed Soul’s work.
TOUCH/Don’t Touch was jointly commissioned by Greenwich and Docklands International Festival and the Mayor of London. It was premiered in 2005 as part of ‘Dancing City’ at Canary Warf and presented as part of ‘Liberty’ London’s Disability Rights Festival in Trafalgar Square.
2. CATCH, directed by Jess Curtis, defies convention as the all female cast – Claire Cunningham, Tanya Scully, Kate Mason, Victoria Malin, Rachel Freeman - perform an 18 minute aerial work that guarantees to inspire, entertain, thrill and scare. CATCH revels in the delights of defying gravity, working blind, being off balance, losing and finding each other. Derek Nisbet’s unique soundscore combines audio description, personal anecdotes and composed music. CATCH premiered in November 2005 as part of the Xposure05 Festival at Lillian Baylis Theatre Sadler’s Wells and featured in Blue Eyed Souls large scale production of Touch at the Shrewsbury Music Hall
3. HOOKED, devised and directed by Liam Steel, is about the insecurity of love and relationships. About waiting and wondering. About fearing the truth and acknowledging the moment you need to face it. Completing the ‘Don’t Push Me’ trilogy, HOOKED uses the poetic, analytical writings of psychoanalyst R.D. Laing and music from the cutting-edge band Bats for Lashes. This is Liam’s second project with BESDC; in 2003 he directed the critically acclaimed ‘Frankenstein’ which addressed the politics of cloning and the inherent fascism of our notions of being able to create a ‘perfect’ human being.
“On this occasion I am very happy with the creative restriction of fitting into a pre-determined trilogy,” says Liam,“ and honoured to have been asked to work with BESDC once again. Although my most recent work has been on a larger scale, I have always been fiercely committed to working with companies who are trying to change the face of dance, and I firmly believe that Rachel and BES are banging on the political door of our perception of what dance is or can be -gradually prising it open to a much wider audience and participating body.”
Also performed at Connect Festival March 27th 2007 at Lilian Baylis Theatre, Sadler’s Wells, London
Audience Comments
“Amazing, one of the best shows I have seen in a long time”
“Lost for words, your show was breathtaking”