Artist Archive 2023/24

Angel Zinovieff |

Angel Zinovieff is an artist who works through movement, music, collage, film and writing. Their work is particularly interested in social spheres, spheres of time, the body and its inheritances – the micro of an individual life out and into the many macros of our existence, relational, sociopolitical, our time on earth, and out further into the cosmic unfathomable.

This Material Archive will bring together a collection of works made between 2014-2023 that explore the UK garage rave scene of the early 2000s. This archive will reflect on a deep personal history; a sonic, choreographic and social history; and a moment from which to map larger themes, such as joy in collective movement, transcendence, mental illness, the power of imagination and the division of time.

Image: Angel Zinovieff

My Johansson and Shabnam Shirzadi | Un-Veiling: A talkative remembering

My Johansson is a choreographer, dancer and actress. She is interested in the osmosis-like communication between performers and audience. My has a somatic and embodied approach to movement, to create haptic work that challenges what dance is and can be. Moving between the abstract and the more theatrical, she enjoys creating worlds that draw the spectator in.

Shabnam Shirzadi is an Iranian playwright, dramaturg, and researcher, currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Humanities at the University of California. Their research explores the intersection of performance studies, collective memory, biopolitics, phenomenology, and gender studies to investigate Iranian female actors who create socio-political transformation through the ways in which they represent themselves and navigate public spaces.

My and Shabnam will explore the making of ‘Veil’ (2018), a performance created during Fadjr International Theatre Festival in Iran, and the reason the two met. The work explores the veil and its effect on people, in a country were dance in public is illegal, performances have to get government approval and the performers performed a mutiny. My and Shabnam’s exploration will span out from this experience, towards the current ‘Woman Life Freedom‘ uprising in Iran and the performative act of unveiling oneself in public.

Images: rehearsals of Veil, 2018. Photos: My Johansson
– performer: Golnoosh Ghahremani
– performers: Mahan Arrafi and Negin Tabarra

Please note: this event was originally scheduled for the 7 July, it has now been postponed to later in the programme.

Angela Andrew | mearchivingme

Angela “Cookie” Andrew is a lindy hopper, dance artist, teacher, blogger, cultural mediator, and some other things too. Her background is in community education, and she is a legacy holder of African American Vernacular Jazz dance (AAVJ). In 2021 Angela celebrated 30 years of living this dance.

‘mearchivingme’ will be a physical anthology of her works and career. Sometimes ordered. Sometimes not. But there. Angela will be asking herself the questions: How did I get here? Why am I here? What am I doing with here, and where is here going?

Image: Gilles SOEN-WER

Carol (Kavina) Pound | Waiting , Relating and Coordinating

Carol (Kavina) Pound is a dance artist and the co-creator of Danzability with her daughter Bethany. She uses her experience to inspire others, and has spoken about her dance journey at various disability and well-being events. Kavina is a regular dancer with Freestylers and works freelance with SLIDE. She is also a Biodanza teacher, running a monthly class in Greenwich, and is a volunteer on the committee for Biodanza Association UK.

Kavina’s Live Archive is based on her monograph ‘Waiting, Relating, and Coordinating’ (2017). Kavina is an older dance artist with dyspraxia and arthritis, who entered the profession late in life. Her talk will describe how her journey has been one almighty battle, but also how dance has helped her to develop patience, improve her coordination and balance, and increase her social skills.

Images:
– Carol and Bethany Pound
– Freestyler’s Everybody With Me, Always, 2021. Performers: Carol and Bethany Pound.

Adesola Akinleye | Archiving with Bare feet: archiving the performance work ‘Truth & Transparency’

Adesola Akinleye is a choreographer artist-scholar creating dance works ranging from dance films, installation, texts to live performance that are often site-specific. They draw on Indigenous/Africanist worldviews to explore how movement demonstrates the intra-connection of body-mind-environment. Adesola’s work is characterized by an interest in glimpsing and voicing peoples lived experiences through creative moving image. A key aspect of their work is the artistry of exchanging creative processes. They co-direct DancingStrong Movement Lab.

‘Truth & Transparency’ (2007) is a performance work for three: two performers and one dancer manipulating an image projected onto the performance space using a mirror. The work was inspired by Ralph Ellison’s ‘Invisible Man’ and Adesola’s reflections on bringing-up their own children as two masculine presenting Black youth at the time. The piece researched Step and Crumping dance forms and foreshadowed new technology using projection in real-time to manipulate the audience’s perception of dancers and space.

Image: Adesola Akinleye