Led by Nathaniel Parchment and Annie Pui Ling Lok
Are you a Global Majority dancer interested in exploring your practice in relation to Contact Improvisation? This workshop is for you!
This is a Siobhan Davies Studios in partnership with Pembroke House event – please note the session will take place at Pembroke House!
Who is this workshop for?
This workshop is exclusively for dancers who identify as BPOC/Global Majority, interested in exploring their practice in relation to Contact Improvisation. BPOC stands for Black and People of Colour. Global Majority is a collective term which refers to people who identify as Black, African, Asian, Brown, Arab, Latinx, mixed-heritage, are indigenous to the global south. If you are unsure if this workshop is for you please get in touch with us.
As people of colour, there are many additional barriers and discomforts which we may feel in our interaction with certain dance forms and spaces, Contact Improvisation being one. This has been the subject of many conversations between Siobhan Davies Studios Artistic director Annie Pui Ling Lok and dance artist Nathaniel Parchment both of whom will lead the session.
WhAT IS THE UNDERSCORE?
The Underscore is a structure developed in the 90’s by Contact Improvisation founder Nancy Stark Smith.
The 20 phases of the Underscore are designed to provide a frame and a series of invitations for dancers to move through different states of arrival, connecting to yourself, connecting to others and sharing reflections at the end. Each phase has a name and an associated symbol called a ‘glyph’. You can learn more about the Underscore here.
Pembroke House, 80 Tatum Street, London SE17 1QR
Tickets
Pay what you choose
£10 / £13 / £15
Free tickets for support Workers, Carers and PAs
Access note
This workshop invites touch. Please arrive on time to start together at 6pm. The space will be open to all from 5.45
Together Annie and Nathaniel will be harnessing the framework to go deeper and question how to create a space where Contact Improvisation can be owned and practiced by everyone; and be truly inclusive through a process of conscious decoloniality.
WhAT TO EXPECT?
To participate in an Underscore, one should have some experience of Contact Improvisation and attend a talk-through of the Underscore, which will take place at the very beginning of the session and last for about 30min.
The following 2.5hrs will be dedicated to dancing the Underscore without verbal cues but with a shared knowledge of the practice.
Please arrive on time and be ready to start together at 6pm.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Nathaniel Parchment
Nathaniel is a London-based dance artist whose interests lie at the intersections of embodied enquiry, African diasporic and queer social dance cultures, global body-mind practices and performance.
In 2023 he graduated from the MA in Creative Practice: Dance Professional programme, delivered by Trinity Laban in partnership with Independent Dance (ID) and Siobhan Davies Studios, joining ID as Co-Director in the same year.
Nathaniel is currently working as a freelance teacher, producer and choreographer, developing research into decolonising dance pedagogies and reparative performance research. Bio
Annie Pui Ling Lok
Annie has been a freelance dance artist since 1999, and qualified as a biodynamic craniosacral therapist (BCST) in 2014. She has choreographed and co-directed over 50 works in the UK and abroad with professional and non-professional performers. Teaching and facilitation are key parts of her practice and she has taught in many community, professional and Higher Education settings. In 2021 Annie became one of the first leaders of colour to direct a dance organisation as Co-Artistic Director and Joint CEO of Siobhan Davies Studios (SDS) alongside independent producer Kat Bridge. Outside of SDS, Annie continues to freelance and parent her 6-year-old daughter.
ACCESS AND AMENITIES AT PEMBROKE HOUSE
This event will take place at Pembroke House, 80 Tatum Street, London SE17 1QR. It is a 19 minute walk from Elephant and Castle Underground or a short bus ride. The immediate streets are resident parking only. There is on street parking available close by on East Street. Find out about their building here.
Amenities include:
- Step free access to Pembroke House and a lift inside the building
- Toilets / wheelchair accessible gender-free toilets which can be used as changing spaces
- Drinking water and microwave