Zoe and Alison

More head and neck, trying, pushing, testing, swing, fold and swipe.

Feeling of being restricted, but not in a bad way. I still had a lot of choice, but just being informed, influenced, indicated what to do.

Relearning and remoulding my body to the structures, learning to move with this new body

The release when I removed it from certain positions – like a breath of fresh air, like being able to breathe again fully without realising that I hadn’t been breathing properly before.

Who's moving who?

Moving with the structures almost as puppets or a tool, rather than be limited by them and have them move me.

Stripping
Undressing
Golf swing
Noose – hanging
Crown / tiara
Handcuffs
Jacket
Pole
Lasso
Pendulum swing
Postage
Puppets and strings
Evacuation labels

“It feels like a puzzle that I’m trying to work out the answer to, that I’m like working my way around. It feels very much like I have this puzzle and I’m trying to work out how to solve it, or work out how the pieces fit together.”

Closed, down, twist, lean, balance, jump, swing.Contracted, limited, small and twisted.

1. Alison improvises on beach and sends video to Zoe.
2. Zoe makes sculptures on her own body and posts them to Alison.
(see: missed post and several visits to Fort William Post Office)
3. Alison moves with sculptures and does tasks Zoe set. Alison films these explorations and sends videos to Zoe.
4. Zoe & Alison meet on Zoom and discuss what's coming up so far.
5. Zoe makes more sculptures and does some drawings.
6. Zoe sets Alison more tasks.
7. Alison responds to tasks and creates another round of video improvisations.
8. Alison & Zoe receive feedback from Alexandrina and Nancy and discuss their work.
9. Zoe makes more sculptures and gives these to Alison in person!
10. Alison & Zoe travel to location just outside Siobhan Davies Studios and spend a morning filming with all the sculptures, using the movement language that they've discovered.
11. Editing.

THE PROCESS

FLESH & FRAME

Zoe and Alison collaborated across their mediums, exchanging physical structures via the post, movement videos via WeTransfer and discussions and ideas over Zoom. Collaborating despite distance and in a variety of locations, the duo approached this work with open curiosity, and a question mark over what might arise. Consequently, the explorations took the form of several improvisations. What they found included but is not limited to; freedom, restriction, expectation, information, instruction, power, and the limits of it. Considerations of autonomy and choice, power and force, and a comment somewhere about women’s body and what is placed on them.

Flesh & Frame is the result of two women exchanging wire structures, movement and ideas across locations, exploring freedom and restriction, manipulation and malleability, considering their autonomy and power over each other and their susceptibility to choices and instructions.

(You may wish to open the video in fullscreen in a new tab, and watch with headphones.)

*LISTEN TO ZOE & ALISON DISCUSS THEIR WORK*

Alison · Audio Description of Zoe & Alison Hotglue Page

Alison · Audio Description Flesh & Frame

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ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Since graduating from Northern School Of Contemporary Dance in 2019, Zoe has been developing her company Art Is In Motion, creating dance/art installations. Passionate about making work that sits at the intersection between dance and performance art, she uses costuming, set, sculpture and film to create multidisciplinary performances for theatre, gallery and site specific spaces. Her works have been performed at venues such as the Riley theatre, Yorkshire dance and pop up locations in Leeds and London. Outside of her own work she has also collaborated with choreographers and performance artists designing and creating costume for their works.
@artisinmotion
zoetankardbowkett@gmail.com

This piece has been therapeutic for me, touching on something that I have been avoiding for years, a physical manifestation I didn't know I needed. I made my body, held it, wrapped it, formed it, almost making the trauma that surrounded how I felt about my body into a physical thing. I wrapped it up and sent it away, I watched as someone else played with it through a screen. I didn't know at this point. the work was something else at this point. it was only when I was in the space, physically seeing it on someone else. watching another body hold it, move it without even knowing what it was, because I was only just figuring it out myself watching her dance though it and then taking it off, being released from it, I got emotional, I think I now know why. Since filming and editing this work something has changed, I feel different, I feel changed, I'm still working out what this is, and how to exist in this new way of feeling. of how I feel about the body that holds me. all I do know is something has definitely transformed for the better.

ZOE TANKARD

ALISON THOMAS

Alison is an early-career choreographer with a strong passion for and fascination in the human condition. After an undergraduate degree in Human Geography and Social Psychology from the University of St Andrews, she completed a MA in Creative Practice at Trinity Laban Conservatoire, combining her academic and creative work. Her current interest lies in questioning what makes us human, creating socio-politically engaged work, and widening access to dance. She is also an emerging dance producer, currently working on The Fi.ELD at East London Dance.

@alisonthomascreative
alisonthomas28@gmail.com

resistance, push, fall, crispy, resistance, move, remove, repeat, brush, soften, again, more, circles slip, crunch, toe, head, elbow, hip, held, held in space, floating though, begin again, enveloping arms, caught and discard, warm, holding space, taking up space, women taking up space, internalising space, holding self, embracing self, fixed, taken, falling, back space, hanging in space, leg, arm, attitude, sit, tide round, round, rounder, fingers, energy, flow, throwing energy into space, leaving space.

twisting, twisting twisting pulling, changing, cutting, up, down, up down, up down, linking together, knitting together, taping, moulding, pushing around myself, dancing forms it, feeling to make.

Flesh & Frame Contents:

Next Choreography Festival 2020

NAC Workshops April 2021

FLESH & FRAME WORKSHOPS 2021