Nobody’s Watching.

Adventures in Marginal Dance

Dancers: Christian Asare. Aria Scere-Jacobs. Jess Rose. Finley Odin. James Henson.

I had a fantasy project where I would recruit eight LGBTQ+ dancers, representing the colours of the rainbow, and each artist would produce a dance responding to the original theme of the Pride flag.

Then, as usual, I sat on the project for a couple of years. One day I was chatting to my sports therapist James and I mentioned the project and he shared with me that had been a trained dancer at a prestigious school but had left his practice due to the high pressure nature of the culture.

A light bulb went on and I thought: this is what this project is really about – dancers who have overcome barriers, boundaries and limitations. James was up for getting involved and returning to dance. Soon, by magic or synchronicity, the rest of the cast began to find me: Christian, Aria, Jess and Finley, each with their own experience of moving in and out of the dance world because of gendered expectations, health, access, opportunity.

I developed the piece closely with the artists, weaving extracts of their oral history interviews into the work, and shining a spotlight on the true voices of these incredible performers. For a short time we were a little family. The show debuted at TURN ON FEST at Hope MIll Theatre 2020. I would love to use this model again some day. It remains one of the things I am most proud of in my career.