Autumn, not quite here yet as I write this, but the smell permeates the air, and the feel tingles at the surface of the skin. As a non-worshipper of sun I am more than ready to greet it’s arrival
Summer has been busy
I’ve performed twice, a relatively new endeavour for me. The opportunities arose and, always one for embracing the unexpected, I said yes. Nothing ventured nothing gained. Something in me is nourished by the energy of a challenge.
The first was at the opening event of The Architecture Fringe, at the Briggait in Glasgow. Reciprocity was the enquiry and proposition of this year’s Fringe and I just couldn’t not respond. One of my burning passions in movement is the action of counterbalance – a functional movement between two or more people, accessible to all bodies, and an innate part of our potential as human beings. I say often and frequently – “counterbalance is reciprocity in action, not a representation or concept, but a direct lived experience that occurs between people where we literally hold each other up”
I first fell in love with counterbalance when I was a student in the late 70’s. I was taught by the magnificent Veronica Sherborne who was a student of Rudolf Laban. She led workshops on what she framed as “developmental movement” which was based on “weight bearing and sharing” between two of more bodies “leaning against and leaning away from” each other. It felt profound to me then, my own physicality adored it, and it has been a fundamental part of my practice ever since. For me it is foundational movement, part of who we are as moving beings. Anyone, and any combination of bodies, can be in counterbalance, with simplicity and ease. Often sitting within us latent and undiscovered conterbalancing is part of our human possibility and potential, and is there, simply, for the asking.
More recently counterbalance has become part of an on-going suite of collaborative works with artist Emmie McLuskey : To Avoid Falling Apart
Placing the action and experience of counterbalancing in the context of the times we live in currently has given it a new urgency, purpose and relevance.
The work we created for the Architecture Fringe we titled : How Do We Hold Each Other Up?
As well as the opening night performance – in which I moved with partner Sean McGarvie to the wonderful music of Glasgow’s own BrassAye – Emmie and I presented a film-installation with accompanying text of bodies in counterbalance for the three weeks of the Fringe
You can find more https://architecturefringe.com/festivals/2025/how-do-we-hold-each-other-up
And (eventually) in the Works section of this website
The second performance of the summer was part of Mercedes Azpilicueta’s work ‘Fire on the Mountain, Light on the Hill’ at Collective Gallery on Calton Hill. Mercedes’ work is rooted in presence, women’s protest and politics, objects, materials and materiality, the energies and histories of a place, past, present and future, image and sensation, resistance and play. She has a clear sense of the purpose, possibility, potential of the body and its presence as part of her work. I love collaborating, investigating, making, with artists from other art-forms, that coming together of different ways of thinking, knowing, seeing, of matters and mediums. This collaboration was rich, resourceful, rooted in place and object, full of intention and integrity. There was also much play and naughtiness in the making! True collaborations can be rare, especially under pressure of time and making for public witnessing. This is one I will treasure.
Thanks also to collaborators and performers Federica Cologna, Carmen Berbel Lapaz and to all at Collective Gallery
You can find out more about Mercedes’ work here https://www.collective-edinburgh.art
And the performance here https://www.collective-edinburgh.art/programme/performance-potato-riots
And finally, this summer I had the pleasure and the privilege of working with singer/writer Karine Polwart on her newest work with Pippa Murphy ‘Windblown’, as movement director. This was subtle and deep work. Bringing someone into body so they find and feel, with confidence, the movements and images they ‘see in their heads’ as an integral part of their performance and presence, is one of the most profound creative jobs that I do. It is a burning passion, purposeful and poetic, a profound joy in connecting someone with and to their body and its innate and prolific movement capacity and vocabulary. For me this a reclaiming of something that is rightfully ours, just there for the asking and once you have it, know it, feel it, it is yours to have and to hold, take home with you, and be with, however and whenever you want and need.
In Karine’s words “Oh Janice, I almost feel I’ve found a NEW BODILY SELF!!”
And for that I am glad. Thanks Karine and all the mighty team with whom we worked alongside to bring the Sabal palm to light and life and honour
You can find out more here https://www.rawmaterialarts.com/windblown
And (eventually) in the WORKS section of this website
Summer has been good to me but I’m still longing for Autumn – a time of settling and focus, calm, quiet action, reflection, finding purpose and daily dancing in the park, duetting with nature and the land. I’ll also be quietly boycotting and protesting. I’ll be marching, and standing, and chanting, showing up, and being present where and when I can. Perhaps the most vital thing I can do with and as my body and it’s movement right now
Go well everyone
Thanks
Janice