Spirit Compass by Lucy Suggate at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, 2019. Photo by Rob Harris. Dance Artists: Rowdy SS and Stephanie McMann
Spirit Compass

October 2019 – February 2020

Spirit Compass: Where there is movement there is changeLucy Suggate & Collaborators

As we all buckle under the weight of a collapsing system, Spirit Compass searches for a remedy through deep moving and deep listening.

Lucy Suggate, Spirit Compass at Turner Contemporary, 2019. Photo Stuart Leech. Dance Artists: Claricia Parinussa, Isabella Oberländer, Lucy Suggate, Rowdy SS, Stephanie McMann

Spirit Compass is a site for communal listening and embodiment – an island or a temple of sorts. Audiences are invited to relax and witness the movement while sitting or lying on a ‘shoreline’ of cushions resembling smooth stones. Suggate has a strong desire to move us towards more expansive experiences of watching; evoking feelings of heart-thumping, intense, or ecstatic absorption.

Suggate worked with an exceptional group of dance artists: Annie Hanauer, Alexandrina Hemsley, Alexah Tomey-Alleyne, Claricia Parinussa, Fernanda Muñoz-Newsome, Isabella Oberländer, Jamila Johnson-Small, Stephanie McMann, and Rowdy SS; musician Tom Page (RocketNumberNine, Neneh Cherry, The Memory Band, James Holden) and jewellery designer Lydia Hartshorn.

Together the dance artists work through 'tidal meditations,’ a practice of deep listening and moving informed by a detailed score focused on the pelvis. Beginning on the ‘shoreline’, performers ‘cast off’ into a performance space lit with changing sunset colours. Propelled by Page’s absorbing live drumming, they move through a process of internal and external detection and connection to energy. Each meditative cycle lasts approximately 45 minutes and is repeated three times. Audiences are invited to come and go at will during the 2h 15mins of each performance.

Photograph taken at performance of Spirit Compass at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, 2019.
Spirit Compass by Lucy Suggate at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, 2019. Photo by Rob Harris. Dance Artists: Claricia Parinussa and Lucy Suggate
Photograph taken at performance of Spirit Compass at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, 2019.
Spirit Compass by Lucy Suggate at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, 2019. Photo by Tiu Makkonen. Dance Artist: Lucy Suggate

Suggate’s ‘tidal meditation’ practice relates to an expanded sense of being. It searches for the capacity of the body to go beyond logic, flesh and limitations; everything becomes re-negotiable and fluid. It seeks to remind us that our bodies are not fixed and we can always find new capacities to adapt to challenging times.

Collaborators

Dance Artists: Annie Hanauer, Alexandrina Hemsley, Alexah Tomey-Alleyne, Claricia Parinussa, Fernanda Muñoz-Newsome, Isabella Oberländer, Jamila Johnson-Small, Stephanie McMann, and Rowdy SS.

Musician: Tom Page

Costume Designer: Lydia Hartshorn

About

Lucy Suggate is a dance artist and choreographer recognised for her articulate and engaging solo performances as well as group installations informed by elements of synchronicity, cooperation and believing performance to be a communal act.

Her work is rooted in a movement practice which is an ongoing inquiry into the perceptual and physical expansion that occurs when engaged in durational moving and thinking. This work is often supported by sound and music that accelerates the process of altered states encouraging the body, the performer, into heightened states of awareness, availabilityand articulation – it’s within this space that new constellations, ideas, patterns and possibilities emerge through the sifting.

Website

Support

Commissioned by CONTINUOUS. Supported using public funding from the National Lottery through Arts Council England, John Ellerman Foundation, and the National Lottery through Creative Scotland. With thanks to Dance Base, Wainsgate Dances, Yorkshire Dance, Cove Park, Harlequin Floors and Leeds Dance Partnership Fellowship.

Creative Scotland

Harlequin Floors

Materials

Tour

  • 18.10.19

    Spirit Compass: Where there is movement there is change

    BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead

  • 19.10.19

    Spirit Compass: Where there is movement there is change

    BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead

  • 20.10.19

    Spirit Compass: Where there is movement there is change

    BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead

  • 26.10.19

    Spirit Compass: Where there is movement there is change

    Tramway, Glasgow

  • 08.11.19

    Spirit Compass: Where there is movement there is change

    Turner Contemporary, Margate

  • 09.11.19

    Spirit Compass: Where there is movement there is change

    Turner Contemporary, Margate

  • 10.11.19

    Spirit Compass: Where there is movement there is change

    Turner Contemporary, Margate

  • 01.02.20

    Spirit Compass: Where there is movement there is change

    Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham

  • 02.02.20

    Spirit Compass: Where there is movement there is change

    Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham

SUPPORTED BY

John Ellerman Foundation