Salves for Future Selves…
So nurtured and enlivened by the invitation from Luke Pell to be part of this week-long, ‘thinking through practice’.
The week took place at Dance Base, Edinburgh and was the first time since March any of us had been back in a public work space. A collection of ‘salves' for other artists and folk using the Dance Base building over the next months were produced between 31st August and 5th September by Luke Pell, Biff & Cooper, Lucy Suggate, Farah Saleh, Claricia Parinussa, Ruairí Ó’Donnabháin and Valerie Reid. The ‘salves’ are now available for others to use / be with. Together with Luke I made, a preparation - for a physically distanced love seat and created the visual poem, ‘distance of far a not week far ‘
From Luke’s website: “Salves for Future Selves have been imagined to be with - either on your own or alongside a companion – in the Dance Base garden. Pick up a free sheet from reception or the upper landing and scan the QR code to listen to the welcome note - which gives you information about the work, objects in the garden – and access to all of the Salves. Or, you can pick up an MP3 player from reception and return it afterwards.
In the week that would have followed Edinburgh Fringe 2020 we were going to be hosting a free International Artist’s Lab – Thinking Through Practice, at Dance Base. The Covid-complicated world meant that this wasn’t possible. So, instead we came together for the first time – since lockdown - to explore what it was to gently be alongside each other again. Working in the garden here – and from respective studios in Scotland, Ireland and England – we were in conversation, through practice, across time and space. Drawing on choreographic and dramaturgical thinking to tend to a return to care-full touch. Arriving at a small collection of choreographic propositions for other artists and folx – intended as salves for future selves – to soothe, stay, speak and move with what happens in the wakes of the past months.
We hope that this collection of choreographic propositions – scores, salves to play with, poems and considered conversations – can be companions to artists and folk working in the building over the next months. Offering some time together – even when we need to be apart – with words and movement, from some of the other artists in our community, in the haven of this outdoor space."