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Trespass R&D

Trespass explored the emerging possibilities for relationships between human behaviour and intelligent environments; the ways in which creative and emotional impulses might interact with the architecture and structures around us.

This was a collaboration with academics from the Department of Informatics, Faculty of Natural & Mathematical Sciences at King’s College London; The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL; and Shobana Jeyasingh Dance.

Trespass was part of an ongoing partnership between Shobana Jeyasingh Dance and the Cultural Institute at King’s College London. It evolved from the Knowledge Producers programme, produced by the Cultural Institute, to support collaborations between artists and academics at King’s.

Anatomy Museum,
King’s College London

29 Jun – 3 Jul 2015

Creative Team

Shobana Jeyasingh / Artistic Director

“When Shobana Jeyasingh is firing on all cylinders there is hardly another UK choreographer who can touch her” – The Times

 

Shobana Jeyasingh was born in Chennai ,India and has lived in Sri Lanka and Malaysia. She founded Shobana Jeyasingh Dance in 1989 and has created over 60 critically acclaimed works for stage, screen and out and indoor sites ranging from Palladian monasteries in Venice to contemporary fountains in London.

 

Shobana’s work is noted for both its intellectual rigour and its visceral physicality. It is rooted in her experience and perspective of life as a female postcolonial citizen of the world. She trained in Bharata Natyam (the classical dance of Tamil Nadu), under Vazhuvoor Samaraj Pillai and read English Literature, specialising in Shakespeare at The University of Sussex. Over the course of a distinguished career she has collaborated with scientists, curators, composers, film makers, digital creatives, dancers and designers to make dynamic multi-disciplinary work that places the body centre stage in the dialogue of ideas.

 

“Petipa’s La Bayadère is the ultimate orientalist fantasy. Now, 138 years – and a seismic shift in sensibility – later, Petipa’s ballet is ripe for reinvention. And there’s surely no choreographer better qualified for the task than Shobana Jeyasingh …marvellous, inspiring mesh of history, poetry and ideas” – The Guardian

 

Her work has toured extensively in UK, Europe, USA, Turkey, India, China Singapore and Hong Kong. A number of works form part of the National Curriculum for Dance in the UK. Notable commissions include work for Rambert, Ballet Black, Company Wayne McGregor, the Venice Biennale, Beijing Modern Dance Academy, Contemporary City Dance Company Hong Kong, and Opera National du Rhin in France. Works such as Faultline (a response to the London tube bombings) TooMortal (for historic churches) Material Men redux (on 19th century indentured labour) have been included in UK end of year best-of lists for their respective years.

 

“With her emotionally honest approach to choreography, she has produced more than 50 dance works that make the audience think, dream and dissent.” – The HIndu

 

“The choreography is dizzyingly vibrant, absolutely engrossing … While the surface is hard and aggressive the dancers are ambiguous human subtle ” – Dagens Nyheter Stockholm

 

Her work for theatre includes choreography for the trailblazing Tara Arts in London and Tamasha Theatre Company. She has worked in productions at the Half Moon Theatre and at The National Theatre London.

 

The show is emotional, arduous, and enlightening. It’s a stunningly distressing piece, telling untold stories through sweat and exacting movement, while Jeyasingh both educates and wows through two artists who are truly mesmerising to watch. ” -Theatre Review

 

Shobana’s contributions to dance include writings, talks as well as presentations on numerous media platforms. She worked as researcher and scriptwriter for two pioneering programmes on British Asian Arts for Channel Four. More recently she was a judge for BBC Young Dancer in both 2017 and 2019. She has served on the panels of the Arts Council of England, Greater London Arts, London Contemporary Dance Trust and The Royal Opera House. She is patron of the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing.

 

Shobana was a founder member and research fellow of Rescen at Middlesex University a research centre into processes, practices and contexts of performance. She was invited to take on the role of knowledge producer by the Cultural Institute at Kings College London in 2014 which led to Translocations, a series of films where choreographic narratives met a range of academic disciplines such as Informatics and Neurobiology. She was awarded a Nesta Dream Fellowship to visit China and Japan and experience their contemporary dance cultures. Shobana holds honorary doctorates from the universities of Leicester and Chichester as well as an honorary MA from the university of Surrey. She was named Asian Woman of Achievement in Art and Culture 2008. Shobana was awarded the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award at the WOW Women in Creative Industries Awards in 2017. In 2020 she was appointed Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE).

 

” Jeyasingh plays elegant games with the question of how an art form can feed off its history without actually cannibalising it. Such tempering of energy with intelligence is the mark of a classic” -The Evening Standard

 

Sander Loonen / Production Manager

After a four-year apprenticeship at the Rotterdamse Schouwburg in the 1990’s, Sander has developed as a true all-round technician and designer. Equally versed in lighting, sound, video and staging he fills the gap between artistic ambitions and technical feasibility. Working with international creative teams, in all aspects of live performance and installations, he has developed the ability to steer a production towards a fulfilling project. He has designed and managed lighting, video, sound and staging for a great variety of artists: Aakash Odedra, Akram Khan, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, English National Ballet, LA Dance Project, Boy Blue, Sarah Moeremans, Anish Kapoor, Emio Greco|PC, Aditi Mangaldas, Gregory Maqoma, Duckie, Meg Stuart/Damaged Goods, Serpentine Gallery, Productiehuis Rotterdam, Theatre de la Ville Paris, National Architectural Institute Netherlands, National Ballet of Flanders and many, many others.

Dr Thrishantha Nanayakkara / Senior Lecturer, Department of Informatics Alison Duthie / Programming Director, Culture at King’s Ruairi Glynn / Director, Interactive Architecture Lab, The Bartlett School of Architecture Fabiana Piccioli / Lighting Design

Fabiana Piccioli studied philosophy in Rome, graduating in 1999, while also training in ballet and contemporary dance. Between 2000 and 2001 she performed with a number of dance companies in Belgium, and in 2002 she returned to Rome for the RomaEuropa Festival where she worked as Production Manager for three years.

In 2005 she moved to London to join the Akram Khan Company as Technical Director and Lighting Designer touring with the company worldwide. Since going freelance in 2013 she has collaborated with many international artists and choreographers. In 2013 Fabiana won the Knight of Illumination Award (Best Lighting for Dance) for her work on Akram Khan’s iTMOi.

Nick Rothwell / Sound Design William Bondin, Chris Leung and Chryssa Varna / Bartlett tutors Dongming Chao, Dan Feng and Aksa Khera / Bartlett student team Nantachai Sornkarn and Leo Wu / King’s student team William Warrener / Project manager Thomas Völker / Filmmaker

Dancers

Avatâra Ayuso

Avatâra trained in ballet (Conservatorio de Mallorca) and Linguistics (BA and MA, Universidad Complutense de Madrid) before moving to London to train at London Contemporary Dance School. In 2005, she became part of the D.A.N.C.E. programme where she worked and performed internationally under the artistic direction of William Forsythe, Wayne McGregor, Frédéric Flamand and Angelin Preljocaj. In 2008, she obtained a Masters in Professional Dance from Palucca Schule Dresden. As a choreographer, she has presented work internationally in Europe, Africa and Asia. Over the years, Avatâra has received several awards and grants to develop her skills as a dance researcher and cultural leader (completing studies with the Open University UK and the prestigious Clore Leadership Programme Emerging Leaders). She is Associate Artist of the European Centre for the Arts Hellerau Dresden and her AVA Dance Company Associate of The Creative Academy Slough. She was nominated for the 2015 UK National Dance Awards. Since 2007, Avatâra has collaborated regularly with Shobana Jeyasingh Dance.

Sunbee Han

Sunbee was born in Seoul, South Korea, where she obtained a BA and MA in Dance & Dance Film from Han Yang University’s Arts Faculty. In 2009, she also won the gold medal at the Dong-A National Dance Competition – the most prestigious dance prize in South Korea. From 2007 to 2010, Sunbee danced with Garimda Dance Company in Seoul and in 2011 she joined the London-based Henri Oguike Dance Company, receiving critical acclaim for her first performances in the UK in Oguike’s V4.

In February 2014, Sunbee was featured as Dancer of the Month in Dancing Times, which was the first major interview of a Korean dancer in this magazine.

Sunbee joined Shobana Jeyasingh Dance for Strange Blooms in 2013.

Credits

The Cultural Institute at King’s College London connects the university with practitioners, producers, policy makers and participants across arts and culture. Through its programmes and activities, the Cultural Institute aims to put academic research to work in the cultural sector, enhance the student experience, inspire new approaches to teaching, research and learning and increase public engagement.
Photos by Mark Durham

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