Turn 2024
Programme Notes
Updated 21 March 2024
A night of new NW dance on 22 March, presented by Word of Warning + Company Chameleon
Artists
chris brown · Fabíola Santana · Isaac Glenister · Jake Evans · Just_Ina · Lily Antonia · Lisa Chearles · Louiseanne Wong
Participating artists subject to change.
Programme Notes
Age Advisory: 16+ (parent/guardian/carer discretion).
Content Warnings: some works may disturb, please click here.
Features: contemporary dance and performance works with varied content.
Queries: please contact Word of Warning via info@habmcr.org
chris brown · bodi/less
what is loneliness when the whole universe is inside you?
Examining texture, adaptation, and inner working systems, bodi/less combines explorations of Butoh, endurance performance, and somatic-based movement.
Featuring the things that bind you, a short improvisational movement film that examines immersion and tenderness within ecosystems. bodi/less explores improvisational collaboration between different visual worlds.
Content Warning: please click here.
Film directed/performed by chris brown · DOP: Sophie Broadgate · 1st AD: Bill Sutton · Film supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.
chris is a multidisciplinary artist who works in live performance, film, video, and participatory settings. His work has been described as “Joyful, Communal and Tender” — ilovemanchester.com on LOB
chrisbtheatre.com · Insta @christopher.p.brown · X @ChristopherActB
Fabíola Santana · Mothers, Grandmothers, and Their (post)colonial Children
How has colonialism impacted the care we have received from our elders? How did we experience their resilience? What nurturing strategies can we share with each other to help us thrive, in a mainstream society that seeks to racialise and dehumanise us? Can we create rituals and spaces to care for ourselves?
Three women from the Global Ethnic Majority whose families have been impacted by Colonisation — sharing their own histories of care, resilience, and legacy through the body. Going beyond everyday storytelling, transforming those energies into a live experience.
Content Warning: please click here.
Lead Artist: Fabíola Santana · Performed by Fabíola Santana, Jessica Morgado, Fae Wolfe · Outside Eye: WilL Dickie · Supported by a Divergency micro-commission (2020) & LADA DIY (2021).
Fabíola is a dance artist exploring performance as a medium for connection, transformation, and exchange. Her practice combines classical & contemporary dance training, immersive theatre, audience participation, actor training, live art.
Jessica is an emerging dance artist based in Cambridge. She works internationally as a dancer, teacher, and collaborator.
Fae is a registered movement facilitator & coach with ISMETA. Her current research focuses on how embodied writing can support decolonial movement practices for women of colour in academia.
fabiolasantana.co.uk · Insta @fbs.santana · X @fbs_santana
Isaac Glenister · Lower Broughton
A performance highlighting the changes that went through Broughton and the surrounding area of Salford from 2000 to 2007 in which investment helped improve the infrastructure; however, it sent impulses of fear through the neighbourhood. This piece extracts inspiration from both the Salford regeneration map and Dan Glenister’s artwork made at the time.
Isaac is a dance artist from Manchester, recently graduated from Rambert School. Over the last year he has been freelancing in London and Manchester, often in fashion and music videos. He is currently developing and showcasing his own work.
Jake Evans · Queer New World
A work-in-progress that combines dance, drag, and poetry to explore what parts of ourselves we hide from the world, and what parts we feel we can show. What we have to destroy in order to survive, and what we desperately reconstruct. What we perform for others, and what’s left after the show’s over.
Inspired by the moments shared on disco dance floors and the makeshift stages of D-I-Y cabarets. For this piece Jake collaborated with the poet/performers Brendan Curtis & Day Mattar of Liverpool-based poetry collective Queer Bodies. This solo is intended for development into a full-length work.
Content Warning: please click here.
Writing & Choreography: Jake Evans · Movement & Rehearsal Direction: Stefania Pinato · Poetry Mentors: Brendan Curtis & Day Mattar · Dramaturgy: Harry May-Bedell · Lighting Design: Mark Baker · Costume: Jake Evans · Wig: Miss Blair · The Plea (Be Tender) recorded by Rory Ballantyne at Bidston Observatory, Wirral · Supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England; developed at Northern Connections ‘22.
Jake is a dance artist based in Manchester. He has worked with Gary Clarke Company, Vincent Dance Theatre, The Royal Shakespeare Company, Shaper/Caper, Opera North. His poetry appears in Queer Icons: A Queer Bodies Anthology and he is also a drag performer working throughout Manchester and beyond.
jakeevans.co.uk · Insta @jakedanielevanss
Just_Ina · l’Enfant Malade
When you have been escaping all your life, are you truly willing to escape?
L’Enfant Malade explores the bittersweet reality of being stuck in the familiarity of suffering and the repetitive cycle of trying to break out, yet not being willing to leave at the same time.
You can hate it, but its addictive comfort will inexorably have you love it, too.
So, are you still willing to escape?
Content Warning: please click here.
Justyna is an independent dance artist trained in Manchester and Brussels, while also broadening her horizons in the Netherlands, Hungary, and Italy. She explores her creative side by combining dance with theatre. Having choreographed for an internationally acclaimed British independent film, Hilda, a few years ago, she has since been chasing the creative thrill and is now challenging herself in a vulnerable solo performance. In her movement practice, she puts a strong focus on biomechanics and psychology. Being a qualified L4 Sports Massage Therapist allows her to further indulge in movement geekiness and develop in multiple directions.
Lily Antonia · Un/Seen
What are the parts of ourselves that we are able to express freely in the safety of our own space… Behind closed doors, without outside eyes.
This work (in progress) gives a vulnerable and authentic insight into a person alone in their bedroom experiencing the fluctuations that come with solitude. Witness the interchangeability of joy, boredom, frustration, curiosity, conflict, silliness, and sorrow as we journey through states of being.
Leaving space to ask ourselves the question: what of us is unseen?
Content Warning: please click here.
Choreographed & performed by Lily Antonia · With special thanks to Company Chameleon.
Lily Antonia is a dance artist, teacher, and choreographer based in Manchester. Since graduating Trinity Laban they have been creating as a freelancer in the UK and internationally — sharing movement and telling stories through performance and workshops. They are especially interested in creating work that explores human relationships, making art accessible and relatable — using dance to connect to our inner and outer worlds and those we share it with.
Lisa Chearles · Where Sleeping Dogs Lie
Two performers are illuminated and enveloped in shadow in a dance with the light and each other, scrambling from and toward the light, evading and then craving it in an ever-evolving relationship with exposure and erasure, scrutiny, and sanctuary.
Content Warning: please click here.
Choreographer & Director: Lisa Chearles · Performers: Lisa Chearles & Jordan Sheard · Collaborator (R&D): Sammantha Yue · Music: Devon Bonelli · DOP: Brannon Yau · Special thanks to Sigma Contemporary Dance (Singapore) and Company of Others for the space and funding.
Lisa (she/her) is a Singaporean dancer and choreographer, moving and making in Manchester. She has performed with Kapow Dance Circus Theatre, Coalesce Dance Theatre, SAY, Excessive Human Collective, Si Rawlinson, amongst others. She makes dance films and dance with film capturing the visceral and surreal.
Jordan (she/her) is a Manchester-based dancer, choreographer, and producer. Fuelled by the joy of moving, discovered through youth dance programs, she has worked with Casson & Friends, Coalesce Dance Theatre, Wired Aerial Theatre, and more, to bring projects to life.
Louiseanne Wong · I Am. Am I (work in progress)
A human story told through movement, dance, and circus. Louiseanne explores their struggle with social norms, displacement, and unlearning how they were ‘conditioned’ in Hong Kong.
They question labelling theory — some given, some self-identifying (e.g. from-from, foreigner) — and raise awareness of social inequalities using a fridge, sloganised T-shirts, sound design, and urban anti-establishment forms like parkour, art du deplacement, and krump.
Content Warning: please click here.
Sound Designer: Sharon Tsang · Outside Eye / Movement Director: Aline David · Lighting Designer: Jen Roxburgh · Counselling Psychologist: Kasturi Torchia · Dramaturg: Daniel York Loh · Krump mentor: Amanda Pefkou · Crying Out Loud mentor: Rachel Clare · Production images: Shawn J Stephen · Shared at The Lowry’s Scratch Nights x Circus April 2023 and Resolution 2024, The Place.
Louiseanne (she/they) is a non-binary East Asian artist and coach, born and bred in Hong Kong. They explore stigmatisation towards BAME artists and how this impacts their practice. They fuse dance, circus, parkour, and art du deplacement to map themself in space, playing with non-horizontal dimensions, object manipulation, and overcoming obstacles. Recent credits include Free Your Mind, and D2C Lab 2021 artist mentored by Anthony Missen.
Fb /wonglouiseanne · Insta @louiseannewong · X @louiseannewong