Siobhan Davies pays tribute to Gill Clarke

Siobhan Davies today made this statement about Gill on the facebook page of Siobhan Davies Dance:

‎'Gill Clarke, co-director of Independent Dance and founding member of Siobhan Davies Dance, died in the evening of November 15th.

She was simply a really fine person and I have lost a great friend who knew me well. I shall miss her terribly but her understanding was that we would all have a little of her within us and she hoped that we would evolve and in different ways carry that part of her along. She was typically modest imagining it was only a small part, I know how much of her is embedded in me and that will continuously give me energy and questions.

Gill loved dance with an intelligent passion. She intuitively appreciated that there is a knowing in our bodies that too often we are not in touch with. Her lifelong work as a performer, teacher and researcher was to reveal the mindful intelligence of the moving body and what that means to all of us as people, our relationship with others and our place in the world.

She is irreplaceable, but she prepared us all. Fiona Millward at Independent Dance will continue with its extraordinary program and there are many others in place who will carry on and grow through Gill's spirit and enquiries.'

- Siobhan Davies

RIP Gill Clarke

I am deeply saddened to hear that the dance world has lost one of its greatest souls, a great artist and one of its most interesting thinkers about what it is to move in a body.

Independent Dance, of which Gill was Director has issued the following message today:

Gill Clarke died on November 15 2011 as she lived, calmly and with great poise.

ID has lost a wonderful director and inspiring artist. However, we have been working together to ensure our vision of ID continues to grow.

We have already been receiving some beautiful messages and this has given us the idea to create a place where we can hold them, and to consider appropriate ways to share them.

So, if you would like to send thoughts, memories, or images of Gill, please email them to: gillclarke@independentdance.co.uk

Here she is, doing what she does best, may those who knew her and her work grow the seeds that she planted:

Mind in Motion by Gill Clarke from HZT Berlin on Vimeo.

Alexis investigates, article five: A conversation with Siobhan Davies about dance thinking

Recently choreographer Siobhan Davies has seemingly turned curator, commissioning four new collaborations between dancers and visual artists, the results of which are being shown in an exhibition titled Siobhan Davies Commissions, running from the 4 –13 November at Bargehouse, London (www.siobhandavies.com/dance/dance-works/sdc.html).

This will be the third major show in visual arts territory from Siobhan Davies Dance following The Collection at Victoria Miro Gallery and IKON Gallery Birmingham in 2009, and ROTOR at Siobhan Davies Studios and South London Gallery in 2010 (touring in 2011 to Whitworth Gallery in Manchester and Dovecot Studios in Edinburgh). Of the four commissioned dance artists, Henry Montes, Gill Clarke, and Sarah Warsop are partnered respectively with video and performance artist Marcus Coates, Turner Prize-nominated Lucy Skaer, and craft artist Tracey Rowledge. The fourth, Deborah Saxon, is working with Henry Montes and Bruce Sharp, who works in video, sound and drawing.

As both visual artist and dance maker, I was interested to know why cross art form dialogue has become such a key part of Siobhan’s artistic output. We met for an hour one crisp October morning in Siobhan’s glass fronted office in South London. I talked with Siobhan about how curating had become an extension of her own choreographic trajectory, why collaboration is important to her and how all of this relates to her personal campaign to promote dance thinking as a generator for ideas in other art forms. Talking with at times her eyes shut, hands floating back and forth, Siobhan gently uncovered the words to give me an insight that I share with you here.

So what does happen when a choreographer is situated in the role of curator? Read the full article here: www.danceuk.org/news/article/alexis-investigates-article-five-conversation-siobhan-davies-about-dance-thinking

This is the fifth in a series of articles that I have written about art and dance having a dialogue. Read the rest here: www.danceuk.org/news/article/artist-alexis-zelda-stevens-writes-series-articles-dance-uk-about-art-and-dance/