Invited to write about Siobhan Davies' new commissions

On Tuesday I went down to see Siobhan to talk to her about her recent commissions where she becomes more curator than choreographer. Her team have invited me to write abou the work and I am looking forward to talking to some of the dance artists involved next week.

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.

Siobhan Davies Commissions continues Davies’ approach of creating work to be seen at close range, and based on a dialogue between art forms. All of the pieces, including performance works, are on show for five hours daily, and visitors are free to arrive and leave as they please.

Siobhan Davies Commissions will be open from 4–13 November 2001 at Bargehouse, London

www.siobhandavies.com/dance/dance-works/sdc.html

They say your brain shows you a memory rather that what your eyes really see

As soon as my pencil touches the paper things come spilling out, my voice wants to speak.

But to say something new, feels like I have to stop my eyes from seeing what they always see and look further.

It feels like I am pulling it out of the dark, trying to see round what I know which is obscuring everything.

I now have a .com

I have pulled all of my work since 2005 together here, take a look:

www.alexiszeldastevens.com

The pile of drawings is growing

Things are starting to come together with the new body of work.

New images uploaded today:

https://picasaweb.google.com/Alexiszeldastevens/Drawings?authkey=Gv1sRgCJjbkN-M3Jyhcw#

New series of drawings in the making

I have been in the studio every Friday since the beginning of March, making a new series of drawings.

They explore the movement patterns, forms and shapes of crowds converging and dispersing.

I have decided to give all of my blog followers a sneak preview here:

https://picasaweb.google.com/Alexiszeldastevens/Drawings?authkey=Gv1sRgCJjbkN-M3Jyhcw#

Do forgive the picture quality, work in progress : )

More 'Alexis Investigates dance and visual arts' Article four: Catching movement, painter Peter Lanyon now live on Dance UK website

Here is an excerpt:

I first came across Peter Lanyon's paintings over ten years ago. At the time I had a conundrum, I was looking at a career in the visual arts but my natural affinity was with moving in the world, not looking at it. My only arena for this was ballet and I was awful at it, my teacher often having to disguise her horror at my imprecise joy in throwing myself around. There were no release based contemporary dance classes on the Isle of Wight where I had grown up or things may have been different. I spent a lot of time outdoors on the beach and I wanted to paint how it felt to physically be in landscape, rather than what it looked like viewed from a fixed point. Lanyon did just that and I felt such an affinity with him that at 18, I made a decision. I moved 300 miles away from home to experience what he had, paint what he had, and immerse myself in his homeland, Cornwall. I was subsequently reffered to by critic Max Andrews in New York Arts Magazine as part of the St.Ives New School (read the article here). Tate St. Ives has recently held a restrospective of Lanyon's work called Peter Lanyon, which ran from October 2010 to the end of January 2011.

Read the full article on the Dance UK website here:

www.danceuk.org/news/article/alexis-investigates-dance-and-visual-arts-article-four-catching-movement-painter-peter-lanyon/

www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/797558/0/1/asc

Picture credit: Peter Lanyon 1918-1964 'Wreck' 1963 Oil on canvas 122 x 183 cm Tate © Estate of Peter Lanyon. All Rights Reserved, DACS 2010

Siobhan Davies article re post request from Jade

I have recently been contacted by Jade regarding the article

Alexis Investigates: Dance and Visual Arts. Article One: A Visit to Siobhan Davies Dance Company.

This article is not available online, at www.danceuk.org/news/article/alexis-investigates-dance-and-visual-arts-article-one-visit-siobhan-davies-dance-company/

It was temporarily offline due to a data transfer error .

Apologies to all those of you who have been trying to access it, all back to normal now.