Artist Sue Austin has spent much of this week in a pool with her team in the fine company of choreographer, Adam Benjamin.  Adam has agreed to  mentor Sue as she makes moves to create yet more spectacle for audiences to enjoy underwater at the end of this month in Portland, Dorset.

Adam Benjamin broke new ground when as co-founder of CandoCo Dance Company in 1992, alongside Celeste Dandeker, he became part of a movement that would challenge the way that disabled bodies might take centre stage and in doing so, changed the way that disability and dance emerged as part of our contemporary dance landscape.

Entranced by her underwater footage and won over by her academic rigour and compelling desire to break new ground, Adam told us that saying yes to working with Sue was easy.

It’s exciting coming across an artist who is finding a new way to express something.  It’s now the time to break those first startling images of Sue underwater to move them forward into new performance, so that her work doesn’t just become a reiteration of those first breakthrough visual moments.  What Sue is doing now is cracking the egg again. I see my role as not getting in her way and listening to where she’s wanting to go.

Creating the Spectacle has never been an aquatic flight of fancy,  but just part of Sue Austin’s compelling artistic journey that is steeped in questioning and theory.

Working with Adam and his experience not only of the disabled body in choreography but the way he works, naturally confirms my enquiry and pushing me further to ‘find the freedom’.

What Adam also gives Sue is an indepth understanding of what happens when the media take hold of something so impactful and how to manage that.

So if you’re in Dorset at the end of the month, why don’t you catch one of the Creating the Spectacle! performances as part of the Unlimited Festival.  Push Me will be attending one of the dress rehearsals.  We’ve got our goggles at the ready and can’t wait!