Photograph: Caroline Bowditch
Catching up with Caroline Bowditch last week after her altogether more urban showcase as part of Merchant City Festival in Glasgow, I asked her how Leaving Limbo Landing had faired in such a different setting in contrast to the Big Dance performances in lush waterlogged London Fields.
There is something very beautiful about wet footprints on concrete and somehow this piece feels just as appropriate, perhaps even more so here as in a beautiful park.
Leaving Limbo Landing at Merchant City Festival, Glasgow. Photos: Stephen Fyfe (@stephenjfyfe)
The work went down a storm despite the usual wrestle with this summer’s incessant rain. Here’s an extract from Mary Brennan’s review in HeraldScotland
While Christopher Benstead’s score shaded in anecdotal voices, swirling synths and percussing pulses, the all-female group – four dancers, two aerialists – potently embodied the longings, hesitations and sudden leaps that colour any life-changing decision. The mid-way mark, suspended – literally with the aerial movement – in limbo, is just one instance of Bowditch’s ability to shape choreography into telling visual metaphors. Another exquisite, deeply affecting moment is when, having landed on the further plinth, dancers are drenched in a curtain of water, an image of acclimatisation, of cleansing away the old before, in bright new costumes, they step for the first time onto the solid ground of the street. This is Bowditch’s first major work as an independent artist: it is a triumph for her and a memorably rich experience for us
Leaving Limbo Landing at Merchant City Festival, Glasgow. Photos: Stephen Fyfe (@stephenjfyfe)
The photographs are similarly proof in point, the work translates beautifully to an urban setting.
Caroline will be staging the piece at the Edinburgh Fringe as part of the Made in Scotland programme from 16th – 20th August.
If you can’t get there, don’t forget to come and see Caroline in conversation as part of the Unlimited Festival’s ‘Unlimited Voices Programme’ on Sunday 2nd September at 12.15pm and throughout the festival to see the Leaving Limbo Landing photographic sound installation on Level 2 in the Festival Hall.