unlimited global alchemy

Creating in the studio with Athina Valha

Athina Valha

You may have noticed my blog came to a bit of a stand still during the last weeks we spent in Cape Town, mainly because we were involved with Freedom to Create (more about that to follow), and so the latest updates are being sent from London.

We returned from Cape Town exhausted but very liberated by the whole experience on Sunday evening.

You may have seen one of the contributers for my commission is choreographer Athina Vahla, who I had the wonderful opportunity to meet in London last July, introduced to me by my co producers Artsadmin.

Athina is currently working in Graham's Town SA at the University (please read more about Athina's choreographic work on her contributer's page), recent choreographic work has included a very dynamic performance for "Infecting the City", a major Cape Town Performance Festival which takes place in Feb each year, so our subject is close to her heart too.

Athina flew into Cape Town from Graham's Town towards the end of the residency so that we could spend a couple of days collaborating together to begin the creative joirney that we will be taking together throughout next year creating a collaborative performance as part of my Unlimited Commission.

We had the most fantastic couple of days drawing, sharing the stories of the Bambanani Group and constructing a framework to create the performance. Once again I will be creating live artwork during the performance. That hadn't been the original intention, but after much thought and consideration Athina decided that it was an essential element of the collaborative work and would form a major part of her choeographic work.

Rarely have I ever worked with anyone who is so generous and dynamic in their approach to creating, the studio was full of electricity, energy and laughter as we shared our practices and ideas together. The synergy was perfect, our ideas fuse together so easily, we share an aesthetic vision, and so the creative process felt natural and very powerful.

We will be working together during the next 6 months to create an performance artowrk that capture the multiple layers of this subject, using the residency and collaboration with the Bambanani Group as our framework and foundation.

Athina arrives in London in a couple of weeks time, we will be auditioning for a dance performer, and later in January we will be working in a studio in London to continue the development of the performance.

So we have only just begun, but we are already excited, and we can't wait to share the results with you during the London 2012 Festival, and in the meantime, we will keep you posted..........

Posted by Rachel Gadsden, 08:11am 22/11/11