Choreographing the City:
at/as the city limits

(Akinleye, 2019)

My Fellowship Project at Theatrum Mundi (Phase one February 2019 to December 2019) looked at an emerging lexicon (for movement) that connects to ideas shared across dance-making (choreography), to building/city-making (community).

I am interested in how dance contributes to larger discussions across subject areas that engage with movement in space/time, and in the Place-making that the experience of dance creates. Words such as, rhythm, flow, sensation, are shared vocabulary about moving in space, beyond dance. Words whose meanings differ only slightly but these delicate differences can inform across subject areas and edify the spaces we create together. This articulating and valuing the significance of where Self begins, or ends, or is continuous in environment that dance choreography explores shares inquiry with colleagues in architecture and engineering (see Pallasmaa, 2005; Rasmussen, 1959), social sciences (see Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, 1987; Sennett, 1994), and geography (see Lefebvre, 2004). Sitting in dance and reaching beyond the isolating notion of ‘subject areas’ I look at finding shared spheres of inquiry into the inter-connectedness of Being-in-Place.

Sharing dates:
April 2019 – RA workshop
July 2019 – Street as stage performances (London)

Dance & Architecture

Architecture and Dance share the same languages of shape and form – both drawing on texture, colour and rhythm, both manipulating solid (body or brick), space and time to define themselves.

Site-specific dance frames the architecture – directing the eye of the observer to notice how they see shape as it is juxtaposed, body to buildings.

The person who watches dance does none of the physical work themselves but in perceiving the dance they experience the rhythm of it as though it were in their own body. In much the same way you can experience architecture, when through the installation attention is brought to the line and curves of the physical environment, the observer starts to experience a building with the same sense of movement that they observe dance. By this process of re-creation and redefinition of spaces, dance/ movement joins with architecture to create work that is alive within the visual frame of the eye, not just within the body of the dancer.

My work not only offers the creative, performance based relationship with architecture, but as a choreographer I am working with physical narrative as well. Not only do building/ sites hold the memories and experiences of the people who live in and around them; they also have their own physical narrative that is integral to the structure and design of the site itself.

Choreographing the City: at/as the city limits

Dance & Architecture

Street as Stage

Choreographing the City:
at/as the city limits