Leaving is a long duration performance presented at Nottingham train station as part of Dance4's Nottdance Festival on 13 March 2011. It involved eight performers – Stacey Lister, Rachel Johnson, Adam Davis, Moira Balmer, Dwayne Simms, Ash Brown, Bhavna Champaneri, Raska Radulovic – working in synchronised duets to explore the actions and images that underpin the everyday drama of leaving and being left behind. The performance was a subtle tweak to the dynamic of the station, and Leaving's incidental audience consisted of travellers, passers-by and families saying goodbye to loved ones.
Slideshow created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR. All images by David Severn.
I'm interested in the sense of isolation made possible by moments of leaving: the feeling of being in a crowd, but not part of it, as if a camera has zoomed in on the departure space shared by you and an other. What are the gestures of this space? How much do we have to do before our departures are lifted from the personal and into the public? What if we were to stop and notice these 'moments before' the ending, and shift the everyday into the extra-ordinary?
Concept and development by Simon Ellis.
Leaving was presented as part of Dance4's Nottdance Festival 2011. Dance4 is an international centre for the development of extraordinary 21st century dance. To find out more about Dance4's work see www.dance4.co.uk.
Leaving was originally commissioned by The Place in London as part of St Pancras' Reveal Festival.