STILL HOUSE
Of Riders and Running Horses
Night. We find a space in the margins of the city in which to gather: to start an ad hoc ceremony, to stamp our feet and shake our limbs, to dance in the face of an ending.
Of Riders and Running Horses is a stirring and visceral new dance event by Still House created as a communal animation of urban spaces. A group of female dancers and a live band conjure a new kind of old dance, an insistent rhythm, a joyful step into what it means to move together.
The music is a rider and we are running horses.
The stars are out. Dancing under the open sky makes a felt difference. It moves itself differently. And these age-old sediments no longer stick to my bones, melting in the blood. Michael Klien
“Of Riders and Running Horses goes in cycles: a soloist starts, then others join in. They fizz off into their own thing, then come back together. It’s about leading and following, about movements building. Canham’s choreography is a cultural collage: quoting from Balinese shamans and Scottish dancing, New Zealand rituals and American jive. It ends with an invitation and, on top of a car park, on a warm May evening, in the middle of Bristol, 100 people jump in and dance.”
“Dan Canham and Laura Dannequin’s superb choreography beautifully accentuates the fluidity of a dancer’s body, the wave of motion passing up from the feet into the trunk and out through the arms and hands … The final ensemble piece is an irresistible fanfare, with the dancers galloping round the edges of the space like horses charging round a circus ring. And finally the dancers grab people out of the audience and soon everyone’s dancing in a spontaneous rave, till we’re all feeling warm again, inside and out.”
PAST PERFORMANCES
2016 Tbilisi, Georgia, Tbilisi International Festival of Theatre; London, National Theatre, Mayfest River Stage; Glasgow, Merchant City Festival; Winchester, Hat Fair; Prague, Czech Republic, Tanec Praha; Ostrava, Czech Republic, Tanec Praha; Pilsen, Czech Republic, Tanec Praha; Eastleigh, The Point; Salisbury, Salisbury International Arts Festival; Bristol, Mayfest; Brighton, Brighton festival/caravan; Gloucester, Strike a light; Cardiff, Bristish Dance Edition
2015 London, Dance Umbrella/LIFT; Birmingham, Fierce/mac/Birmingham Weekender; Cambridge, Cambridge Junction; Bassano Del Grappa, Bmotion festival; Bournemouth, PDSW; Bristol, Mayfest