Touchdown create in the moment within a structured score, including concepts of proximity and space, architecture (Angus Balbernie) the poetics of movement (Steve Batts), and kinaesthetic awareness (Julyen Hamilton). This 30 minute performance will be followed by a Q&A with the dancers.

Choreography: Angus Balbernie
Dancers: Katy Dymoke (Director of  Touchdown Dance), Robert Anderson, Jamus Wood, Holly Thomas

Respondent: Dr Lars Waldorf, Reader, Dundee Law School and Principal Investigator on Performing Empowerment
Chair: Jayne E. Peake, Arts & Conflict Hub, Programming Manager, Exchange

About the piece

This piece was first performed in Sri Lanka for an international dance festival nATFEST, for peace and reconciliation. It is an artist led initiative to bring communities that have been in conflict together through arts and culture, as representatives, participants and audiences. Touchdown Dance performed in Jaffna to over 900 people of all faiths coming together in unity and Colombo again, with an international program of dance from Russia, Switzerland, India and Sri Lanka.

About TouchDown

Touchdown Dance company involves artists with and without vision. Their inclusive approach undermines the dominant repressive discourses around dis-ability. They work with movement and physical contact using choreographic approaches that enables them to create performance work in which each artist defines their role.

This event is supported by BISA Poststructural Politics Working Group

Event Series

The event is part of an exhibition, Reconciliations  running in parallel at the Exchange, Bush House, King’s College London from 1 November-1 December 2018, and at the Knapp Gallery, Regent’s University London, from 1 November 2018-19 January 2019. The exhibitions are part of a major AHRC-funded project, ‘Art & Reconciliation: Conflict, Culture and Community’,  Art and Reconciliation explored the politics of reconciliation across the Western Balkans and beyond from a variety of perspectives in three strands, History, Discourse and Practice.