Studio research and development, Siobhan Davies Dance

Studio Research and Development

Siobhan Davies Dance Studios, Town Square

2024 ongoing

Stills from research film, May 2025

Film by KB (stills GB)

Hat Stand, Feminist Library performance

'Hat Stand' was a live performance I made in December 2019 at the Feminist Library, for their exhibition and celebration event, prior to moving their collection to a new building.  

I created the piece site-specifically with an over-sized tubular steel hat stand which was part of their furniture, and incorporated written material I had created in my residency Touch Wood, describing my interactions with plants.  I approached the large hat stand and removed my scarf, coat, and cardigan.  I then climbed into the hat stand and began to bind my hair to its hooks until I was firmly stuck.  I then read pages from my writing on attaching to nature, sometimes held in my mouth, scattering pages/leaves on the floor.  I then engaged in a rocking, pulling tussle with the hatstand, precariously, manoeuvring it with my head which was still attached to the steel structure by my hair until I was able, with difficulty, to free myself from it. I then replaced my clothes.

Thank you to PB

Photos by E Trezzi, edited GB

Touch Wood - Book

 'Touch Wood' is an artist's book I completed in 2020.

The hand-painted text derives from a series of 'manouevres' I performed, solitarily, in Bethnal Green Nature Reserve and Herb Garden in 2019-20, during my residency there.  After each exploratory walk around the site, where I would manoeuvre my body with the plants and trees and stones, I would then retreat to the Writer's Hut and write my account in detail from memory.  Later, in the hut, I would distill these descriptions into poetry, hand-painted in my book, landscape-orientated.  Each page began with the last word of the previous page.  There are snips of my hair between some pages, as I used the book in one of my performances at the Nature Reserve, where I cut my hair.

Touch Wood 2 & 3 - Poetry Walk and Evening Amphitheatre performances

Touch Wood (2) - live performance, as part of 'Poetry Walk' at Bethnal Green Nature Reserve, an event organised by Hari Byles.  With PB, inc on harmonica.

Touch Wood (3) - live performance in the outdoor amphitheatre, evening, at Bethnal Green Nature Reserve.

Touch Wood (2):

A perambulatory performance, around the Nature Reserve, sequencing micro-locations within the site that I had been manoeuvring in previously.  Re-performing these manoeuvres to journey around the site, with PB on harmonica.  Snips of hair posted through the chicken wire fence.  Foot hovered over the low stone wall.  Shoeless foot and shoe-in-hand as I swing the open gate.  Heliotropic lilac wool to criss-cross bind my leg up a tree.  A sudden dash with PB to the amphitheatre.  Stepping onto the log with harmonica from PB, and balancing-crouching to tie my head to the thorn bush.  

Touch Wood (3):

A seated performance, with reading from my book 'Touch Wood', skipping from one passage to another within it, and snipping of hair while I read.  Hair, ultimately, covering face, obscuring my face and muffling sound.  Snippets of hair falling into the book, and retained in pages.

Photos by Hari Byles (some edited GB)

Touch Wood - Billboards

Billboards created as part of my Touch Wood residency at Phytology/Bethnal Green Nature Reserve, 2019

Text and design selected from pages of my artist's book, 'Touch Wood' and re-interpreted and hand-painted by Michael Smythe on full-size billboard.  The billboard is repaired and re-painted each time, to be used again.

Accompanying text:

TOUCH WOOD

LOOK UP AND TURN

FACE TO SUN AND 

BALANCE ON ONE

FOOT

STAY

 

Gail is manoeuvring with the trees, plants and soil in the Nature Reserve, touching and not-touching, on one foot and two. Finding points of contact, fragility, entry and repulsion in a series of experimental movements, repetitions and devised encounters, sometimes simple, sometimes intricate and absurd.  These solitary performances become writing, slowly.  The billboard is the first extract from the book of manoeuvres.

Original page from my book with text used on billboard

First 3 photos by Michael Smythe

Touch Wood - Kupola performance

'Touch Wood (1)'

Live performance at Phytology/Bethnal Green Nature Reserve, for Kupola event, 2019

With PB

Part of my residency at Bethnal Green Nature Reserve in 2019-20

Screenshots/stills from film by Michael Smythe