I am I was (a dying swan)

2002. Solo dancework within live video-installation.

Concept, choreography and performance: Sue Hawksley.
Live video design: Simon Biggs.

R & D funded by East Midlands Arts, and supported by Film and Video Umbrella, and Sheffield Hallam University


Photos: Simon Biggs

I am I was (a dying swan) is a solo work exploring loss of identity and the vulnerability of a person confronted by and immersed in the processes of decay. The piece is performed within a live video-projection system designed by artist Simon Biggs. This system uses 3 standard video cameras and 3 projectors to establish an "image-decay" series; the dancer is confronted by her dying image, the image of herself in a process of decay.

The choreographic material is primarily informed by the constraints and conditions of this system. It also references Fokine's original solo for Anna Pavlova and draws on the poem Death Fugue by Paul Celan, resulting in a deliberately taut, anxiously repetitive vocabulary.

Performance - Derby Dance Centre, 2001.
Performance - Resolution! The Place, London, 2002.

"a spare yet resonant collaboration" Donald Hutera, Dance Europe