Wallflower

Can you remember every dance you’ve ever danced?

Wallflower is a dance marathon, a game that alters according to the players. 

Memories of dancing alone all night at a party; of whirling across the stage at the Paris Opera Ballet; of silently, slowly revolving with a new lover on a canal boat at night; of a repeated tic – a bodily habit that feels like dancing; of walking alongside their mother; of racing with a dog across a beach; of dizzily spinning children; of weeping and dancing; of hitting the mark for Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker…. 

Like much of Quarantine’s work, Wallflower serves as a form of portraiture. Each night, the performers choose what they want to reveal, what story of themselves they want to tell. In the seats around the dance floor, the spectators bring their own histories, understanding and expectations. And somewhere between the spotlight and the sidelines, Wallflower happens.

Wallflower takes two forms, a 90-minute version and a durational version which transforms the performance into an epic, exhausting 5-hour piece – the dancers grappling with the effort of memory as bodies and minds tire, hurt, slow and repeat. This March, we will present the first-ever, 12-hour marathon performance of Wallflower, at Universal Hall in Findhorn, Scotland. 

From the audience a fourth performer documents each dance in an ever-expanding archive, a vast record of thousands of remembered dances, which begins with dances from early rehearsals and always ends with the last dance. To date, it would take over two days to dance them all, and by the time you read this, there may well be hundreds more. 

SHARE YOUR DANCES: 

In 2018/19 Wallflower will tour in the UK in partnership with the Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts, Brighton; Creative Scene, Dewsbury; GIFT Festival, Gateshead; Lancaster Arts; Rise Dance Festival, Findhorn; Square Chapel, Halifax; and the University of Salford. This tour is funded with support from Art Council England’s Strategic Touring Fund, The Foyle Foundation, and The Sylvia Waddilove Foundation UK.

Alongside this tour of Wallflower we are inviting local people in each location we visit to share their own remembered dances. You can see these at www.wallflowerdances.com and share your own using the #wallflowerdances. 

PAST PERFORMANCES:

22 March 2019 (12 hour) | Universal Hall, Findhorn | Dance North Scotland, Moray, UK

9 March 2019 | Cleckheaton Town Hall | Creative Scene, Kirklees, UK

28 February 2019 | The Nuffield Theatre | Lancaster Arts, Lancaster, UK

30 November & 1 December 2018 | Square Chapel, Halifax, UK

23 & 24 November 2018 | Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts, Brighton, UK

19 October 2018 | New Adelphi Theatre | University of Salford, Salford, UK

4 May 2018 | GIFT Festival | BALTIC, Gateshead, UK 

1-3 February 2017 | PuSh Festival | Vancouver, CA 

20-22 October 2016 | UK Premiere |  Dance Umbrella | Battersea Arts Centre, London, UK 

28-29 October 2016 | Juncture, Leeds, UK 

27 August 2016 | Göteborgs Dans & Teater Festival | Vitlycke Centre for Performing Arts, Tanum, Sweden

24 – 26 September 2015 | Dublin Theatre Festival, IE

World Premiere | 28 – 30 August 2015 | Noorderzon Performing Arts Festival, Groningen, NL

Try-out performances (not public) | 20 – 22 August 2015 | HOME, Manchester, UK

PRESS:

Interview: Robbert Van Heuven interviews Richard Gregory (English translation) – August 2015

Interview: Jig your memory: the dance marathon that sends us spiralling into the past – Lyndsey Winship, The Guardian – August 2016

Review: Joost Ramaer for Theaterkrant (English translation) – August 2015

Review: London Evening Standard – October 2016 ★★★★

Review: The Upcoming – October 2016 ★★★★

Megan Vaughan: All the Quarantine shows I’ve seen and everything I can remember from them (for now), October 2016

Preview: Unprecedented dance marathon comes to Moray with gruelling 12-hour schedule – David Walker, The Press & Journal – March 2019

Interview: Wallflower: The 12-hour marathon of dance and memory coming to Findhorn – Creative Scotland, March 2019

Review: Herald Scotland – April 2019 ★★★★