James Cousins Company presents its latest work Epilogues at Dance East, Ipswich in February and The Place, London in March 2019.
James Cousins’s latest production Epilogues weaves together three duets "inspired by division and isolation, looking for connection and resolution", each telling the story of a relationship.
Within Her Eyes, first seen at Sadler’s Wells (titled There We Have Been) as part of the inaugural New Adventures Choreographer Award Showcase in 2012, explores loss and dependency in a piece in which the female dancer never once touches the ground. As part of Epilogues, it will be performed by Rhys Dennis and long-time company member Chihiro Kawasaki. Music is by Seymour Milton and lighting by Lee Curran.
The first of two new works (as yet untitled) is an intimately formal piece for two men who together are overcoming pressures from their respective cultures, taking its inspiration from the moment in Cousins’s life when he realised he could no longer maintain the wall he had built up to hide his sexuality and personal stories from the two dancers, Rhys Dennis and Georges Hann.
The second new work, performed by Jemima Brown and George Frampton, explores the relationship between two women dealing with the impending loss of a parent, challenging "the stereotype of feuding females perpetuated by the male gaze of the media." Poet Sabrina Mahfouz, who collaborated with Cousins on 2016’s Rosalind, incorporates the dancers’ own stories into her accompanying text. The score is by composer Torben Lars Sylvest.