2Faced Dance Company, under the artistic directorship of Tamsin Fitzgerald, will present Outlands in autumn 2017, a new triple bill of contemporary dance showcasing some up and coming female choreographers: Hemabharathy Palani and Ronita Mookerji from India and Emma Jayne Park from the UK.
All three are recipients of commisions from Bench, 2Faced Dance’s training initiative for female choreographers, developed by Fitzgerald in response to concerns about the lack of equality within the dance sector.
Kicking off the evening is Yashti by Bangalore-based Hemabharathy Palani, a solo piece performed by Palani and accompanied by the poetry of Andal and Akka Mahadevi and classical Indian music composed by Miguel Marin, inspired by the story of the Tulasi plant.
In Ronita Mookerji’s work WHO, the choreographer, also from Bangalore and joined on stage by contemporary dance and performance artist Prashant More, asks, "who am I? What defines me? Where do I belong? I feel this extreme sense of being stuck, confined and imprisoned but what is my true identity?"
Inspired by her own cancer diagnosis, treatment and remission, choreographer Emma Jayne Park uses movement and text in It’s Not Over Yet (previously Here Before Now). She said, “I said I’d never make a show about having cancer. This is a show about having cancer. Two years ago, aged 30, I was diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma, a type of blood cancer. This is part of the story, but it’s not over yet.”
Fitzgerald said, “as the world and arts sector wake up to the importance of equality across the board, our timely Outlands tour couldn’t be more poignant. It celebrates and showcases three young female choreographers and further highlights the need for programmes such as The Bench here in the UK and across the world.
"The work of these young choreographers, and their choreographic language, might not have been discovered or seen in the UK without them. There’s still more work to do, but Outlands gets us closer to our goal of equality across the contemporary dance sector.”