Title: Dance Work
Work: Arctic Heart
Summary
The dance is a result of a collaboration with American writer Gretel Ehrlich, winner of the 1989 Guggenheim Fellowship, and the British composer John-Marc Gowans.
Davies had first worked with Ehrlich on Wyoming, using a previously written essay as a ground for making the movement. For Arctic Heart the poems were all commissioned.
Analysis
‘Floor markings suggest animal bones and human outlines. A dancer rises from her own white shape; another twists suddenly and falls into his silhouette’ (Norma Cohen, Dance and Dancers, Jan/Feb 1992).
'Ehrlich had just returned from a long and arduous visit to the Arctic and although she came in to watch early rehearsals this had less impact on her than her Arctic experience. Davies and the dancers followed her lead and used her imagery about body and place' (Deborah Saxon, 2009).
‘The Arctic is where life is hidden under the snow and ice and so you have to look for it and there you will encounter the history, the carcasses and bones of what has been left’ (Siobhan Davies, 2009).
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