- Title: Sphinx
- Summary: Nearly twenty years after the first performances of Sphinx by London Contemporary Dance Theatre, Richard Alston requested that Davies remount the work for its graduate company 4D. The choreographic thought of re-imagining the body remained, but with a new cast much of the material was remade for their skills.
- Work: remade for 4D (1995)
- Choreographer: Siobhan Davies
- Music: Barrington Pheloung
- Sound Score: Prepared tape - various indigenous stones, claves, woodblocks, guero, triangles, sleigh bells, Turkish cymbals, maracas, Sudanese thumb piano, high frequency pipes, syringeaphone, vocalisation. Score commissioned with assistance from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon
- Lighting Design: Charter
- Analysis: ‘Davies was keen to work collaboratively with the dancers, resulting in movement that seemed to ‘belong’ to each of the dancers, which developed into individualistic solos and duets...Sphinx is generally regarded as an important choreographic statement by Davies, for her exploration of animal imagery that fed a number of later works, and her attempt to find a softer, less dramatic treatment of Graham’s style that coloured much of London Contemporary Dance Theatre’s repertoire at the time' (Sarah Whatley, 2005).
‘Davies performed the premiere of Sphinx and spoke about the shape of an animal arriving in the human form. The sensation of the changing skull, elongated back, stomach facing the ground and the arms becoming weight-bearing become the primary force for making the rest of the piece. She transferred the knowledge gained in the solo back into the ‘upright’ dancers who performed the remaining part of the work’ (Deborah Saxon, 2009). - Production Date Original: 1977
