An Anatomy of A Phoenix

‘Residence time is ‘the duration of persistence of a substance in an absorbed, suspended or dissolved state’

— Christina Sharpe, In the Wake: On Blackness and Being (2016)

In April-May 2021, Yewande 103 was commissioned to make a work  with the entire Third Year BA students from Northern School of Contemporary Dance. We worked together on an  image-based score that centred embodied multiplicity. This resulted in the film work ‘An Anatomy of a Phoenix’.

The An Anatomy of a Phoenix is an intricate improvisation score calling upon cycles of repair for processes of returning to intimacy. The score cycles through four stages: descent, burning, rising and flight, holding tensions between beginnings, endings and transformation.

The score calls upon dancing as a process of making sense to ourselves, as active witnessing and listening. Phoenix’s live for 500 years, beyond human time…more like nature time, geological time, a reassuring amount of time in terms of personal growth, the processing of trauma and of time taken to heal, surface courage and processes of recovery.

Together we also made a group interactive publication centring multi-disciplinary practice through felt-level engagement across choreography, improvisation, text and advocacy. Please visit here for more info.

An Anatomy of a Phoenix
Captioned ‘An Anatomy of a Phoenix’
Audio described ‘An Anatomy of a Phoenix’

Choreography and Creative Direction: Alexandrina Hemsley 

Production: Nancy May Roberts

Filming: David Lindsay

Filming Assistance: Jemma Stein, Luke Hodkinson

Editing: Katarzyna Perlak

Sound score: Xana with ‘Embers’ poetry by Alexandrina Hemsley (2016-2019) 

Guitar composition: David Archer 

Additional Texts by Tammy Tsang, Yasmina Patel and Isla Hurst

Support Work: David Archer 

Captions: Katarzyna Perlak and Yewande 103 

Audio description: Alexandrina Hemsley 

With support from Joseph Mercier and staff at Northern School of Contemporary Dance 

Dance Artists: 

Nora Ellevold Aas

Vár Bech Árting

Cameron Bennett

George Bishop

Amber Bosteels

Lisa Chearles

Caitlin Kai Lin Chiang

Naomi Chockler

Puté Chomchan

Chiara de Craene

Denise Dannii Tan

Luis Dunn

Kieron Donohoe-Faller

Grace Ford

Alexander Gosmore

Jamie Reynolds Granner

Martine Grolid

Rickay Hewitt-Martin

Luke Hodkinson

Kate Hooley

Isla Hurst

Angharad Jones-Young

Niamh Keady

Harriet Leaf 

Yu Ting Lee

Zara Lee

Kamal Macdonald

Alice Marriott

Maya Marsh

Sarah McCann

Alexandra McPherson

Neema Mwande

Isobel Moloney

Thomas Noble

Yasmina Patel

Syanindita Prameswari

Fay Reilly

Gianna Rotkvich

Harry Rule

Shahada Nantaba Sekajja

Jemma Stein

Cushla Sutherland

Marina Tubau Burción

Ayça Turgut

Tammy Tsang

Sophie Thomas

Kieran West

Imogen Wright

Brannon Yau

Holly Yu