By Freddie Opoku-Addaie

In Absent Made Present the performers manipulate the space they move in, one another’s physical language, and their own. They simultaneously build on existing skills and discover and shape new possibilities, by working with each other and clay objects, creating an endlessly unpredictable work.

Absent Made Present was developed in collaboration with ceramic artist Katharine Morling, designer James Button and composer Alberto Bernal. The ingenious design refers to the ‘unseen’ processes in Morling’s work including minute sketches, and working the clay before sculpting. The composition is based on processes that depart from the raw materials of sound and evolve into shaped figures and patterns.

Absent Made Present and its creative process was inspired by visiting the exhibition Power of Making, at the Victoria & Albert Museum.

“Observing a craft artist’s manual dexterity and inherited skills, I began to investigate the notion of the individual in choreography and craft, particularly how handmade objects are imbued by human presence and how our identities can be created or shaped by the creation and use of the handmade. In craft there is a direct translation of idea into human action which I find similar to the process of making movement.” Freddie

Review

“Opoku-Addaie orchestrates moments of brilliantly charged choreographic excitement here” The Guardian

Gallery

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