Absent Made Present

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Collaborating Artists

Concept, Direction & Choreography: Freddie Opoku-Addaie in collaboration with the performers

Music: Alberto Bernal

Design: James Button

Lighting Design: David W. Kidd

Craft Artist: Katharine Morling

Dancers: Elisa Erävalo, Maria Olga Palliani, Hugh Stanier, Hian Ruth Voon

Saxophone: Chema Banyuls

Percussion: Daniel Percussion

Percussion Pounder: Steffan Ciccotti

Observation & Reflections: Theresa Beattie, Clare Connor, Jorje Crecis, Graeme Miller, Stefano Rosato, Paula van Hagen, Daniel Watson

Commissioned & Produced by ROH2 at the Royal Opera House

Supported by The Place; The Point, Eastleigh; Southbank Centre; Jardin d’europe; Dance in Devon; The Arts at Dartington; Stratford Circus

Performances

Premier: Linbury Studio Theatre, Royal Opera House, London – 29-31 Mar 2012

Excerpts performed at the Bespoke residencies/tour, Devon – Oct/Nov 2012

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Excerpts performed at the Bespoke residency/Performance,  Canterbury – 7 Set  2013

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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

Absent Made Present 1 Atherton-Chiellino

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