Collaborating artists
Concept, Choreography & Performer:
Freddie Opoku-Addaie
Director & Composer: Graeme Miller
Design: Mamoru Iriguchi
Sculptors: Friedel Buecking and Christine Kowal-Post
Lighting Design: Michael Mannion
Production Manager: Antony ‘Oz’ Osborne
Observations & Feedback: Mary Ann Hushlak, Rosemary Lee, Kweku Aacht, Dan Watson
Commissioned by: Dance Umbrella, Greenwich Dance Agency/Trinity Laban Partnership funded by National Lottery through Arts Council England.
With support from: Stratford Circus, The Place (Choreodrome 2013 & Touch Wood), Bernie Grant Arts Centre, The Point, South East Dance, The Hat Factory, East London Dance, Independent Dance, Cambridge Junction (Sampled), State of Emergency, The Arts at Dartington.
Performances
Africa Centre Summer Festival (15-20min excerpt), London – 2 August 2014
Chelsea Theatre, London – 15-16 July 2014
Let’s Dance International Festival , Curve Theatre, Leicester – 14-15 May 2014
Premiere: Dance Umbrella, London – 11 Oct 2013
Laban, London – 26 Nov, 2013
The Point, Eastleigh – 14 Nov, 2013
Dance Umbrella, London – 19 Oct, 2013
The Hat Factory, Luton – 3 Oct, 2013
By Freddie Opoku-Addaie
A show of hands is a commonly used phrase when asking a group of people to raise their hands so that their vote can be counted. Freddie is joined by a mass of wooden carved hands representing the group. Is this the hand he’s been dealt or is this all in his mind? Were these episodes calculated or a coincidence? Or is it just a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time? Who or what shapes the hands we’re dealt in our lives?
Show of Hands allows numerous and perhaps endless layers of meaning but its environment offers a somewhat clearer glimpse of life in this personal and witty work.
“Show of Hands is a field of play drawing on autobiograpical material as a starting point. Movement, choreography, sound/text, musical composition, the physical and psychological affects provocation (racial and otherwise) and how it has touched one man’s life. It observes and reflects on the implicit codes in misrepresentational intent of culture, society and the world around us.” Freddie
Reviews
“the performance felt rich and full in a way that solos do not always” Bellyflop Magazine
