GATHER UP PRESENTS...

A TRIPLE BILL

TUESDAY 29th APRIL @7PM

BRISTOL OLD VIC - WESTON STUDIO

Sharings of works by dance artists Libby Ward, Akeim Toussaint Buck & Kip Johnson.

 
 
A person is dressed in black clothes. The shadow behind her enlarges her stance on the right of her body. The bottom of her shirt is undone, showing her pregnant belly while she holds a large paper sculpture over her head.

Credit: Libby Ward

Libby WARD- SPLIT MOUNTAIN

Split Mountain traces the personal movement of transformation where the concept of the individual becomes suspicious. Libby Ward takes the audience on a journey of her research on the performance and the embodiment of a mother. The lines gradually blur and space is created for the hidden movement from within.

—

Libby Ward is a dancer and researcher based in Belgium and the UK. After graduating from the Royal Conservatoire Antwerp (RCA), she has been working as a freelance dancer in the Belgian and European dance field for several years with Romeo Castellucci, Anastassya Savitsky, Damien Jalet and Moonstein amongst others. Since 2024, Libby is a researcher for the School of Arts (BE) with her practice-based project The Maternal Body: Moving as More Than One. Her performance Split Mountain is created with a continuous interchange of theory, dance, text and sound, always returning to the body as a point of departure.

Akeim is in front of a colourful brick wall. He is wearing a white jacket with fine patterns in green and a bright red hat. With an arm extended behind him, along the wall.

Leah Cole Photography

AKEIM TOUSSAINT BUCK - Beatmotion Solo 3

Many energies exist in life more than we can imagine. We are always slowly arriving at a place of transition where we lift off or we descend, regardless it is always closer to a decay. How we react to this decaying inevitability is up to us. We have many gifts to share and many to celebrate in this life. Simultaneously we also have many tragedies to grieve. With the voice and the body witness the dance of liberation healing and elevation. Breathe and let the flow commence. 

—

Akeim Toussaint Buck is an interdisciplinary performer and maker, born in Jamaica and raised in England. Graduating from The Northern School of Contemporary Dance in 2014, His choreographic work includes: Snakebox’s PLAY, Windows of Displacement, Reckoning, Sib Y Osis, Beatmotion, Souls & Cells etc. Film work includes Galvanise & Displaced. Akeim's work has been supported by Yorkshire Dance, Leeds Playhouse, Leeds Inspired, Geraldine Connor Foundation, The Arts Foundation Futures Award, IRIE! Dance Theatre, Spin Arts, RJC, Deda, Fabric, Streatham Space Project, Serendipity, NSCD, Sadlers Wells and Arts Council England etc.

Credit: Kip Johnson

KIP JOHNSON - SEV/ER

Sev/er explores the deconstruction of a tree, blending sound, movement, and stillness.

Engaging with the materiality of wood through references to Greenwood Craft and it’s labour on the body and capturing the sounds of dismantling an 'inanimate' object, to create a live score.

Sev/er reflects on the rhythms of nature and our disconnection from them. 

—

After graduating from Northern School of Contemporary Dance, Kip Johnson has gone on to perform with mainly dance theatre companies such as Vincent dance theatre, Gecko, Ultima Vez, Fevered Sleep and Lost Dog.  

In 2015 Kip traveled the U.K for a year in a Motorhome, volunteering on farms and in land-based communities. Since then he has been trying to find ways of bringing dance and nature together. He moved to Bristol back in 2016 to start making work, interested in the human relationship to nature and the intersection between human and natural processes. 

 
 

GATHER UP Presents… is made possible thanks to the support of our partner Bristol Old Vic. It is supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England and by Bristol City Council (Originators).