Counterweight Duet | Experiments in Dance

Full Tilt were excited to perform at Circomedia’s beautiful church building on portland square as part of Testing Ground - Experiments in Dance.

Testing Ground is a platform for work in progress or newly developed experiments in dance. Testing Ground is supported by Theatre Bristol and Circomedia and creates an opportunity for artists to show new work as well as receive valuable feedback from industry peers and professionals. Full Tilt presented 'Sight:Unseen', an experimental aerial dance work - using a human counterweight system - that exploited a substantial size difference between two performers to dramatic effect. An experiment in physics, it combined the technical challenges this presented with the improvisational and narrative possibilities that it offered. A duet of opposites, dichotomies, and contradictions that explored what happens when two poles meet in the middle (or not): the hybrid, liminal spaces between equilibrium or collision in the vulnerability of vertical space. Dr Jess Allen and I created a ten minute duet for the platform. To create the work we used stimulus from Dante's Paradiso, contact improvisation, and explored the possibilities presented by our unusual equipment.