Rosalind Holgate Smith

Statement

Rosalind is an Artist, Dancer and Choreographer. She creates performances and immersive installations that investigate touch, exploring intimate experiences between people, place and the environment. Her inspiration lies in her engagement with Contact Improvisation, Somatic practices and moving in the environment.

GlogauAIR Project

Whilst at GlogauAir, I would like to prototype and develop ‘Groundwork’, an interactive installation involving a suspended ceiling, lowered down to 1m, waist height. By altering our everyday vertical experience of space, Groundwork will invite audiences to question our relationship with the earth, hierarchy, our sense of weight, safety, roots and connection.

During my first month at GlogauAir, I aim to develop and build a suitable and safe version of this installation so that audiences can be invited to explore moving and interacting beneath the ceiling. The first month will thus be dedicated to prototyping and working out the technical details and materials required. I envision communicating with an architectural partner, Mathew Birch, in this process and I would greatly value technical support from GlogauAIR.

During the second month, I would like to collaborate with an invited group of dancers to explore moving beneath it. I imagine working with a group of 3-5 dancers, and Contact Improvisers already based in Berlin, and with whom I have established relationships. With this group I aim to develop a performance, or performances, in response to the installation. These performances may take place in the space itself or outside of the installation, as I expect we further explore moving and performing at ground level in different outdoor spaces. I will document and film our experiments and performances. I am interested to make my work accessible to people of all ages including disabled people and my hope is to offer an alternative way for audiences to engage with Groundwork, without getting underneath the ceiling.

During my third month, I would like to refine the elements of my work that it will be finally exhibited. This may involve refining performance work, editing film, and any other visual or written responses to the work. It could also involve constructing a final version of the installation. In essence this work aims to invite questions about our roots and relationship to the earth and has been inspired by my movement research and practice based in Snowdonia, North Wales. I am very excited to bring these questions to the city of Berlin and see what evolves as I re-site and develop my work here.

CV Summary

EDUCATION

• Master Degree in Dance Creative Practice from Trinity Laban in London. Touch is theme she has researched throughout her practice which led her to train in Contact Improvisation and Somatic practices including Authentic Movement, and Body Mind Centering®, developing a deeper relationship to her body as a material of lived experience and expression.
• Over the past 10 years movement improvisation and embodied research have become a central aspect of her practice, through which she has created performances, installations, drawings, poetry, videos, and site-specific works.
• From her Masters she developed a solo performance called “What Touches Me?” which has since been presented in the USA and in Wales.
• Other installations such as “Atotal Theatre” have been exhibited at Newlyn Gallery, ‘Apparent View”; at The Eden Project and in the Dartington Gardens.
• She has had residencies in the UK, Germany and Spain and received research grants and awards from the British Council as well as from organizations such as Articulture.
• Rosalind interested in bringing movement and bodies into Gallery contexts has led her perform for various Artists including Melanie Bonajo, at the Tate Modern, for Emma Smith, at the Arnolfini and in Seven Sisters Company at the V&A.
• She has also performed for Dance Company’s such as Scott Wells and Kate Lawrenece Vertical Dance.
• Rosalind continues to teach and develop opportunities for people to dance, now as a freelance Artist. Many of her Art works also foster engagement, inviting participative exploration.

Gallery