This year I started working with dancer and choreographer from the Royal Ballet Valentino Zucchetti. This will be performed in the Paul Hamlyn Hall at the Royal Opera House on sunday the 28th July 2019.
We wanted to come up with an idea that connects dancing and painting – to make an image that expresses and captures the experience of watching dance. I will be painting the dancers on a 6m long glass wall for a short performance – as they move across the room to new choreography specially created to be drawn. Valentino has been workshopping this with two Royal Ballet Dancers, Hannah Jayne Grennell and Harris Bell. Ive been going into the Opera House to watch them in this studio time, drawing them as the choreography is made, which led to larger and larger drawings and then finally a plan to making a painting as part of the actual performance on a huge wall. The choreography has been created by Valentino picking lines and shapes with the drawing in mind – plus finding interesting poses that the dancers can hold still for minutes at a time (long enough to be drawn).
