Tempest is a work created for seven dancers - four women, three men. There are two stories within it. The first is about something that brews – something that starts to get bigger and bigger until it gets to a point that it has to release. The tumbling effect of a storm can be beautiful as well as devastating.
The other theme running through Tempest is Man Vs. Nature. One of my inspirations for this was the story of King Canute. It’s an interesting story that has been twisted over time. The story that has been widely told is that King Canute proclaimed that he was so powerful that he could stop the tide. When the people in the courts followed him to the shore, and the tides kept flowing over his feet, he was laughed at and shamed for thinking he was more powerful than God.
But, the initial story goes that he was trying to prove that nobody was more powerful than God. That is why he went down to the beach, and asked the people to witness as he tried to stop the tide. And when he couldn’t he was able to prove that no one was more powerful than God. So the story has been twisted, and the dance is inspired by that.
But, the initial story goes that he was trying to prove that nobody was more powerful than God. That is why he went down to the beach, and asked the people to witness as he tried to stop the tide. And when he couldn’t he was able to prove that no one was more powerful than God. So the story has been twisted, and the dance is inspired by that.
After I started creating the work, I was looking at some images online, and I found one that was the painting The Raft of Medusa. That image, and the wreckage, and the bodies inspired the work and then it flowed from there. It made me think of a book I read called The Heart of The Sea which is the inspiration for Moby Dick, about the whale ship the Essex. There was controversy after they were rescued as the survivors had turned to cannibalism. These ideas of wreckage and carnage in isolated spaces are all present in Tempest. And that is how inspiration works, one thing leads to another, it doesn’t all happen at the start.
Jean Louis Théodore Géricault (1791–1824), The Raft of the Medusa (1818-19), oil on canvas, 491 x 716 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris.