antidisestablishmentarianism on #WordyMonday

Shobana Jeyasingh’s Too Mortal at St Mary’s Church, Clissold Park, (c) Carole Edrich 2012

Suggested by Jeremy Hoare, this week’s word; antidisestablishmentarianism, was too easy. I’ve represented it with an image from Shobana Jeyasingh’s choreography ‘Too Mortal’ which I took in St Mary’s Church, Clissold Park some time ago.

Made for churches, for me it was resonant of water, tides and hidden depths. I remember the dancers’ upper torsos appearing and disappearing as if pulled back by an irresistable undertow from the nave. I still wonder about bruising since another part of the performance had them balanced full across the pews’ hard wooden edges as if floating in torment.

So my interpretation has the dancers resisting the disestablishment of the church physically (hence the way they were pulled back by the undertow) and intellectually by inhabiting the church in the first place.

If you’re interested, there’s an opportunity to see the choreography in Bath in April.