COMBINE

A collaborative project with performers and audience. This is a work for theatre, foyer and gallery spaces.

Combine was commissioned by Dartington International Summer School and V22 in London 2012. Based loosely on the work of Robert Rauschenberg and Merce Cunningham. It also follows on from my own practice of site specific interventions.

Since 2007 I have been collaborating with singers, musicians and composers first on a project called Broken Voices, which was shown in London. Liverpool and the Venice Biennial and then The Foundling, which was shown at the Foundling Museum in London and also in Venice and at the ICA in London.

Combine is a site specific performance work and the first work I have devised for music and movement. It is a bespoke piece created for each location and situation. Using professionals and novices it is based on combining different styles and skills.

Choreographer Paola Piccato

Dancers were recruited from The Place and the Laban Centre.

Live Music Fari Bradley Live vocals Claire Barton, Sophie Kent, Georgina Mottram

Dancers: Gurpreet Dosanjh, Anne Marie H. Kristensen, Helen Newhouse, Margriet Nguyen, Eri Odoru, Rachele Rapisardi, Tim Rawlins, Johanna Ryynanen

Voices on film Sara Daintree, Flore Philis, Linda Hirst, Claire Barton, Sophie Kent, Georgina Mottram

Recorded Music Ian Dearden and Keegan Dewitt

Thanks to Tara Cranswick and David Thorp
Supported by The Performance Studio 

Photography Trinity sequence Jonathan Callery

Technical support David Rowett and Lee Jones

Not everything we want to express can be expressed in words and even if they can not all of us have those words. In a quote from Pina Baush, she says “I want to make something for which there are no words”. Dance enables a kind of expression that is both physical and explosive and yet gentle and private.

Dance is the formalisation of something we experience everyday. We are involved in ritualised and repetitive movements, from our routines of waking, brushing our teeth, taking breakfast, our journey to work etc. etc. We observe others, on the metro or bus, in the street or in cafes. We are aware that information is constantly coming in our direction and we understand what it means even if we don’t or can’t articulate it.

Combine was the first performance work I constructed that followed my process and method of being site specific.

Combine was coined by Robert Rauschenberg to describe works, which combined painting with objects to make works that were neither painting nor sculpture. He was also influential in sound and performance, working with the Merce Cunningham Company as a designer and then moving onto making his own theatrical works. 

About Paola Piccato

Paola began her dance studies in contemporary and ballet at the Accademia Regionale di Danza del Teatro Nuovo, before undertaking a diploma in Set Design at the Accademia di Belle Arti, Turin, Italy. Paola then went on to study a post graduate certificate in Dance in community from Trinity Laban, London. 

Paola worked as a choreographer for the Wilton Music Hall, in London for the “Scene in Time” family events, from 2014 to 2017 working with the local schools. She has also delivered dance workshops in adults’ community setting and for school children in London and in Italy.  

In late 2022, Paola joined the Language of Dance Centre as Outreach Project Developer. 

Duration 40 mins.

Five large video projections, recorded music, live music, eight dancers, three singers.