PITCH has been a long making process in some ways it’s still a process.
Skye and I met while working with Wendy Houstoun on a show called Stupid Women. We wanted to make an art action – a dance that could initiate positive change, something that would shift all the talking around all the issues of the world and actually make something happen, plant a seed of hope.
The show landed around the question what can we do or more specifically what can I do?
Jo Fong
Both Skye and I are the same age 46 and somehow at a time in our lives where we want to give back, make a difference. We feel very lucky in our lives and equally felt an overwhelming sense of powerlessness in the midst of the global political chaos, an instability, a place where fear and apathy can settle in.
Summoning our will with vitality, energy and desire, we’ve been thinking… How can we have an impact?
We ended up with a fast, funny, poignant, relevant and somewhat raw show. I think this show has changed my life, I’m more aware more convinced that our individual and collective actions can make a better way for people to live.
Even writing this now, just minutes after today’s Stockholm attack and the chemical warfare on Syria and Trump’s retaliatory airstrikes it is all happening really fast, we have found a place in this piece to express our incoherence and potentially take small steps forward towards making a more positive future.
Skye Reynolds
PITCH
A collaboration between artists Skye Reynolds and Jo Fong
****“A tremendously intelligent, brilliantly wry piece of performance” Festmag
PITCH is a conversation, a provocation: “How are we living our lives?”
One woman stands on a box and attempts to change the world.
The act of selling an idea, selling herself.
Beneath the façade: What remains? What is valid?
PITCH is an Action.
However ridiculous something serious has to happen.
An act of courage. An act of hope.
PITCH is a Stand Up Dance.
How to be a woman, how to change the world, how to take a stance?
Made in collaboration with artist Jo Fong and inspired by a fresh, conversational style, PITCH exposes a personal and shared story of recognising and becoming, avoiding and taking action.
PITCH premiered with a sell-out run at Edinburgh Festival 2016, Dance Base.
The work has been presented at DanceLive Festival, Aberdeen and Volcano Theatre, Swansea, raising £220 for Girls Fund/Plan UK and Help Refugees.
Fast Fresh Funny. Tending seedlings of HOPE.
Skye Reynolds is a dance artist, performance-maker and educator. Passionate and curious about multi-artform communication, her work is experimental and influenced by the politics of ‘real life.’
Jo Fong is a director, choreographer and performer working in dance, film, theatre and the visual arts.
Dance House, Cardiff
7th April
7.30pm
Book here http://www.ndcwales.co.uk/en/what-s-on/spring-dancehouse1/
Tramway, Glasgow
Dance International Glasgow (DIG)
9th and 10th May 2017
Photos by Lucas Kao