At the beginning of 2022 artists Lucy Suggate and Charlie Ford began collaborating during a residency at Wainsgate Dances, which brought together Charlie’s drawing and object making into orbit with Lucy’s dance research. The work consists of performers from all disciplines working to construct paper stones. A surreal production line that explores the transformative properties of stone, examining how we might begin to move with petrification, heaviness and tenderness. Through (paper) stone making our attention is drawn towards expansive states of awareness, it’s a strange practice of reverse extraction, possibly repair or a small acknowledgement of the utterly unfathomable running alongside the magical.
Tender Stones was performed at Pembroke College as part of Open Cambridge 2023, a festival celebrating the architectural redevelopment of the Mill Lane site at Pembroke College, designed by Howarth Thompkins. This performance was made possible through the support of Pembroke College, The Junction Cambridge, Wainsgate Dances (West Yorkshire), NN Contemporary Art (Northampton) and Dance City MA Students (Newcastle).
Conception and choreography by Lucy Suggate; visual design by Charlie Ford; performed by Ben Ash, Charlie Ford, Isabella Oberlander & Lucy Suggate; photography by Fred Howarth.
