SOPHIE ARSTALL DANCE ARTIST
Nature's Polyphony
This research project is an intimate investigation into our interactions in particular within a woodland environment, delving deep into the materiality and systems present and looking at both local and wider ecologies. Through creating an embodied practice, a lens into the uniqueness of this world, I hope to cultivate awareness, understanding, and empathy towards this. Through solo studies and a process of documenting through writing, photography and film emerged practices and scores that formed the basis of two dance and movement workshops. The workshops were aimed at both a community local to the area in which I was working and a community of dance and movement artists from around London. This fed back into what is an evolving philosophy and practice of moving with nature. Nature’s Polyphony is a way to acknowledge the multiplicity and diversity of organisms in nature; their substance, temporality, expression, rhythm, whilst bringing these elements together. Creating a layered and simultaneous choir, connecting and responding in real-time to the collective, to a symbiotic system and oneness. It is also a way to synthesize the research, to dance the practice and phenomena of moving and learning from nature.