Breakwell Dancing: Lift the Lid with Sheridan Quigley

 There are two pieces of music which are insistent components of the Breakwell exhibition. They stay in your head long after you have left. One is from Schubert’s Nocturne in E flat major (Opus 148), which accompanies his haunting video “The Other Side”. The other is Thelonius Monk’s “Misterioso”, which is a component of Breakwell’s installation, “Monk”.

I decided to use these as the basis for dynamic drawing event, where participants would dance across large sheets of paper, drawing with long sticks as they went. The hope was that their marks would record the music visually. I added a third tune, in the form of sea shanty (in honour of the raging sea outside).

The sea shanty got everyone hopping about quite spontaneously, drawing spirals and twirls  as they moved.

These next two images were created from the Schubert piece, reflecting the languorous drifting music – which felt like auditory T’ai Chi. The following two images emerged from listening to the Monk piece, with its insistent pacing quality like someone out for a walk but changing direction every few moments.