Which Leg Are We On?

A series of unpredictable, free-form – though rule-based – improvisations of varying durations for public spaces. For a group of performers copying, mirroring and modelling each other, and including the continuous, ad-hoc shifting and repositioning of a number of chairs. With a semi-improvised electronic soundtrack created live by composer Samuel Barnes, with support from the Help Musicians UK Fusion Fund and Chapter.

The work was shown in different public settings, including the café at Chapter Arts Centre and the foyer of the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama (both Cardiff), the BBC Hall and Elysium Gallery in Swansea, and the Small World Theatre in Cardigan. The programme at Small World Theatre included students from the Department of Theatre, Film and Television Studies at Aberystwyth University (under the direction of Dr Louise Ritchie), who, after showing their own choreography, joined GNFTF in a short improvisation – a fascinating and dramatic collision of bodies of different ages.

(ca. 40 minutes)

Sound

Excerpts from the soundtrack by composer Samuel Barnes are available at https://www.samuelbarnes.co.uk/#/what-leg-are-we-on/

Video

Good News From The Future, Which Leg Are We On? rehearsals

Performed:

2019 Experimentica festival, Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff

2019 NAWR, BBC Hall Swansea Studios, Swansea

2019 Cardiff Dance Festival at Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, Cardiff

2019 Elysium Gallery, Swansea

2020 Small World Theatre, Cardigan

Photos: top: © Michael Harvey; all other photos: © Noel Dacey; Video: Good News from the Future, Which Leg Are We On? in rehearsal; Camera: David Scorvic, Patrick Flannery, Harriet Rich, edited by Harriet Rich. © Harriet Rich.