Trainstation

Seven Sisters Group. Director/Choreographer: Susanne Thomas. Manager: Gwen Van Spijk. Costumes: Sophie Jump. Dancers: Christine Devaney, Heidi Rustgaard, Alice Sara, Emma Teixidor, Dan Watson. Singer: Toshio Kusawa.

Commissioned by Theaterfestival SPIELART München 2003 and Freispiel Kulturagentur, München. Financially supported by Bahn AG, Rubenbauer Gaststätten im Hauptbahnhof München, and Tanztendenz München e.V. Also performed in Madrid as part of Escena Contemporanea (2004). Seven Sisters Group’s participation in both events was supported by the British Council. Developed out of an earlier commission from the South Bank Centre and The Place Theatre (July 1998); funded by ACE.

‘Trainstation’ is an evolving site-specific performance project (1998-2004) for railway stations, different versions of which have been presented extensively in Europe since its earliest versions at Kings Cross and Waterloo in 1998 (1998-2004 in London, Munich, Madrid, Helsinki, Prague, Budapest, Zurich, Turnhout (Belgium), Birmingham and Newcastle). ‘Trainstation’ explores and tests possibilities of performance making and site-responsiveness in busy public environments. It consists of two related pieces: the first was clearly recognisable as dance performance; the second, occurring in the concourse hall, played with ambiguities between the ‘natural’ movement patterns inherent in the site and choreographed movement, exploring the subtle interfaces between social habit and art. The performers moved amongst the travellers/spectators employing a vocabulary drawn from pedestrian gestures. In this way, the choreography gradually emerged from the environment and its temporary inhabitants, and the spectators became implicated in the performance event and its ambiguous relation to the ‘real’. The project endeavoured to explore new ways of (re-)presenting dance to an invited audience as well as to an ‘unknowing’ public of passers-by, encouraging spectators’ attention to the here-and-now through the medium of the site.