World-famous Scottish choreographer Claire Cunningham and her ensemble of leading disabled performers invite you to join them for an evening at ZAMEK Culture Centre as they pull back the curtain on the glittering and mysterious world of the tribute artist.
Thank You Very Much takes to the floor with wit, glitz and a pulsating soundtrack. A performance that navigates up, down and all around society’s ideas of normality, and shakes up the myth of how bodies should be. The dancers pull on their sparkling costumes and ask: Who have we been trying to be all our lives? Has it ever been our choice? And what really is “the wonder of you”?
Claire Cunningham is a performer and creator of multidisciplinary spectacles, one of the most respected, successful and dynamic choreographers in Scotland. As an artist who self-identifies as a person with a disability, she is one of the world's leading theater artists with non-normative bodies. Her work is often rooted in the study and use/misuse of her crutches and the exploration of the potential of her own specific physicality with a conscious rejection of traditional dance techniques (developed for non-disabled bodies).
“I guess my work sits within contemporary dance but there is always a lot of text. I like to take complicated or personal – for me – or nuanced ideas about disability politics and open them up in ways that are easy to understand, particularly if it is a new concept around how the audience might have perceived disability” – Claire Cunningham.
“Cunningham’s performances reveal a restless imagination and innovative approach to choreography, firmly rooted in her lived experience as a self-identifying disabled artist and a compassionate activism that challenges notions of the normative body. Having incorporated aerialism, dance, song and text into her productions, Cunningham has created a series of performances that simultaneously challenge traditional ideals of physicality and the potential of theatricality, maintaining an intellectual rigour and a desire to forge a more welcoming relationship between performers, audiences and the spaces that they share” - Gareth K. Vile, a Scottish theater critic, lecturer and publisher of "Edinburgisch Dramaturgie", writes about Cunningham’s work.
Two performances, day after day. Both in English with Polish subtitles. Presentation of the second day (14.10.) also with translation into Polish sign language.
Duration: 90 minutes
The performance is recommended for viewers 12+
directed and choreographed by Claire Cunningham
co-director: Dan Watson
cast: Claire Cunningham, Tanja Erhart, Jo Bannon, Vicky Malin
dramaturgy: Luke Pell
set design: Bethany Wells
sound designer: Matthias Herrmann
lighting designer: Chris Copland
production: Manchester International Festival and National Theater of Scotland in association with Claire Cunningham Projects and Kunstenfestivaldesarts, with support from the National Lottery under the Creative Scotland initiative
Performance presented as part of the t performative arts programme "Presence", delivered by ZAMEK Culture Centre in Poznań in collaboration with CODA Oslo International Dance Festival and Teatr 21 of Warsaw, thanks to funding from the EEA and Norway Grants.
Awards
CRITICS' AWARDS FOR THEATRE IN SCOTLAND 2020:
Best Music and Sound - Matthias Hermann
Best Ensemble - Thank You Very Much
Tickets: