2023 The Tiller Girls

 

Cinematography & Editor: Helena Öhman

Sound Design: Rob Bentall (to be produced)

In 2019 the surviving Tiller Girls, representing many different generations of dancers, met up for a reunion in Blackpool—a key home of the troupe. I went along with Helena Öhman, to record the event and talk to the women.

The footage of the event shows glamorous older women, posing, chatting, laughing, negotiating one another, reliving memories, and showing me how to link arms as a Tiller Girl.

Interposed text highlights speech, emphasising the insights and opinions that develop and challenge earlier video works. Black and white archival footage of filmed theatre performances depict Tiller Girl dances giving visual descriptions to pair with the stories.

2019 Bubikopf & Theatre photos

 

Bubikopf is an art history lecture on gender that morphs. An examination of women in the modernity of the Weimar Republic with new opportunities to be independent in the city, to go to art school, perform in cabarets. Weaving together gendered forms of feminine visibility this piece spotlights and speculates women’s entertaining, creative and Avant Garde work.

Ascending A Staircase, Library Theatre, Sheffield, 1934, 2019
Giclee print on white cotton rag paper, edition of 5, 84 cm x 84 cm
Edition of 15, 34 cm x 34 cm
Ascending A Staircase, City Varities, Leeds, 1865, 2019
Giclee print on white cotton rag paper, edition of 5, 84 cm x 84 cm
Edition of 15, 34 cm x 34 cm
Ascending A Staircase, North Pier Theatre, Blackpool,1863, 2019
Giclee print on white cotton rag paper, edition of 5, 84 cm x 84 cm
Edition of 15, 34 cm x 34 cm
Ascending A Staircase, Stockport Plaza, Stockport, 1932, 2019
Giclee print on white cotton rag paper, edition of 5, 84 cm x 84 cm
Edition of 15, 34 cm x 34 cm
Ascending A Staircase, Stockport Plaza, Stockport, 1932, 2019
Giclee print on white cotton rag paper, edition of 5, 84 cm x 84 cm
Edition of 15, 34 cm x 34 cm
Ascending A Staircase, North Pier Theatre, Blackpool,1863, 2019
Giclee print on white cotton rag paper, edition of 5, 84 cm x 84 cm
Edition of 15, 34 cm x 34 cm
Ascending A Staircase, Victoria Theatre, Halifax, 1901, 2019
Giclee print on white cotton rag paper, edition of 5, 84 cm x 84 cm
Edition of 15, 34 cm x 34 cm
Ascending A Staircase, Pendle Hippodrome, Pendle, 1914, 2019
Giclee print on white cotton rag paper, edition of 5, 84 cm x 84 cm
Edition of 15, 34 cm x 34 cm
Ascending A Staircase, Lyceum, Sheffield, 1897, 2019
Giclee print on white cotton rag paper, edition of 5, 84 cm x 84 cm
Edition of 15, 34 cm x 34 cm
Ascending A Staircase, Pomegranate, Chesterfield, 1879, 2019
Giclee print on white cotton rag paper, edition of 5, 84 cm x 84 cm
Edition of 15, 34 cm x 34 cm
Ascending A Staircase, Darlington Hippodrome, Darlington, 1907, 2019
Giclee print on white cotton rag paper, edition of 5, 84 cm x 84 cm
Edition of 15, 34 cm x 34 cm
Ascending A Staircase, Penistone Paramount, Penistone, 1914, 2019
Giclee print on white cotton rag paper, edition of 5, 84 cm x 84 cm
Edition of 15, 34 cm x 34 cm
Sep 202018
 

I had so much fun showing my work at Abingdon Studios in Blackpool. Here’s the documentation. I am so grateful to show my new video work Felicity Means Happiness for the first time in Blackpool. Photo credit, Matt Wilkinson, Abingdon Studios Project Space.