Terraces : a choreography

Thurston, SD

Abstract

This eighty poem sequence emerges as the latest product of my eighteen-year enquiry into the relationship between dance and poetry. I think of it as a kind of written choreography, or kinepoetics – a term I’ve adapted from the dance scholar Suzanne Braswell. Composed during the pandemic, the scale of each dance/poem reflects the constrained use of space under these circumstances whilst also finding new opportunities for creative discovery. These poems are also intended to be danced in performance, and one poem, with accompanying choreography, has been made into a short film in collaboration with Maria Andrews.
Thematically, the book attempts the fragile and precarious business of making meaning (both personal and social) whilst constantly testing this out in relation to the lived experience of embodied movement. Thus, some crucial influences are referred to along the way such as the dancers Kenneth King, Helen Poynor and Sandra Reeve alongside the expressive arts therapist Dinah Brown and language theorist Felicity Deamer.

Citation

Thurston, S. Terraces : a choreography. Co. Tipperary: Beir Bua press

• Book Type: Authored Book
• Deposit Date: May 26, 2022
• ISBN: 9781914972409
• Publisher URL: https://beirbuapress.com/2022/03/14/terraces-a-choreography-by-scott-thurston/