Movement, Memory and Metaphor in Jasmin Vardimon's Dance Theatre

Jasmin Vardimon’s Dance Theatre offers an unusual, intimate insight into the devising and training processes of a choreographer in the midst of her practice. Libby Worth and Jasmin Vardimon take a collaborative approach to recording and exploring the working processes of Vardimon and her company, chronicling the development of specific productions rather than offering a single choreographic blueprint.

Focusing on the techniques, strategies and creative activities necessitated by each project, Worth and Vardimon address:

• The initial ‘triggers’ which lead to research, expansion, and performance;
• The social, political and psychological content of Vardimon’s work;
• The relationship between accessibility of content and complexity of ideas;
• Drawing on texts to enhance and shape a piece of dance work;
• The editing process, and its inherent messiness;
• The contribution of a company’s different voices and viewpoints to the development of a production.

Based on extended conversations and interviews, this highly illustrated, full -colour volume is a unique reflection on Jasmin Vardimon’s vibrant, continually developing practice. It is a must-read for students and practitioners of dance and physical theatre.

Libby Worth is Senior Lecturer in Drama and Theatre at Royal Holloway, University of London. She has published widely on Anna Halprin (Routledge Performance Practitioners , Routledge 2004), Caryl Churchill, Jenny Kemp and Ninette de Valois. As a movement practitioner trained in the Feldenkrais Method® she focuses on research into performer training, site-based performance and dance improvisation. She is co-editor of the journal Theatre, Dance and Performance Training.

Jasmin Vardimon is Artistic Director of the Jasmin Vardimon Company, an Associate Artist and Sadler's Wells and Visiting Professor at Wolverhampton University. She also developed 'Physical Theatre for Dancers and Actors' (2009-2017) at Royal Holloway, University of London, where she received an honorary doctorate in 2014. She has been the recipient of the Jerwood Choreography Award (2000), and her most high profile works include Lullaby (2003), PARK (2005), Justitia (2007), Yesterday (2008) and 7734 (2010).