Alexander Whitley: I am not trying to explain the science in any way, nor am I doing a piece to explain science: there is no way the body can explain complex scientific ideas, but it can represent them in a certain way, which allows people to engage with the ideas behind the theory. What I’ve come to really appreciate is that physics and dance aren’t so different. They are both about studying and understanding movement. It is just that they ask questions in very different scales; solar physics is about understanding movement of atoms and particles and photons, or something of the size of the Sun itself, which is vastly beyond our comprehension. It has been really interesting to learn about the theory, and behaviour of the movement at these different scales and then ask questions of the body in relation to them, and see how much the body is capable of understanding and expressing those ideas, and so they have thrown a lot to me in terms of different ways of thinking about movement, which has been really exciting.
Alexander Whitley Dance Company performs 8 Minutes at Sadler’s Wells on 27 and 28 June 2017. For tickets and further information visit the Sadler’s Wells website.
Photo Credit: Johan Persson
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Dancers include: Louis XIV, John Durang, Marie Taglioni, William Henry ‘Juba’ Lane, Anna Pavlova, Rudolf Laban, Doris Humphrey, Michio Ito, Mrinalini Sarabhai, Pearl Primus, Amalia Hernández, and Arthur Mitchell.
