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Early Solos

Rosemary Lee

Photo: Spiris Politis
1987 – 1993

Three early solos by Rosemary Lee: Heart Home, Tenderhooks and Feathered Snippet

Heart Home

1993

35-minute solo, performed in a set designed of ever diminishing rooms by Louise Belson.

“I wanted to work more intensively with long term collaborator Louise Belson to create a complex set to perform within. The result was a miniature theatre that through ever decreasing doors, revealed five different interiors until I was performing in a tiny box like interior. The set was painted in fresco and tromp d’oeil style and was inspired by Renaissance painting and particularly Piero della Francesca mysterious weeping, pregnant Madonna.”
Rosemary Lee

“a superb technician, the quality and intensity of her performance is underpinned by marvellously controlled and fluid movements.”

Christopher Bowen The Scotsman

“a terrifically engaging performer”

Deborah Jowitt, The Village Voice N.Y.

“a fiery imagination…”

Stephanie Jordon, The Independent 1990

Solo entitled Heart Home
The piece was made at Chisenhale Dance Space as part of a research period and was revived in 1996 as Heart Home Revisited.

Revived in 1996 as part of Heart Home Revisited an evening of existing solos and a work in progress for the Islington Dance Festival at Union Chapel in three different rooms – audience promenaded.

Music by Abbess Hildegaard of Bingen
Additional sound score by Jonathan Lever
Costume and set designed by Louise Belson

Duo untitled work in progress
performed in silence
performed by Simon Whitehead and Rosemary Lee
Group Work untitled work in progress
music composed by Jonathan Lever
performed by 12 dancers
Costumes arranged by Rosemary Lee
Created over a series of 10 workshops open to anyone

Tenderhooks

1989

Tenderhooks explored images of seraphic beings, flight and gravity. Danced in silence on a circle of white feathers, it premiered at the Purcell Room, SBC and toured in 1990.

“I limited myself to only moving on a ring of feathers in silence, very slowly.”
Rosemary Lee

Tenderhooks toured within a solo programme and was later revived to be part of a duet Nightlight, created by Gary Carter for himself and Rosemary Lee, Nightlight was performed at NottDance and The Place.

“I was struck by the simplicity of the movement… and by the meditative transparent quality of the performance.”

Gary Carter, Dance Theatre Journal 1990

“Strength, delicacy, serenity and occasionally sudden ferocity.”

Mary Brennan, Glasgow Herald, 1990

Costume designed and made by Rosie Hackett
Overall design by Rosemary Lee

Feathered Snippet

1987

One of Lee’s first solo pieces, performed at over 18 venues throughout the British Isles. This work was toured in the repertory of Sue MacLennan’s Occasional Dance Company and earned her the description of ‘gracefully dizzy dance comedienne’ (Donald Hutera, Time Out 1988).

“I was inspired by the extraordinary music, hens, songbirds, and the behaviour and body language of preening in humans and birds. I wanted to create an accurate tightly structured, musical and humorous short solo.”
Rosemary Lee

“Within a few superbly crafted movements, she manages to conjure an image of both a vain flippant woman, and a strutting preening fowl.”

Christopher Bowen The Scotsman 1990

“…the marvellous technique which informs her particular style with its cunning echoes of bird like movements.  Hurrah for Feathered Snippet….Lee..preens struts fusses and flaps in such a way as to suggest, with humour and perception, the similarities between certain kinds of women and certain kinds of birds.”

Mary Brennan, The Glasgow Herald, 1990

Music by Clement Jannequin
Costume designed and made by Rosemary Lee
Solo danced by Rosemary Lee

View more images on ResCen

Photo: Spiris Politis
Photo: Kevin Low
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