Welcome to Bodies in Flight
Bodies in Flight in their 17th performance project GYMNAST delves into our fascination with the athlete’s drive to physical excellence, their supreme attention to bodily task, the high point on the parallel bars, the thousands of minute adjustments needed to hold that still.

In collaboration with video-artist Tony Judge and composer Jen Bell and Night Bus Choir, GYMNAST uses the training session as both source and structure, from warm-up routines to the display of gymnastic exercises, from novice to expert, to explore the continuing power of the Olympian ideal of athlete as interface between human and superhuman, the mortal and the divine.

Bodies in Flight are delighted to announce that we have recently received both Arts Council England support through grants for the arts and a Creative Innovation Research and Development grant supported by the Legacy Trust UK and the European Development Fund for this exciting new project. We will begin work in January in residence at Dance4 and working with local gymnasts in Alfreton, Notts Gymnastics Academy in Rushcliffe, Sharley Park and Tibshelf .

This is a Dance4 Co-Commission with Ferment. GYMNAST will be presented as a work in progress as part of Bristol Old Vic's Ferment season in January 2012
Model Love, Touring from Spring 2008 DREAMWALK - DERBYSHIRE
One Sunday afternoon two walkers arrive in town in search of a rest and a well earned pint. They soon realize something is up: things look different – cars, shop-fronts, people’s clothes. And what are these small boxes everyone is talking into? Yes, Neil and Tom set out to walk the High Peak Trail on the 19th September 1973 and now find they may have taken a wrong turning off the old railway track. So, begins a time-travelling performance-walk that takes you through the streets of Wirksworth. Following the performers and listening to a specially written text and soundscore through earpieces, you will explore the many layers of history that are under your feet and etched in the buildings around you.

Bodies in Flight have performed their audio-walk in Nottingham, Bristol and Singapore to great acclaim, and now bring to Wirksworth their unique focus – inviting us to see the everyday afresh:

The entire city was a stage and unexpected beauty lurked in its malls, shophouses and graffiti. (Straits Times, Singapore)

I don’t think I will ever walk through the city in the same way again. (Nott Dance blog, Nottingham)

Bodies in Flight presented ‘Dream-Walk’ in September 2011 as part of the Wirksworth Festival.
DREAMWALK - SKEGNESS
details coming soon!


Dream-work continues our fascination with engaging and re-sensitizing the audience-spectator's involvement in the performance by taking the work on to the streets. By siting the work in the midst of the daily commute to work we are following one of our core practices: that each work must speak directly to its audience-spectators by way of an everyday situation or experience.

Dream-work was shown recently during the nottdance09 Season in Nottingham.
Dream-work was experienced during Mayfest 2010 - Bristol's festival of contemporary theatre.

Bodies in Flight is one of the most interesting performance companies operating in the UK at the moment. Their productions are often collaborations between performers, musicians and visual artists set in motion to present installations, interactive video projects as well as performances that seek to break down the barriers between stage and audience. Their work is always thoughtful and genuinely pushes at the boundaries of stage conventions that have in the UK remained predominantly conservative. Essentially, what I find so challenging about their work is that it can be seen as an on-going investigation into the very nature of interdisciplinary collaboration.
Skinworks (edited highlights from British Theatre Guide) Review by Jackie Fletcher (2004)
Email Bodies in Flight for more details of the new show
Model Love is now available for touring
RECENT PUBLICATIONS ABOUT US