Siobhan Davies CBE

CBE

CBE and C.B.E. are abbreviations for "Commander of the Order of the British Empire", a grade in the Order of the British Empire.Other uses include:* Chemical and Biochemical Engineering...

 DLitt (born 1950 and often known as Sue Davies) was a dancer with the London Contemporary Dance Theatre

London Contemporary Dance Theatre

The London Contemporary Dance Theatre was a contemporary dance company, based at The Place, founded by Robin Howard with Robert Cohan as its Artistic Director....

 during the 1970s, then becoming one of its leading choreographers before founding her own company — the Siobhan Davies Dance Company

Siobhan Davies Dance Company

Siobhan Davies Dance is one of the UK's leading contemporary dance companies founded in 1988 by Siobhan Davies, previously a dancer and choreographer with the London Contemporary Dance Theatre...

 — in 1988.

First training in art, Davies was one of the first year's intake of full-time students at the London School of Contemporary Dance

London School of Contemporary Dance

London Contemporary Dance School is a contemporary dance school located in London, United Kingdom. LCDS was founded by Robin Howard in 1966 in order to train new dancers for his company, London Contemporary Dance Theatre....

.

Her works White Man Sleeps and Wyoming have been included on the dance GCE

General Certificate of Education

The General Certificate of Education or GCE is an academic qualification that examination boards in the United Kingdom and a few of the Commonwealth countries, notably Sri Lanka, confer to students. The GCE traditionally comprised two levels: the Ordinary Level and the Advanced Level...

 A-Level syllabus.
Her work Bird Song is being used in GCSE Dance syllabus as Set Work (2008–2010).

Career Stages

• 1950 – Born (Susan Davies)
• As a child visited the Royal Opera House
  Royal Opera House
  The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
  
  .
• 1967 – Began to take lessons in Martha Graham
  Martha Graham
  Martha Graham was an American modern dancer and choreographer whose influence on dance has been compared with the influence Picasso had on modern visual arts, Stravinsky had on music, or Frank Lloyd Wright had on architecture.She danced and choreographed for over seventy years...
  
   Technique organised by Robin Howard
  Robin Howard
  Robin Jared Stanley Howard was a British philanthropist, dance patron and founder of The Place who promoted modern dance in England.-Early life:...
  
  .
• 1967 – First performance with a company that came to be Dance Theatre Robert Cohan – from the USA Martha Graham Dance Company was the founding artistic director of LCDS, and he set up this performance.
• 1969 – Cohan’s group moved into The Place
  The Place
  The Place is a dance and performance centre in Duke's Road near Euston in the London Borough of Camden. Originally the home base of the London Contemporary Dance Theatre from the 1970s, it is now the location of the London Contemporary Dance School, the Richard Alston Dance Company and the Robin...
  
   which allowed dancers and choreographers to be experimental with their work.
• 1970 – She was chosen to tour with Ballet for All which demonstrated contemporary style dance.
• 1972 – Davies’ first two professionally performed works were shown.
• 1975 – Davies was made Associate Choreographer
• Some of her work revolved slightly around the work of Merce Cunningham
  Merce Cunningham
  Mercier "Merce" Philip Cunningham was an American dancer and choreographer who was at the forefront of the American avant-garde for more than 50 years. Throughout much of his life, Cunningham was considered one of the greatest creative forces in American dance...
  
   an American choreographer who broke the rules of modern dance by using a chance process to make material and focusing on the medium of movement.
• 1976 – She went to America with fellow student Richard Alston, where they attended classes in Cunningham technique as well as in ballet.
• 1980 – While dancing and choreographing for LCDT, Davies set up Siobhan Davies Dance Company dancers.
• 1981 – she merged this with Richard Alston and dancers and the Ian Spink group to produce Second stride.
• This allowed her to make smaller and more intimate pieces as well as her ones for LDCT.
• 1984 – Siobhan made Resident Choreographer with LCDT
• 1985 – She left LDCT.
• 1986–1987 – Davies won the Fulbright Arts Fellowship – the first ever to be awarded to a choreographer. She used this to spend nine months traveling the USA with her family.
• 1988 – When she returned she set up the Siobhan Davies Dance company
• She was also made Associate choreographer for the Rambert Dance Company
  Rambert Dance Company
  Rambert Dance Company, is a leading British dance company. Formed at the start of the 20th century as a classical ballet company, it would exert a great deal of influence on the development of dance in the United Kingdom, and today, as a contemporary dance company, it continues to be one of the...
  
  .
• Since 1992 Davies has focused on pieces for her own company.

Choreographic style

Davies’ work is very abstract. She tries to use the quality of the sound rather than the sound itself. She thinks a lot more about the texture and emotion behind a piece, rather than what you would see just by looking at or hearing it. In an article in Dance Chronicle, Davies states that she feels "more comfortable about working with the rhythm of the world" (Preston, 353), and that it's something she can adapt to and learn from. Her dances are more than superficial, as her work is deeply concerned about what is happening with all constituent features. She has a fascination with using abstract sounds, and letting the body become part of the sound rather than just something moving to it. Her work contains many elements of what it means to be human and the human existence. Also, her dances are abstract and rarely narrative. She always preferred to keep the plot very simple, focusing on sound. She enjoys using certain sounds instead of pieces of music and then she adds them together. Costumes were usually muted, so they don't distract from the movement or sound. Each dancer gets a headset with a sound playing and Siobhan asks them to move and make motifs based on that certain sound. She also helped her dancers by instilling images in their minds. This aided in the execution of movement exactly how she wanted it. Davies saw choreography as being self-exploration, believed in her dancers' individual inner impules. This made her teaching approach more collaborative, in that the movement that surfaces is personal to her dancers.

External links

• [Preston, Sophia. "Giving Dance Room to Breathe: Dance-Music Relationships in Siobhan Davies' Choreography." Dance Chronicle 22.3 (1999): 321-57. Print.]
• [*Siobhan Davies Dance Company
• Guardian interview (12/2005)
• Ballet.co.uk interview (09/2005)
• Article 19 interview (09/2005)
• Ballet.co.uk interview (10/2001)