Home Truths: The Body as Home

Sarah has worked internationally with Lisa Colette Bysheim in Norway (duet, oh and one more thing…) and with Angie Moon Dance Theatre in New York City (film, Places Between selected for Movies by Movers and Art of Brooklyn film festivals).

Teaching and project development is also at the heart of Thrive Dance’s work and Sarah’s practice. She has worked with Siobhan Davies Dance developing dance curriculum for primary schools and training their teachers on how to use more movement in their classrooms. She also directs Thrive Dance’s youth company and mentors recent graduates. She has also made work for Roger Williams University, Middlesex University, Derby University and the Royal Academy of Dance. Recently she directed a program in Milton Keynes which worked with a community cast from low socio-economic backgrounds to make a performance piece that was performed alongside Thrive Dance’s professional company at their local community centre.

It Just Sort of Happens One Day… is a contemporary dance piece exploring how one creates a sense of home for themselves. It confronts our perception of what home is and questions whether home is in the physical environment around us, in the items we can carry with us or if it’s found within our own bodies. The solo depicts settling and uprooting, and settling again to be uprooted again. It is a work of subtle nuance where the performer invites the audience into the chapters of her life; taking them on a journey through various times and places as she is displaced from her habitual surroundings and seeks to create her own version of what ‘home’ is.

This is an immersive performance that allows participants to roam through the space as they choose and are given the instruction to change the position from which they are watching.

Concept and choreography by: Sarah Poekert

Original Score: by Sebastian Lobbers

Rupinder’s debut poetry book Rooh (2018) was published with Verve Poetry Press and she is currently working on her second collection. Rupinder’s poetry has been published in SPAKE Dialect and Voices from the West Midlands, Lumin Journal, Wild Court, Under the Radar Magazine, Wasafiri , 14 Poems and others.  Rupinder’s one-woman show Imperfect, Perfect Woman debuted at Wolverhampton Literature festival in 2022.  Rupinder has also been a BBC New Creative and developed audio piece ‘The Girls that Hide and Seek’.  She has also written a paper on predominant Panjabi Poetess Amrita Pritam (1919-2005) which has been published by Routledge India in their Writer Provocateur series. Rupinder is currently further working on experimenting with movement, dance and poetry through being awarded Developing your Creative Practice Grant.

Working across the Creative Programmes and Collections team at the Museum, as well as the Commercial and Campaigns division, her role centres on aligning the Museum’s programming within the core values and vision of engaging with the museum communities through fundraising and programming that interrogates critical societal issues through an artistic practice.

She is the Co-founder of EARTHworks [Artists], a curatorial duo that is dedicated to promoting creative collaborations through an intergenerational lens. Their work aims to raise awareness of the benefits of art and art making practices to health and well-being, alongside global issues such as climate change, equality and diversity.

Gaynor holds a BA in History and the History of Ideas from Goldsmith’s university of London, and an MA in Museum Cultures and Curating at Birkbeck University of London, specialising in African art, difficult histories, and decolonial approaches.