James Batchelor — the recipient of Chunky Move's 2017 Next Wave Commission — has created a new dance piece that explores the unknown. Redshift will premiere on November 23 and incorporates ideas of human treatment of the unknown, why we chase it, and how we recognise and capture it. Time and space are stretched; elements of surrealism and humour make their way in.
The ambitious project comes from a creator whose recent experiences have ventured into the unknown too — Batchelor joined a team of scientists, students, artists and crew in 2016 on an expedition to the sub-Antarctic Heard and McDonald Islands. His experiences there led him to the creation of Redshift.
Resulting from a continued collaboration with visual artist Annalise Rees and sound designer Morgan Hickinbotham, the work aims to explore these encounters of the body with the universe, and how we go about mapping them and the greater unknown.