Carlos Acosta Choreographic Fellowship

About the work

This fellowship was conceived as an R&D process rather than the development of a finished piece, creating space to test ideas, follow questions and allow the research to remain open-ended.

The focus was the relationship between text, movement and interpretation. I was interested in what happens when choreography meets a pre-existing verbal narrative — lyrics, spoken word or recorded conversations. How much does language shape the way movement is read? And how can choreography engage with text without simply illustrating what is being said?

The process explored different ways of loosening the direct relationship between words and movement, creating more space for interpretation. At times, text, voice and physical material were placed in a kind of feedback loop, where each could influence and reshape the others.
The musical material was developed in close dialogue with the composers, allowing sound, language and choreography to evolve together rather than functioning as separate layers.

Working with dramaturg Orrow Bell helped us push these questions further, particularly around how meaning shifts between what is heard and what is seen.
Rather than arriving at one answer, the fellowship became a way of testing how text can frame movement, disturb it, transform it, or sometimes become unnecessary altogether.