This Is It

Canadian-born choreographer Matthias Sperling captures the uniqueness of one dancer, Vicky Malin, in a lighthearted solo marking the first time Candoco put forward a solo performance.

The invitation to create a solo for the first time in Candoco’s 20 year history immediately sparked a curiosity about how the power of the individual could be a choreographic subject. What, after all, is the individual or self? What if the boundaries of it are mobile rather than fixed? And what if we have the ability to move those boundaries through a constant process of negotiation and exchange with one another? If mind and body are the same physical entity, then isn’t this ongoing evolution of self ultimately a complex series of physical acts? What if all of me is only dancing when I am moving not just my muscles and bones, but also the boundaries of myself?

Matthias Sperling

Her costume was ideal for both breaking hearts and fighting evil. With consummate ease she realised these twin goals.

Jildy Sauce, September 2011