Plethu/Weave is a cross-artform digital collaboration between Literature Wales and National Dance Company Wales. The first series, in 2020, paired eight NDCWales dancers with eight Literature Wales commissioned poets to create eight short films.
Further information about each dancer and poet, as well as their finished film, are available below:
Hirddydd
Dere’n nes, mae’n stori ni
tu allan
lle mae’r gân yn geni’r
hirddydd; mae dy welydd di’n
rhy gyfyng ac mae’r gofid
anniben yn dy ben fel diwedd byd.
Dere, gwêl, y ffin drwy gil y ffenest,
ffin ddi-dor, ffin fforest,
ffin cul, ffin y cwest
unig,
gwêl, mae’n ffin anonest.
Dawn byw yw gweld nad yw’n bod.
Dy ateb? Ehedeg a’i datod
o’r newydd, yr hirddydd hwn,
ac yn ei lle cael llinyn hen berthyn y byd
i’th dynnu’n rhydd,
o’r newydd,
a’n hail-uno ni
ym mhatrwm ers talwm – yn deulu –
y patrwm glân sydd â lle i gân ein lliwiau i gyd.
Rhith yw’r ffin.
Gwthia’r ffenest.
Cei batrwm cwlwm calon.
Gwêl
yr edefyn golau’n galw:
‘nofia!’,
mor siŵr â llif y dŵr.
Dere.
//
Hirddydd
(The longest day)
Come closer, our story lies
outside
where the song is giving birth
to the longest day; your walls
are too confining, and the messy worry
inside your head is like the end of the world.
Come, see the boundary
through the just-open window,
that never-ending boundary,
boundary of forest,
narrow boundary,
the boundary of the lonely
searching.
See its dishonesty.
The gift of life is to know it doesn’t exist.
Your answer? Fly. Unpick it
anew, this longest day,
and instead of it,
find the thread of all belonging
to pull you free
anew,
to reunite us
in the world-old pattern
that makes a space for the song
of all our colours.
That spectral boundary!
Push the window.
Find the pattern that binds hearts.
See,
the thread of light is calling:
‘swim!’,
as sure as the flow of water.
Come.
//
Hirddydd
The longest day
Dere’n nes, mae’n stori ni
Come closer, our story lies
tu allan
outside
lle mae’r gân yn geni’r
where the song is giving birth
hirddydd; mae dy welydd di’n
to the longest day; your walls
rhy gyfyng ac mae’r gofid
are too confining, and the messy worry
anniben yn dy ben fel diwedd byd.
inside your head is like the end of the world.
Dere, gwêl, y ffin drwy gil y ffenest,
Come, see the boundary,
through the just-open window,
ffin ddi-dor, ffin fforest,
that never-ending boundary,
boundary of forest,
ffin cul, ffin y cwest
narrow boundary,
the boundary of the lonely
unig,
searching.
Gwêl, mae’n ffin anonest.
See its dishonesty.
Dawn byw yw gweld nad yw’n bod.
The gift of life is to know it doesn’t exist.
Dy ateb? Ehedeg a’i datod
Your answer? Fly. Unpick it
o’r newydd yr hirddydd hwn,
anew, this longest day,
ac yn ei lle cael llinyn hen berthyn y byd
and instead of it,
find the thread of all belonging
i’th dynnu’n rhydd,
to pull you free
o’r newydd,
anew,
a’n hail-uno ni
to reunite us
ym mhatrwm ers talwm – yn deulu –
in the world-old pattern
y patrwm glân sydd â lle i gân ein lliwiau i gyd.
that makes a space for the song
of all our colours.
Rhith yw’r ffin.
That spectral boundary!
Gwthia’r ffenest.
Push the window.
Cei batrwm cwlwm calon.
Find the pattern that binds hearts.
Gwêl
See,
yr edefyn golau’n galw:
the thread of light is calling:
‘nofia!’,
‘swim!’,
mor siŵr â llif y dŵr.
as sure as the flow of water.
Dere.
Come.
Mererid Hopwood won the Chair, Crown and Medal for Prose in Eisteddfod Genedlaethol. She was the Welsh-Language Children’s Laureate in 2018, and in the same year won Tir na n-Og Prize for her novel for children, Miss Prydderch a’r Carped Hud (Gwasg Gomer). She won the poetry award Book of the Year in 2016 with her collection of poetry, Nes Draw (Gwasg Gomer, 2015). She collaborated with musicians including Karl Jenkins, Eric Jones, Gareth Glyn, Christopher Tin and Robat Arwyn and participated in literary festivals in Europe, Asia and South America. She is a Fellow of Cymdeithas Ddysgedig, and the chairman of the Fellowship of Reconciliation and honorary president of the Waldo Williams society. She is a Professor at University of Wales Trinity Saint David
Tim Volleman was born in the Netherlands, where he started dancing at the age of three. At the age of ten he started my pre-education at Fontys (Tilburg) and continued to my bachelor degree program at Codarts, Rotterdam Dance Academy. As a professional dancer, Tim has worked with companies such as Cathy Sharp Dance Ensamble, Internationaal Dans Theater, Nederlands Dans Theater II and de Stilte before Tim joined NDCWales in December 2017. His freelance career includes working with independent artists Jagoda Bobrowska, Heidi Vierthaler and Juanjo Arques.
Ust.
Sut mae geiriau’n symud,
yn tynnu trwy’r ddawns
rhwng tafod a chlust?
Ust.
Sut mae brawddegau’n anniddigo,
yn tapio’u traed,
yn ymollwng eu cymalau
nes i’r corff cyfan ganu,
nes twrio i’r ystyron dyfna’?
Ust.
A sut mae dwyiaith cerdd a dawns
yn plethu a chordeddu awr,
cyn ildio i’r llonyddwch mawr
a’r mudandod mwy?
Ust… Ust… Ust…
//
Shh
How do words move,
leading the dance
from tongue to ear?
Shh.
How do sentences fidget,
tap their feet
and loosen their limbs
till their whole bodies sing,
and they delve into deeper meaning?
Shh
And how do the twinned muse of dance and rhyme
interweave and twine a while,
before they bow to boundless stillness
and silence greater still?
Shh… Shh… Shh…
National Poet of Wales Ifor ap Glyn was born and bred in London to Welsh parents. He is a multi-award-winning poet, presenter, director and producer. A prolific writer, Ifor has twice won the Crown at the National Eisteddfod – one of the festival’s most prestigious prizes. As a television director and presenter, he has won several BAFTA Cymru awards for his work including the Lleisiau’r Rhyfel Mawr and Popeth yn Gymraeg series. Ifor has represented Welsh poetry around the world in both the Welsh and English language, most recently in Cameroon, Lithuania, China, Belgium, Germany, and Ireland. The National Poet of Wales scheme was established in 2005 and is managed by Literature Wales. It is a cultural ambassador role which honours some of the most innovative and highly regarded writers.
Faye Tan was born in Singapore and trained at the Singapore Ballet Academy and School of The Arts before graduating from the Rambert School in London. She then joined Verve, the postgraduate company of the Northern School of Contemporary Dance in Leeds, performing in works by Anton Lachky, Athina Vahla and Efrosini Protopapa. Faye joined Frontier Danceland (Singapore) in 2016, working with choreographers such as Shahar Binyamini, Thomas Lebrun, Edouard Hue, I-Fen Tung, Annie Vigier and Franck Apertet, amongst a varied pool of other makers. The work Faye did in Singapore also included outreach programmes, coordinating Frontier Danceland’s youth dance training programme, teaching, choreographing, digital marketing, videography and photography. In May 2019 Faye worked with Richard Chappell Dance (UK) on Silence Between Waves, performing and working with local residents of various ages and abilities in Devon, before joining NDCWales for Rygbi: Annwyl I mi / Dear to me and subsequently as a company dancer in December 2019.
Please note: This video contains deliberate use of a highly offensive racial slur and images that some viewers might find distressing. These elements are relevant to the context of the artistic work which explores Wales’ relationship with the transatlantic slave trade.
Triptych Part 1
Dear Brecon Town Council
A mouth drying to mud, tightening lungs and eyes on the edge of tears:
That was the reaction of my Black British body
When, on this wind-lash of a lockdown morning, I read
Who you class as a role model for my Welsh, Mixed Race children.
In 2010 (during Black History Month no less) a blue plaque
Was unveiled in Brecon, honouring the life of a Welsh seafarer,
Captain Thomas Phillips. A man who grew rich from selling slaves;
Humans like me, my parents, my brothers. Maybe I should show this slaver
More understanding: in later life, he wrote about his ‘cargo’ with tears,
Suggesting all people are ‘the work of God’s hands.’ Ah, I see.
Those were different times and Philips showed remorse so my body
Should be calmed. Never mind that the racism thriving under our blue skies
Was designed by men like Philips. Tell me, should I also read
The captain’s Voyage Journal to my children
And teach them they are indeed picaninnies with watermelon smiles, children
Whose ancestors have no place in history and have no name except slave
Or nigger and owe all to Wilberforce? I pray that once you have read
This open message, your chest fills with a flaming desire to tear
The plaque from its wall or better yet, add an extra slab of blue slate
And inscribe it with: ‘This Welshman sailed across seas
To enslave humans, growing rich from the sweat of their Black bodies.’
Yours faithfully, Mr M. Thompson
Marvin Thompson was born in Tottenham, London to Jamaican parents and now lives in mountainous south Wales. His debut collection, Road Trip (Peepal Tree Press, 2020), is a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. In June 2020, the Poetry Society selected Road Trip as one of five Black Lives Matter Inspiration books. In addition, Road Trip is one of 40 collections and anthologies recommended for National Poetry Day, 2020.
The Guardian Newspaper described Road Trip as an ‘invigorating journey through complexities of black British family life.’
In 2019, Thompson was one of only eight writers to be awarded a grant by Literature Wales as part of the Platforming Under-Represented Writers Funding Scheme. He was also shortlisted for the 2019 Manchester Poetry Prize.
In 2016, Thompson was selected by Nine Arches Press for the Primers 2 mentoring scheme. In addition, he has an MA in creative writing.
Originally from London, Ed Myhill grew up in Leeds and trained at Hammond Secondary School in Chester, followed by three years at Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance. He joined NDCWales as an apprentice in Autumn 2015 and am now a full time dancer with the Company. Ed has toured extensively across the UK and abroad including works from Alexander Ekman, Roy Assaf and Marcos Morau.
Ble Mae Bilaadi?
When my Khala speaks, a metallic voice on the phone,
I want to respond ‘زين الحمد الله’
but I have swallowed too many dandelion seeds.
I cough up a cardamom.
What’s the word for cardamom in Arabic?
I can’t remember.
Guilty I reply into a tin can:
‘I’m fine aunty’,
and watch the miles of quivering string disappear into crackling darkness.
That night I remember: It’s هیل
The ‘H’ a sweet
exhale.
The string knots inside my chest.
and it feels dangerous,
like I’m holding too much:
Like a world pretending to be a city
and so I run. My feet on Cardiff concrete,
pounding footprints melting myself into the memory of here.
But the string in my chest never ceases its song:
about a land abandoned – her beauty braided into my bones.
‘Ya Bilaadi’ sings the
string.
I always stop
running in the same
place.
She is
there when I look out to sea.
Eternal
as the cedar tree,
She strides
the horizon
towards me.
The string,
rooted in my chest,
handcuffs around her wrists.
I am sorry to see her bound,
to see how my longing leaves
angry memories on her
skin.
But wallahi I hope it never tears
//
Pan glywaf lais metelaidd Khala yn siarad ar y ffôn,
Rwyf eisiau ateb â ‘زين الحمد الله’
ond rwyf wedi llyncu gormod o hadau dant y llew.
Rwy’n poeri cardamom allan.
Beth yw’r gair Arabeg am gardamom?
Ni allaf gofio.
Yn euog, rwy’n ateb i mewn i gan tun:
‘Rwy’n iawn fodryb’,
a gwylio’r milltiroedd o linyn crynedig yn diflannu i dywyllwch clindarddol.
Y noson honno rwy’n cofio: هیل ydyw
Yr ‘H’, anadliad
melys.
Mae’r llinyn yn clymu tu mewn i’m brest.
ac mae’n teimlo’n beryglus,
fel pe bawn yn dal gormod:
Fel byd yn honni bod yn ddinas
Ac felly rwy’n rhedeg. Fy nhraed ar goncrit Caerdydd, fy olion traed yn cerfio cofnod ohonof.
Ond nid yw’r llinyn yn fy mrest byth yn rhoi’r gorau i’w gân:
am dir wedi’i adael – ei phrydferthwch ym mer fy esgyrn.
‘Ya Bilaadi’ canai’r
llinyn.
Rwyf bob amser yn rhoi’r gorau
i redeg yn yr un
fan.
Mae hi
yno pan edrychaf tua’r môr.
Bythol
fel y gedrwydden,
Mae hi’n brasgamu’r
gorwel
tuag ataf.
Mae’r llinyn,
wedi gwreiddio yn fy mrest,
yn gefynnu o amgylch ei harddyrnau.
Mae’n ddrwg gennyf ei gweld yn gaeth,
gweld sut mae fy hiraeth yn gadael
atgofion blin ar ei
chroen.
Ond wallahi rwy’n gobeithio na rwygai fyth
Hanan Issa is a Welsh-Iraqi poet and writer. She has been featured on both ITV Wales and BBC Radio Wales and worked in partnership with National Museum Wales, Artes Mundi, Warwick University, Swansea Fringe, StAnza festival, Wales Arts International and Seren Books. Her work has been published in Banat Collective, Hedgehog Press, Wales Arts Review, Sukoon mag, 4 Journal, Poetry Wales, Parthian, Y Stamp, sister-hood magazine and MuslimGirl.com. Her winning monologue was featured at Bush Theatre’s Hijabi Monologues. She is the co-founder of Wales’ first BAME open mic series ‘Where I’m Coming From’. She was a 2018-2019 Hay Festival Writer at Work. Her debut poetry pamphlet My Body Can House Two Hearts was published by BurningEye Books in October 2019.
Before training at London Contemporary Dance School, Aisha Naamani grew up in South Wales and was an associate of National Dance Company Wales from 2012-2015. Since moving to London, she has performed works by Richard Alston, Wayne Parsons (Rafael Bonachela), James Cousins and Hofesh Shechter amongst others. Aisha has had some of her own choreographic works shown at The Place and was a scholar of the Peggy Hawkins Scholarship Fund. Aisha joined NDCWales as an apprentice dancer in summer 2018, performing works by Matteo Marfoglia, Mario Bermudez-Gil and Caroline Finn before becoming a company dancer the following year.
cyswllt/datgyswllt
Maen nhw’n trio hedfan barcud.
Ei lansio’n uchel, ei ddwylo’n dynn
am ei dwylo bychan. Llinynnau’n tynnu,
y sgwaryn bach yn saethu fyny cyn plymio
nôl i’r traeth. Mae’n gwrthod cydio.
Maen nhw’n ôl y barcud a thrio eto.
Ei bochau’n cochi. Does dim yn tycio.
Ac ar y dŵr mae bwi’n nofio,
hwnnw hefyd ynghlwm wrth rywbeth,
yn tynnu ar raff. Mae’r gwynt
yn chwipio’r dillad ar y lein, y ceblau trydan.
Dwi’n meddwl am rubanau’r hen gaséts
dynnais unwaith o’r riliau a’u taenu’n
wymon tywyll dros y tŷ. Dwi’n
dychmygu’r ceblau’n llacio, dychmygu’r bwi
yn datod ei holl glymau un min nos
a thorri’n rhydd.
Mae’r ferch yn dal i drio, ei thalcen
yn grych o ganolbwyntio, dwylo dad
yn dal ei phenelin. Mae mam yn lansio’r
barcud. Mae’r gwynt yn cydio. Y tri
yn sefyll yno’n gwylio’i hediad llyfn,
y ferch yn llywio, plwc i’r chwith,
addasu’r tensiwn, ac yna’n
gadael fynd.
//
attachment/detachment
They’re trying to fly a kite.
Launching it high, his hands tight
on her small hands. Line’s pull,
the small square shoots up before plummeting
back to the beach. It won’t catch.
They fetch the kite and try again.
Her cheeks get redder. Nothing works.
On the water, a buoy swims,
it is also tied to something,
is pulling on a rope. The wind
whips the clothes on the line, the electric cables.
I think of the ribbons of the old cassettes
that I pulled one time from their reels and spread them
like dark seaweed around the house. I
imagine the cables loosening, imagine the buoy
untying all its knots one evening
and breaking free.
The girl is still trying, her forehead
in a crease of concentration, dad’s hands
holding her elbow. Mam launches
the kite. The wind catches it. The three
stand there watching its smooth flight,
the girl steering, pluck to the left,
adjusting the tension, and then
letting go.
Grug Muse is a poet, editor and researcher. She is one of the founders and editor of Y Stamp magazine and published her first volume, Ar Ddisberod, with Barddas in 2017. She is a resident of Ulysses Shelter 2020, and is the holder of the Wales Literature 2020 Writers’ Bursaries. Her work has been published in publications including O’r Pedwar Gwynt, Barddas, Poetry Wales, Panorama: the journal of intelligent travel and others. A Writer at Work at Hay Festival 2018-19, she won the chair at the Urdd National Eisteddfod in 2013, and the chair of the Inter-college Eisteddfod in 2019. She is currently working on a doctoral project in Swansea University, sponsored by the AHRC Center for Doctoral Research in Celtic Studies.
Shakeera Ahmun is a freelance dance artist and improv enthusiast based in Cardiff. She is inspired by music and the nuances of melody and rhythm, that drives her physicality and continuously sculpts her movement language. She has also recently experienced working with physical theatre, which has deeply informed her artistic practice.
The Branches of Me
Another black life gone
As the world watched on
From the screens of their camera phone
A black man lay face down on the concrete all alone.
He screamed I can’t breathe
As time began to freeze
His neck under a knee
Squeezing away all his potential possibilities and future opportunities
But what does that moment mean for me,
I mean look at me,
Like really LOOK at me
What do you see?
Do you see my complexion?
My ethnicity?
Do you see the generations of my family tree
Who have faced adversity and slavery
And people chanting the word monkey.
Like crisp brown leaves blowing in an autumn breeze
Their narrative, Their culture written in the ripples of the seven sea’s.
Do you see the history that has come before me
From the salty sands of Jamaica all the way to rainy Wales
My story of colour is made from the finer details.
Its in the traditional Jamaican dish of ackee and salt fish
Its in the lush green landscape of wales
Where if all else fails, a cwtch prevails.
My complexion may be the first thing you see but it doesn’t define me.
It’s part of the intertwined branches of my family tree
At times I feel insane, walking around with all this pain
Having to explain my heritage over and over again
See, black has different shades to it
Black has different layers to it
Black has a unique history behind it
And Black is part of my inner conflict
But I will not quit, or submit
Not until the world commits
To seeing the beauty black has in it.
The beauty that we bring to it.
Connor Allen
//
Canghennau Ohonof
(The Branches of Me)
Enaid du arall wedi mynd
wrth i’r byd wylio hyn
drwy ffonau clyfar, pob un a’i sgrîn,
dyn du’n gorwedd wyneb yn wyneb
â’r concrit ar ei ben ei hun.
Plediodd “I can’t breathe”
pan rewodd amser a’i lif,
ei wddw o dan ben-glin
a wasgai holl obeithion dyn,
yr holl bosibiliadau a dyfodol o ddyheadau
ond beth yw ystyr y foment honno i fi?
Achos wir, edrychwch arna i,
go iawn, EDRYCHWCH arna i’n iawn,
beth welwch chi?
A welwch chi fy ngwedd?
Fy ethnigrwydd?
A welwch chi yn fy nghoeden deuluol bob un cenhedlaeth
a wynebodd galedwaith a chaethwasiaeth
a’r gair mwnci yn rhan o’r arfogaeth.
Fel dail crin coch a gwynt yr hydref yn eu chwythu’n groch.
Eu stori, eu diwylliant wedi’u sgythru’r graith
yng nghrychau’r moroedd maith.
A welwch chi yr hanes a ddaeth o’m blaen i?
O draethau hallt Jamaica yr holl ffordd i Gymru’r glaw
mae fy stori o liw wedi ei chreu o fanylion mân, gyda llaw.
Mae yn y bwyd traddodiadol o Jamaica, chi’n dallt, yn yr ackee a physgod hallt,
yn nhiroedd gwyrddion Cymru, mae’r stori yno i’w chael
ac yn ddi-ffael, bydd wastad cwtsh os eith hi’n wael.
Efallai mai fy ngwedd a welwch gynta ond nid y wedd a’m diffinia.
Mae’n rhan o fy nghoeden deuluol a phlethiad ei changhenna’,
weithia’ dwi’n teimlo fel taswn i’n mynd o fy ngho’,
yn gorfod esbonio fy nhreftadaeth dro ar ôl tro.
Ti’n gweld, mae `na sawl arlliw i ddu,
mae `na haenau gwahanol i ddu,
mae `na hanes unigryw i ddu
ac mae du yn fy ngwrthdaro mewnol i,
ond wna i ddim rhoi’r gorau, nid ildiaf innau,
tan y daw’r byd i’n gwerthfawrogi ninnau
a gweld y prydferthwch sydd o fewn i ddu,
y prydferthwch a ddaw drwyddon ni.
Connor Allen (cyfieithiad Cymraeg Aneirin Karadog)
Since graduating from Trinity Saint David as an Actor, Connor Allen has worked with companies such as The Torch Theatre, Sherman Theatre, Tin Shed Theatre and National Theatre Wales. He is a member of National Youth Theatre of Great Britain and was also the winner of Triforces Cardiff MonologueSlam, representing Wales at the London winner’s edition. As a writer he has written for Dirty Protest, Sherman and BBC Wales. He’s had an ACW funded debut play and a Literature Wales commission. He’s also part of the BBC Wales Welsh Voices 19/20 and The Welsh Royal Court Writers Group.
Jodi Ann Nicholson is a dance artist based in South Wales. Since training at Laban and studying Fine Art at Cardiff School of Art and Design her creative work interrogates the construction of the self and identity. Exploring these ideas through an autobiographical narrative as an adoptee. Movement, embroidery and textile installations give structure to her ongoing interrogation of the question: what makes up our identity?
More recent work has led Jodi into deeper explorations between text/language and dance, linking this work into her ongoing enquiries as an artist. Jodi has become fascinated with the rhythmical structures in the two disciplines, exploring the relationship between the two.
O’r Lludw
Mae’n hawdd meddwl am yn ôl;
ail-wawrio’r dydd o falurion doe,
ail-droedio’r eiliadau ar hyd amlinell bell,
gan bwyllo, i gael yn ôl y golau hen a aeth
a chael hyd i eiliadau a fachludodd
yn wyll.
Ond o frigau mân fe ddaw `na dân
a’n dawns yw’r hyn a gyneuwn
yn ein nawr â’r ennyd yn danbaid,
lle gall fflam droi’n alarch!
Y nawr lle mae’r corff yn glorian,
y nawr lle nad yw disgyrchiant
yn ddim ond aelod o’r gynulleidfa.
Nawr ydym ni a ni yw’r hyn
y mae’r meddwl yn ei freuddwydio,
yn ein gweld yn hedfan yn yr unfan
mewn gwynfyd, a’r ennyd o dan rew.
Ydy, mae’n hawdd meddwl am yn ôl,
ond ymlaen o hyd y mae lôn a’i haul…
//
From The Ashes
We can all ponder in reverse,
re-dawning the day from yesterday’s shatterings,
re-treading the seconds along a long outline,
contemplating, trying to retrieve the light that wedi went
and rediscovering seconds that had set with the sun,
a void.
But from kindling comes a fire
and our dance is what we light
in our now, the moment a feu d’artifice
where a flame can become a swan!
The now where the body is in the balance,
the now where gravity is merely
a member of the audience,
we are now; we are what our minds dream,
seeing ourselves flying, hovering
in bliss, frozen in the moment.
Yes, we can all ponder in reverse,
but ahead, always, is a sunny path…
Aneirin Karadog won the Chair in the National Eisteddfod in Monmouthshire and District National Eisteddfod in 2016 with a sequence of poems on the theme ‘Boundaries’. He is a member of Y Deheubarth team in the annual Ymryson and has won several awards for his strict meter poetry: the Emyr Feddyg Scholarship at the National Eisteddfod in Newport, the Urdd Chair in 2005 and the Wales Book of the Year poetry category in 2013 with his first volume of poetry O Annwn i Geltia (Cyhoeddiadau Barddas) and again with his second book Bylchau (Barddas Publications, 2016). He co-presents and co-produces a Welsh poetry podcast with Eurig Salisbury called Clera, with new chapters monthly since October 2016. In 2019 he published another book of poems, Llafargan (Barddas Publications). Aneirin was the Welsh-Language Children’s Laureate for 2013-2015.
Joe Powell-Main is twenty-two years old and is from Mid-Wales. Joe was a junior associate with the Royal Ballet School for three years and attended Saturday classes weekly in Birmingham. Whilst on the Junior associate programme, Joe performed with Birmingham Royal Ballet in The Nutcracker and Sylvia (UK tour). Joe also worked with Elmhurst Ballet School for one year, through the pre-vocational programme. Joe successfully auditioned for the Royal Ballet School, Lower School at White Lodge in Richmond and trained there for four years. Joe stopped dancing for three years due to injury and being involved in a serious car accident, which led him to acquiring his disability which affects his left leg and foot. Joe rediscovered his love for dance and began wheelchair ballroom and Latin dance, he is currently the UK National Para Dance Champion in Solo and combi freestyle. Joe has also recently graduated with a First-Class Honours degree in Dance and Performance through the Arden School of theatre in Manchester. Joe began an apprenticeship with Ballet Cymru through the pre-professional programme last September. Joe was featured on S4C Christmas adverts with dancers from Ballet Cymru and across Wales. Joe joined Ballet Cymru this year as a company dancer and is looking forward to working with the company on the new production of Giselle in 2021.
Swyn-gân / Summoning
Here,
Pwll-y-Wrach, the witches’ cauldron
soup of iaith, words held and spoken.
Rhythm pulled by moon and tongue
hear its pitch from swell and belch
wrack and kelp of vowels sung
Look now to this murmuring trickster
pre-linguistic meaning-maker
Pull and pwll, push through bwlch
pull and pwll, push . . .
Here the baptised words are brining
consonants reverberating
the tide’s a swirl of incantation
sacred knowing being written
under chin of rock, the sea’s graffiti
yr iaith gaeth ar y traeth
on shale of shore, the healing lip.
//
Swyn-gân / Y Galw
Fan hyn,
Pwll y wrach, pair y widdon
geiriau’n gawl, yn llafar gyson.
Rhyddm yn dynfa rhwng tafod a lloer
clyw, o’i ymchwydd, a’i fytheirio,
forwiail a gwymon llafariaid yn gân
Gwyliwch rhag murmur y twyllwr maith
gwneuthurwr ystyr cyn bod iaith
Yn tynnu, yn rhygnu, yn gwthio drwy’r bwlch
yn tynnu, yn rhygnu, yn gwthio…
Fan hyn, daw’r geiriau o’u bedydd heli
a’u cytseiniaid yn corddi,
a’r llanw’n chwyrlïo’i swynganeuon
yn sanctaidd hengall, o’u naddu’n gyson
dan ên y graig, graffiti’r môr,
yr iaith gaeth ar y traeth,
cerigos min y môr, a hwnnw’n iachau
clare e. potter is a bilingual poet and performer with an MA in Afro-Caribbean Literature from Mississippi. She lived in New Orleans for a decade and received Arts Council funding to respond to the trauma of Hurricane Katrina alongside a jazz quintet. clare has translated poems by the National Poet of Wales, Ifor ap Glyn, and collaborates with artists to make poetry installations in public spaces. She won the John Trip Award for Spoken Poetry in 2005 and was on BBC4’s Listening Project with her father piecing together the source of emotion in poetry. In 2018, clare was the Velvet Coalmine Festival’s poet-in-residence, based in the Miners Institute where she collected people’s stories of this significant cultural and political building.
Jo Shapland’s work is dance, whether through the flow of change in materials and objects, film imagery or the body moving through space. Fundamentally concerned with relating and responding to nature and a desire to witness through the body, her site-specific projects range from ruined farm-buildings to traditional proscenium theatres, from natural wilderness to urban architectural interiors. Originally trained as a Contemporary Dancer, she now practices Asian martial/meditation arts, aerial circus and improvisation, and continues to explore inner dance and its effect on presence and creativity. This January Jo performed ‘Told by the Wind’; (co-created with the Llanarth Group) at ITFOK, India. Other highlights of her career include winning a Creative Wales Major Award with ‘Being in Place’, and celebrating the expansion of Mostyn, Llandudno, with ‘[in]scape’.
