This digital publication— satellising— holds together contexts around Satelliser: a dance for the gallery by J N Harrington & coworkers (2016/21). satellising is the movement through the plurality of the voices and experiences drawn together to share multi-partial but non-exhaustive perspectives of researching, performing, maintaining, stewarding, rehearsing, encountering and participating in Satelliser.
The publication features texts, images, coding, a playlist and more with audio versions of each written contribution recorded by the author(s) and a search tab at the bottom of each page to aid navigation.
Whilst some satellsing contributions explore the work solely as encountered in performance, as with Thomas Morgan Evans’ On Platforms, Candy Brown’s The getting out of it and Farrell Cox’s Me, myself and everything else I am, satellising, other offerings pick up on similar themes from the insides of rehearsal and performance. elena rose light explores desire and balance in The right amount of distance. Bonni Bogya recounts discomfort, challenges and her processes of learning to navigate new experiences in I’ve never done this before. Jay Yule’s Un-whole, fluid, boring, familial, queer and kind reflects a process of integrating the modalities of conversation used in the project and what ripples of questioning and recognition might mean to a wider field of relations. Katie Vickers’ text (be)coming entangled together charts the author’s personal research into the relational ecologies of performance practice, journeying via Satelliser and then beyond into a wider artistic sphere and life.
Some contributions take on the format of conversation– which runs through the project –to deepen intimate dialogue in the digital space. Ngozi “N/A” Oparah and J N Harrington’s Ingress and offering spans consideration of different containers for practice and creating spaces within art practice which are for yourself and others. Madalena Miles’ interview with Harrington reaches into some of the early thinking that informed the project and in The many layers of dialogue coworkers Iris Yi Po Chan, Emilyn Claid and Mia Quimpo Gourlay are in conversation about coming into process with Satelliser across generations and with differing orientations to dance practice. A Durational Conversation was recorded by the Satelliser coworkers in November 2020 over the course of a day when the live gallery presentation was due to take place. It is a live, unrehearsed and long-form version of the conversation format which sees the coworkers practice navigating the timeframe of the working day and the shifts in topics and energy.
Shivaangee Agrawal and Katye Coe’s correspondence Speaking Across Lanes finds resonance between the activity and space of the swimming pool and the spaces of Satelliser, posing reflection on organising space and experience both metaphorically and as parallel pursuits. Else Tunemyr’s text Satelliser as crafting foregrounds the political potential of embodied practices as transgressive. She charts the motor of handcrafting activities during online rehearsals and in performance, a theme which also shapes the first episode of podcast Satelliser Conversations: On crafting, choreography and lineage with Rosemary Lee and Amaara Raheem. Satelliser Conversations podcast is a series of conversations with coworkers and invited guests developing some of the themes of the project in a similar way to the online discursive rehearsal period of 2020 when coworkers met in small groups online, mostly not knowing each other and speaking from different spaces and orientations.
Further Satelliser Conversations will be released from February 2022 and include conversations hosted by Ilse Ghekière On growing feminisms with coworkers Christine Bramwell and Jay Yule plus three younger women Kalliyah Kirlew, Maíre Morrison and Eve Walker; On spiralling with J N Harrington, Charles Koroneho and Nicole Zizzi explores space and language through attitudes to thinking and place. A dialogue between JJ Chan, June Lam and elena rose light moves through transition as lens, and future episodes will host discussion of access and labour practices and artist-leadership practices.
Information about the development of the Satelliser project as a whole can be found throughout the publication with insights and contextual reflections around how it sits within Harrington’s practice in her essays. Contact makes each other possible focuses on her practice across three works: UNFRIENDING, Screensaver Series and Satelliser: a dance for the gallery. Proxies 4 love (coming soon!) explores building rhythmic encounters for meaningful exchange in the context of estrangement and the pandemic, and Audacity! Tenacity! (coming soon!) reflects on class, permission, expectation, carrying on and more. A final dedicated page hosts documentation from Satelliser: a dance for the gallery in each performance context.
Full list of contributions:
A Durational Conversation by Satelliser coworkers 2020: Temitope Ajose-Cutting, Shivaangee Agrawal, Karen Callaghan, Iris Yi Po Chan, Katye Coe, J N Harrington, Amrita Hepi, Rosemary Lee, elena rose light, Else Tunemyr, Jay Yule & Katie Vickers
A Glossary of Movement by Amrita Hepi
(be)coming entangled together by Katie Vickers
Contact makes each other possible by J N Harrington
Ingress and offering by Ngozi “N/A” Oparah and J N Harrington
Internationalism from Below: Between Dog and Wolf by Meryl Murman with Victoria Horshkova, Danyil Pinko and Alina Sugoniako
Interview with J N Harrington (Janine Harrington with Madalena Miles)
I’ve never done this before by Bonni Bogya
Me, myself and everything else I am, satellising by Farrell Cox
On platforms by Dr. Thomas Morgan Evans
Satelliser as crafting by Else Tunemyr
Satelliser playlist by Amrita Hepi
She Does Indeed Speak: A String of Things To Scratch the Surface by Amanda Thompson
Speaking Across Lanes by Shivaangee Agrawal and Katye Coe
Stroking a cat backwards by Naoto Hieda & J N Harrington
The getting out of it by Candy Brown
The many layers of dialogue by Iris Yi Po Chan, Emilyn Claid and Mia Quimpo Gourlay with Madalena Miles
The right amount of distance by elena rose light
Un-whole, fluid, boring, familial, queer and kind by Jay Yule
+More to come
The Satelliser project is led by artist J N Harrington.
Harrington’s practice includes dance & choreography, public space projects, costume, space design, teaching, mentoring, postcards and prints. Her works are mainly for gallery and non-stage spaces where audiences and visitors can usually move around, leave and return according to their interests.
The time and rhythm of encounters is at the centre of her work which is informed by studies in embodied cognition, attention and perception, with a particular interest in structures of neurodivergent information processing, social, relational and sensory experience.
Harrington’s practice is underpinned by research focused on developing interactive and participative movement experiences. The work is organised around scores, game structures and spaces for learning , exchange, play. She is interested in creating visual cultures across media and integrating aesthetics of access and the labour conditions involved in producing, rehearsing, maintaining, performing and stewarding performance. She considers her practice as a way to continue learning about all of the above.
Image: Christa Holka
Recent works include:
-storage for future sunsets (2021, commissioned by Scottish Dance Theatre & V&A Dundee)
-good luck, dinosaur (2020, Fest en Fest) with collaborating artists Tuan Ly, Elisa Vassena, Katye Coe, Katja Nyqvist, Rachel & Finn
-never closer to midnight (2019, commissioned by Reading University)
-Screensaver Series (2018, Dance Umbrella, Wellcome Collection 2019, Inkonst Malmö 2020 ) with sound artist Jamie Forth and collaborating dancers Vanessa Abreu, Rosalie Bell, Iris Yi Po Chan, Rosamond Martin, Stephanie McMann, Stella Papi, Louise Tanoto and Elisa Vassena.
As a collaborating performer/interpreter and rehearsal director Janine has worked within presentation contexts including Tate Modern, Palais de Tokyo, Fondation Beyeler, Venice Biennale, Het Stedelijk, Kiasma, Villa Empain, Sadler’s Wells, Dance Umbrella and V&A Museums.
In 2020 Harrington was recipient of the Bonnie Bird New Choreography Award. In 2019 she was Align associate artist with South East Dance and Re-Search artist with Dance Umbrella/ Middlesex ResCen Network 2018. She was twice recipient of the DanceWEB scholarship to ImPulsTanz Vienna (2013/16) and received a scholarship to Banff Centre Canada to work with Liz Lerman and Ruth Little. She is a board member of Chisenhale Dance Space in London and was involved with Engagement Arts Belgium 2017/18. She works to support other artists with access through grant-writing, and mentors around neurodiversity in dance. Harrington’s prints and postcards are available through her online shop and at BALTIC CCA shop.
For working within, alongside and otherwise supporting the Satelliser project J N Harrington wishes to thank all the Satelliser Coworkers 2020-22 who have brought the project into it’s recent performance contexts and the collaborating artists who developed the project in 2014-2016, Asad Raza and the Villa Empain team, Bosse& Baum, Cate Coyne, Capuccine Perrot, Spontaneous Combustion Festival, Copeland Gallery, Sue Davies, Lauren Wright, the current and recent SDS CONTINUOUS Network teams, Katie Hickman, Zarina Rossheart, the invited contributors and audience members who elected to offer their words to the publication, the BSL interpreters Caroline Ryan and Gemma Lahone who joined conversations over the live shows, the artists whose works we worked in relation to: Ad Minoliti, Canvas 4 Equality and the Turner Open artists, our technicians and venue staff at BALTIC CCA and Turner Contemporary, the curators, programmers and gallery assistants and FOH teams who helped us to welcome visitors, John Philip Sage, Genevieve Reeves, Madeline Tanoto for bias-binding help on the costumes and finally, the chickens in a Kent farm yard who first inspired the friendly-surveillance operation of the Satelliser dance.
Satellising online publication design, build and editing: J N Harrington
Satellising production: Zarina Rossheart
Satellising graphic design: John Philip Sage
Satellising and Satelliser Conversations transcription: Ursula McCabe
Satelliser Conversations recording & editing: Rohanne Udall
Satelliser Conversations music composed by Jamie Forth
Satelliser Conversations is supported by the Bonnie Bird Choreography Fund.
Satelliser: a dance for the gallery was originally supported by Siobhan Davies Dance Artist-Curator mentorship programme, Fondation Boghossian Residency programme, Bosse & Baum, Copeland Gallery/ Spont. Fest
This project was supported using public funding from the National Lottery through Arts Council England, and John Ellerman Foundation through the CONTINUOUS Network. CONTINUOUS is a partnership project from Siobhan Davies Studios and BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, that takes experimental dance to galleries across the UK. Visit continuousdance.com to find out more.
Satelliser: a dance for the gallery production for CONTINUOUS Network: Lauren Wright (2018-2021) Sally Rose (2019-20), Lucy Monkman (2021), Fraser Buchanan (2021), Sophie Brassard & Kat Bridge (2021-22)
CONTINUOUS Network marketing & Communications: Jonny Goode (2019-21), Lucia Fortune-Ely (2021-22)
