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.
Her Chrysalis, Limen and upcoming Observatree smudge the border between sculpture and performance.
Recent filmdances include Soluna, Corvid, Swyn-gân/Summoning, and her hand-drawn animation, Spectra.
Since her [in]scape filmdance (2005) and choreographing Dance for Neanderthal (Wales Milennium Centre, 2010) she has been working deeply with movement quality drawings.
These become scores for and from dance, music and spirit of place/genius loci.
She facilitates embodied creativity with The Art of Walking Slowly and The Being in Place creative tool/workshops. These workshops share Jo Shapland’s methods for locating and distilling the crux of an individual’s originality through physical conversations with environment, materials and other humans.
Jo facilitates ways to sensitise to your own body and your surroundings at a deeper level, preparing, awakening and attuning both individual and ensemble.
Participants gain new insights into unlocking their innate creativity and releasing their embodied imagination, providing them with new tools and approaches to making work in a variety of forms and media.
She also facilitates Towards Making the Body All Eyes workshops that incorporate her 20 years plus asian martial/meditation arts psychophysical performer training with (and demonstrating for) director/actor/academic Phillip Zarrilli.
