On The Table
Abigail Benham-Bannon, Jonathan Sinatra, Thomas Woodman and Ebony Muller

On The Table is a weekly event for artistic exchange and collaboration. Dancers of any training background, as well as people curious about movement though new to dance, are welcome.
Each week’s session is hosted by a different artist or collective who are invited to put something ‘on the table’ for everyone to examine together. The program features artists working with different styles of dance, approaches to choreography, methods of bodily practice and relationships to movement. On The Table particularly aims to highlight artists who work with dance in combination with other fields (for example gaming, science, therapy and visual art). Anyone from these intersecting fields are encouraged to come along!
Sessions range from workshops and in-progress performance showings to open artistic explorations. Artists might share choreographic material, a practice, an idea, a framework, a question, a score, a reading or any manner of provocation. Everyone is invited to take part in the tasks at hand. Participation can be as little or as much as desired and you are free to come and just watch.
On The Table is free to attend and everyone is welcome whether you’re a professional dancer or you’ve never danced before. Please wear comfortable clothing that you can move in and bring a water bottle.
Monday 9 August, 6.30pm — Abigail Benham-Bannon
In this session, participants are invited to enter into Abi’s current artistic explorations. With an education in Human Geography and Dance, her practice explores embodiments of socio-ecological concepts (such as sustainable development, adaptability and resilience). She is currently researching how embodied perspectives might help us to understand/express/investigate/develop/rewrite these concepts.
The session will be loosely structured and collectively shaped by the group, with improvised movement tasks and theoretical discussions being enriched by a culture of play.
Monday 16 August, 6.30pm — Jonathan Sinatra
Somewhere between an in-process showing and a rehearsal, for this session, Jonathan will share video and live movement material from his 500-day dance-video project. You will be invited to engage with his choreographic material and offer suggestions, as he works towards the final project outcome of a durational performance.
This project began during 2020’s lockdowns when Jonathan developed a daily practice of recording himself dancing across different sites which he published as a journal on Instagram. He is now examining how to bring material developed outside into an indoor performance setting and how his largely improvised material may be revisited and scored for future repetition.
Monday 23 August, 6.30pm — Thomas Woodman
Join us for a led exploration of relationships between reading and moving. This session will be led by dancer/choreographer Thomas, whose current interests, amongst other things, are multiplicity, the function of imagination and exchanges between humans and non-humans.
Thomas will share snippets from various texts/authors, as well as some ideas about how to read and move at the same time. The session will end with a group conversation. If you can, please bring something to read from that you can also move with, i.e. a phone or e-reader rather than a laptop.
Monday 30 August, 6.30pm — Ebony Muller
Ebony (one of On The Table’s co-curators) will share their movement/dance improvisation practice, CARE DANCE — a research practice born from Ebony’s PhD enquiring into notions surrounding ‘care’ and its ethics.
In this session, you will engage in a series of simple physical tasks including improvised moving, sounding and stillness. Ebony will facilitate an environment that asks for judgements and expectations to be set aside, so we can explore conditions of ‘care’ that centre one’s present experiences and instincts. Together, we will consider our present changing state(s) to initiate improvisation in-relation to ourselves and others.