Alice Ortona Coles

Dancing | Designing | Choreographing

About Alice

Alice is an Anglo-Italian choreographer and costume maker. She uses fantastical myths and stories to explore the everyday experiences of being human. She makes dance which is visually striking and in which costume and textile are an integral part.

Alice started started dancing at home: she copied youtube videos of dances from Strictly Come Dancing and became an expert jiver. She went on to study at London Contemporary Dance School, the California Institute of the Arts and Iwanson International Contemporary Dance School. She has performed for choreographers such as Marie Chouinard, Xavier Le Roy and Marco D'Agostin at festivals and theatres such as Venice Dance Biennale, The Place and Tanzwerkstatt Munich.

After multiple knee operations she decided to focus on choreography and costume making.

In collaboration with Synne Lundesgaard (ALICE+SYNNE) she has made Bodies of Water and Still Changes. She has also just finished the creation of a solo work, Too Much, Too Many, All the Time.

In 2022, she worked as a movement director and producer for Matt McDermott's dance film Burning Gold. Most recently she has started a collaboration with Synne Lundesgaard and photographer/filmmaker Camilla Greenwell.

In the past couple of years she has had residencies at Tanztendenz in Munich, Impulstanz in Vienna and Fieldworks in London. She recently spent a period shadowing the American choreographer Spenser Theberge, exploring how process affects performance.

As a costume maker and designer she has worked for The Place Theatre, and as a freelancer for pieces by Elliot Minogue-Stone and Tala Lee Turton Productions. She makes and designs the costumes and set for her own work.

Image Daniel Dennison

CHOREOGRAPHY AND DESIGN

Image Anouk Jouanne

Bodies of Water is a site specific performance created in 2021. Performed on the bank of the River Thames for the Totally Thames Festival 2021, the dancers merged and emerged from their natural environment. They performed in huge colourful skirts binding themselves both to water and land through the movement of the body and the fabric. The piece is both literally and metaphorically returning to the flow.

The dancers used their skirts in different ways. They were the billowing sails of boats, magnificent queenly trains, mermaids' tails, whips and wings. As the skirts transform so do the women; at times they are delicate, ethereal beings, then they become washerwomen, fighters, spinners and selkies.

Choreography and Design: Alice Ortona Coles and Synne Lundesggard

Performers: Anna Dunlop, Saskia Faye Larcombe, Theia Maldoom, Charlotte Theodorsen, Julie Maria Dahl. Alejandra Gissler, Alexandra Paal

Outside eye: Carolyn Deby, Tasha Hess-Neustadt

Bodies of Water

Images Milo Robinson

Images Anouk Jouanne

Still Changes

Still Changes is a dance of change and transformation, inspired by Ovid’s Metamorphoses.

The performers explore what it means to change: through images, costume, design and movement. With a strong focus on movement and fantastical design the piece creates a world which is both mystical and playful.

The dancers are dressed in garments reminiscent of mythical birds, shifting clouds and worlds only imagined. Through these ever-changing bodies coming together in swirling movement, the audience is invited to experience the continual creation of new landscapes. Watch as these creatures morph together to form new and fantastical beings: at times human, at times animal. They are in endless cycles of death, re-birth, shedding and shape-shifting.

Still Changes was originally a duet, performed in 2022 at Ugly Duck, London. In 2023 it was developed into a five-dancer performance and premiered at The Place Theatre May 2023. It was originally comissioned by Vertical Terrain.

Choreography and Design

Alice Ortona Coles

Synne Lundesgaard

Performers

Ben Todd-Jones

Yu-Chien Cheng

Miriam Levy

Paulina Porwollik

Evie Webzell

Original Cast

Theia Maldoom

Synne Lundesgaard

Music

Jake Burgess

With support from

Anouk Jouanne

Isis Clunie

Burning Gold

Burning Gold a Short Film by Matt McDermott

Burning Gold is an enigmatic dance film which addresses themes of climate change, isolation, representations of identity and the yearning for human connection. Intriguing figures in stylised geometric costumes perform a dance in a rural setting.

Recent extreme global events such as the pandemic, climate disasters have thrown up many questions around what it is to be human. Never before has a feeling of community and togetherness been more needed. Perhaps having freedoms taken away from us makes us realise what is most important in our lives.

DIRECTOR / PRODUCER: Matt McDermott

ASSISTANT PRODUCER: Alice Ortona Coles

CHOREOGRAPHY: Alice + Synne

DANCERS: Yuma Sylla / Théïa Maldoom / Anouk Jouanne D.O.P: Nicholas Bennett RUNNER / CAMERA ASSISTANT: Lara Bennett

DRONE PILOT: Will Glover @ Fleye RUNNER / PHOTOGRAPHER: Joe Gollifer COSTUME DESIGNER / ART DIRECTOR: Louise Wilkinson STYLIST / COSTUME MAKER: Jessica Evans MUSIC SUPERVISOR: Lynden Campbell COMPOSER: Veera Lummi ‘TIDE WITHIN' performed by Modulus Quartet POEM: ‘How Do We Feel’ written and performed by Love Ssega EDITOR: Claire McGonigal @ Final Cut COLOURIST: Marty McMullan @ Freefolk SOUND DESIGN & MIX: Will Morton @ Bubble

Images Joe Gollifer

Too Much, Too Many, All the Time is the working title of a new solo dance. Initial research at a residency at Tanztendenz in Munich was inspired by classical figurative painting, however it soon became an exploration of the artist's everyday feelings identified through the images she saw in research at museums.

The piece was then developed during the Atlas Programme at Impulstanz 2023, mentored by Angelique Wilkie and Melanie Demers. It will be performed at The Place in London in 2024.

A subtly autobiographical dance, which explores the performer's everyday, personal life (both imaginary and her lived reality).

Too Much, Too Many, All the Time

She moves between descriptions of her own fantastical, imagined performances and her everyday reality.

It is an exploration of her being human: a journey through anger and loneliness to joy and liberation. Using dance, song and spoken word, the performer invites the audience into her world.

CHOREOGRAPHY, DESIGN & PERFORMANCE

Alice Ortona Coles

MUSIC

Jake Burgess

LIGHTING DESIGN

Ed Saunders

DRAMATURGY

Cecilia MacFarlane