About The Picnic

Biographies

Eva Recacha

Eva Recacha is an independent female director and choreographer who lives and works in London. Her choreographic work explores power dynamics, gender, and the materiality of the body.

Eva uses movement and text in her work, and the relationship between these two layers, both hierarchically and aesthetically, is one of the key aspects of her work. More recently, she has begun investigating the relationship between physical architecture and movement generated architecture, focusing on the relationship between scenography, design and choreography, and exploring notions of space and materiality through the interaction of live and inanimate elements on stage.

From working in very small universes of duets and trios, – where the relationship between the performers has been scrutinised and tested to its limits through a focus on human behaviour, absurdity and futility -, she has recently started working on a larger scale, shifting her interest to group and collective movement. The Picnic is her first work of this kind, focusing on ideas of movement cooperation, togetherness and care.

Alberto Ruiz Soler

Alberto Ruiz Soler is a Sound Artist and Composer. Their work ranges from compositions for contemporary dance and animation to solo installations and new experimental music. Their practice investigates how sound affects our perception of a given reality and the ways that people categorise their sonic environment. Alberto is also interested in how listening spaces are constructed and the possible uses of these spaces. Alberto’s work regularly interrogates the listener’s comfort zone inviting the audience into a journey to explore and enjoy.

Kate Lane

Kate Lane is an artist, scenographer and academic. She works at the intersection between performance art, theatre & dance, working across live and lens-based performance platforms. Her practice explores scenography as a visual dramaturgy focusing on the body and costume. She is Head of Department (Producing) and Reader in Scenography at The Royal Central School of Speech & Drama and is joint artistic director of performance collective ceschi + lane. The Picnic is her second collaboration with Eva Recacha.

Jackie Shemesh

Jackie Shemesh is a Lighting Designer. Works in dance include: Run Mary Run and 8 MIN at Sadler’s Wells | Goat (Knight of Illumination Award nomination) Cerberus and Death Trapfor Rambert Dance. Juliet and Romeo, Paradise Lost and Ruination for Lost Dog Dance. The Murmuring and Young Men for Ballet Boyz. Beheld, Hot Mess and Let’s Talk About Dis for Candoco. Girl A for Scottish Dance Theatre. Lunatic for National Dance Company of Wales.

Scilla Rajalin

Scilla Rajalin is a dance artist working across fields of movement, physical theatre, film and creative writing: producing dynamic, often humorous work around notions of nonsense, un-reliable realities and systematic cycles of routines and patterns. They graduated from London Contemporary Dance School before continuing to freelance as a choreographer, dancer, movement director, dramaturg and rehearsal director between London and Stockholm. They recently launched the project-based company RAJ, collaborating with local sound artists and visual artists, delving into themes of sexuality, opposition and non-linear perceptions of time.

Charlotte Mclean

Charlotte Mclean’s artistic ethos is rooted in the attempt at anti-capitalistic cyclical living, radical listening and imagination. Her choreographic practice is rooted in tradition having competed in Scottish Highland Dance throughout her childhood. Charlotte’s choreographic works, ‘And’ and ‘Futuristic Folktales’ have been commissioned by The Place London and Tojo Theatre Bern and have been performed at Tramway Glasgow, Black Box Teater Oslo, as well as being part of the Made In Scotland Showcase at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, amongst others. She also co-founded two movement bands: ‘badbodychaoscode’ and ‘Die Berner Band’. The bands have performed at the V&A London, Alte Münze Berlin and Pete the Monkey Festival Normandy to name a few.

Alka Nauman

Alka Nauman is a queer dance artist and author of texts working across choreography, visual art, and theatre. She graduated from the London Contemporary Dance School and the Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Warsaw. Between 2019 and 2020, she was part of the PEER Programme at Studio Wayne McGregor in London. In her artistic practice, Nauman investigates the bodily use of absurdity, excess, and the everyday grotesque as strategies in the fight against the patriarchal, fascist, heteromatrix. She is also interested in the political and speculative potential of working with lesbian and anti-fascist archives using choreographic and somatic tools. Alka Nauman’s works have been shown at festivals like the Outburst Queer Arts Festival (UK), Festival Transform (FR), and the Warsaw Autumn International Festival of Contemporary Music (PL).

London Contemporary Dance School participants

The group of participants performing in the work are students at London Contemporary Dance School.

Artistic Team & Credits

Direction & Choreography Eva Recacha
Performance and Devising Alka Nauman, Charlotte Mclean, Scilla Rajalin & London Contemporary Dance School Students Alma Kremnitzer, Briseida Elorza Ordoñez, Eduarda Faccio Barone, Elina Wates, Jack Baron, Jon Rodd, Louise Warwicker, Mahala Tucker, Ro Goodman, Rosie Robertson, Serra Kösebay, Sian Yi, Xel Renata Ortega Garcia
Sound Alberto Ruiz Soler
Scenography Kate Lane
Lighting Design Jackie Shemesh
Associate Lighting Designer Joe Hornsby
Text Devised by the Creative Team and throughout R&D periods
Rehearsal Director/Assistant Choreographer Scilla Rajalin
Production Manager Ben Moon
Costume Supervisor Sophie Donaldson
Costume Assistants Emma Lyth and Francis Morris
Promotional Images Rocio Chacón
Trailer Genevieve Reeves
Producing Consultant Lia Prentaki
Producer Eva Recacha

Co-commisisoned by Sadler’s Wells and South East Dance. With support from LCDS. Supported by the Office for Cultural & Scientific Affairs of the Embassy of Spain in London. Supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.

Thanks to badbodychaoscode and LCDS students and alumni who participated in the research of the work. Thanks to the pupils of the Hackney schools and the women of All Change that participated in The Picnic’s outreach, exploring notions of togetherness through movement and dance. Thanks to LCDS for its support towards the making of this piece and to Sadler’s Wells and South East Dance for believing in the project from the start. Thanks to Eva Martinez for her always heartening encourangement. Thanks to the performers and collaborators for their commitment, questions, insights, and provocations. Thanks to the Arts Council England for making this venture possible. Thanks to my family and friends.