When Seth died in 2014, I could not have imagined that 10 years after his death I would become involved in a small way of co-producing a contemporary dance performance.
In Spring 2024 when I was planning to mark the 10th anniversary of Seth’s death, I was contacted by Rachael Lines who runs FRONTLINEdance a contemporary dance company based local to me in Stoke on Trent.
We had been in touch previously but had never met.
Rachael does lots of work with the health and social care systems and with local support groups doing movement and dance activities to support wellbeing of people as they journey through their health condition and their treatment. She had been to the Purple Rainbow pancreatic cancer support group in autumn 2022 and had run an impactful session for the people in the group, she recalled how struck she was in the way in which the group had embraced her activities, and how much they had all smiled and laughed as they enjoyed movements.
She took away a flyer and details of the support group.
Time moved forward and in Dec 2023 her mum was feeling unwell and after a trip to the local A and E her beloved mum Wendy was diagnosed with late-stage pancreatic cancer, which had already spread to her liver and her lungs. As is familiar with this disease the diagnosis was late, time was short, and Rachael’s mum died just 23 days after her initial diagnosis.
The pain, trauma, devastation and shock were all consuming for Rachael and her family.
A few months later she was sorting through some paperwork, and she came across the flyer for the Purple Rainbow support group, there was sad and painful irony in that group and the flyer, given what has happened just a short few weeks later. (it was just over a year before)
That was when she contacted me.
We met and shared our stories, and we agreed that there was something we could work on together to create a performance that explored the grief, bereavement and loss, around pancreatic cancer. FRONTLINEdance is an Arts Council England, national portfolio company, meaning they receive regular core funding, so this made it possible to move forward with our ideas.
Rachael had worked with dancers and a musician who had all experienced cancer personally or had experienced the death of loved one from cancer and I had a network of people who had all been bereaved by pancreatic cancer. It seemed like the perfect opportunity to bring all the human connection, experience, technical knowledge and professional skill together.
Rachael described how her mum had always been there to support her and how her mum held her and supported her, she talked about the performance dance piece being called Holding on.
Rachael used her own experiences and those of her dancers and musician to shape the performance and I started to contact all my wonderful friends, colleagues and contacts who had been bereaved by pancreatic cancer. We arranged to meet them online to explore how they had felt after the death of their loved one, emotions ranged from at peace, to raging anger, from acceptance to why?, relief to emptiness but there was this haunting and overwhelming sense of sadness in all the words and feelings that were shared.
There were many different relationships, a mother whose daughter had died, wives who husbands had died, mothers, fathers, brothers, partners, the human universality of loss but combined with unique and lasting bond of love, which shapes the grief response and the depth of loss. The performance was also able to use some of the recordings from the digital stories created over the years to express the voice of those whose loved ones had died this was a particularly poignant part of the performance for me.
I see that contemporary dance is considered a form of storytelling where dancers use the medium to portray characters, replay events, or convey personal stories. Rachael and the dancers were able to take the raw personal experiences to communicate the impact of grief and loss, through movement and dance.
The performance was set for the Seth’s legacy conference at Keele University on 20th November as part of pancreatic cancer awareness month and to mark the 10th anniversary of Seth’s death.
The first time I saw the performance was a few days before the conference, I sat in the fabulous, spiritual surroundings of the chapel in Keele university and witnessed a form of art centred around the movement and expression that comes from the expert manipulation of the human body. There was something visceral in being present seeing and experiencing time and space and the impact of the dance movements, combined with the physicality of breath and sound made by the movements.
Since then, I have seen the performance four times, each time I see something different, I experience the emotions and impact of the dance differently dependent on my mood and emotional state.
But every time I see the performance reflect that in today’s diverse world, it is more important than ever to understand other and explore creativity and art that connects people. Holding On is an amazing piece of creativity, which harnesses the pain and devastation of loss, turns that personal pain into movement which connects the universal experience of people to the core of humanity.
There will be more live performances of Holding On in the coming year, there will be a film of the live performance was well as two creative versions of the dance, made specially for film.
I will be in touch with more details when the launch dates are set.
This performance was an absolute privilege to be a small part of and it is another part of #sethslegacy.
FRONTLINEdance
You must find out more about the huge range of work that FRONTLINEdance do, via: www.frontlinedance.co.uk, @frontlinedance1 or e mail hello@frontlinedance.co.uk.
If you work in healthcare your need to be aware of the work done by FRONTLINEdance specially for hospitals and they are currently performing (live dance, music and participatory activity) at University Hospitals of North Midlands – Royal Stoke Cancer Centre.
FRONTLINEdance are also looking for people who have been affected by cancer, including those currently receiving treatment to meet with to see if they would like to join us for another creative health project in the community
Please do take a look and embrace the opportunity to work with Rachael and the team I know from personal experience you won’t regret it you will be so impressed with the inclusive approaches, the skills, knowledge and professionalism.
Photo copyrighted: Jenny Harper Photography
