Performance: Burgundy Rose’s “Surrender”
Last month, Daruma was thrilled to welcome its first ever performance. Between the two days of Burgundy Rose’s self-suspension workshop, they shared Surrender: a dynamic, visceral self-suspension performance that explores the relationship between art and surrender through minimalistic rope, virtuosic spins, and contorted shapes in midair.
burgundy rose // photos by wooden punk
Burgundy Rose is a multidisciplinary artist making performance work for over a decade—exploring the boundaries of theatre, movement, rope and circus, and how these art forms can inspire each other. Beginning their Shibari learning in 2016 at Anatomie Studio in London, they have since learnt from an extensive range of international educators and collaborators, and are currently most inspired by blending the intensity and aesthetics of ‘traditional’ Japanese Shibari with a more movement-based and deconstructed ‘contemporary’ style.
And their genre-blending performance training is beautifully evident in Surrender. One of the most striking aspects of the piece is its dizzying sequences of spins—made possible by Burgundy Rose’s circus background. They explain, “The biggest learning I bring from my circus training is probably spinning and body mechanics. Knowledge of how the body can move efficiently in the air helps me hugely choreographically. And it’s enabled me to design transitions to work with a spin, rather than against it.” Meanwhile, lessons from clowning and performance inform their immediate, connected approach to an audience: “in clowning, one of the ‘rules’ is that you are always in a space with the audience rather than pretending you are somewhere else. There’s no ‘fourth wall’. I do this in my self suspension acts to connect with the audience in the room—to bring an audience into my world and take them on a journey with me.”
Next up in Daruma’s performance series: Objectification in Meditation, Friday, May 24 at 7:30pm. Ron Hades, with Berkay, will share a performance and political discussion about historical and contemporary views of shibari, with informal space for socializing to follow.