Suzie Holmes
The focus of Suzie's design practice is upon the performing body’s scenographic relationship with its environment. Key to her collaborative work with choreographers is a fascination with the appearance and behaviour of materials animated by movement and light. Design credits include works for: Rosemary Butcher, Maresa Von Stockert, Protein Dance, CandoCo Dance Company, Phoenix Dance Theatre, Ludus Dance and Transitions Dance Company, for whom she has recently designed costumes for a new work by Karole Armitage. Suzie's design work has been exhibited at the Victoria and Albert Museum, in A Flash of Light: The Dance Photography of Chris Nash.
Suzie is Head of Costume and Lecturer at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, where she teaches across BA and MA programmes within the fields of design, performance and contextual studies. Other roles within education include external examination and consultancy. Suzie holds an MA in Critical Studies: Visual Art and Theatre from Wimbledon College of Art and is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
Featured Work
Transitions Dance Company '12'
When presented with Ederson Rodrigues Xavier's brief – for the dancers to move lights around the space – collaborator Andrew Hammond and I responded, "Maybe, but what about the dancers BEING the lights that move...?" From that point on, as co-scenographers, we set about trying to effect our design-led vision. Enlisting the technical wizardry of colleague, Grzegorz Zajac, we explored wearable computing and (washable) LEDs.
These were animated on the performers’ bodies, displaying lives independent of one another, and working in complement and counterpoint to the soundscore and the lighting design for the overall visual field. Without touring wardrobe support, the design for the bodies needed to be maintained by the dancers themselves throughout the duration of the 5 month tour, and withstand the demands of a highly physical contemporary dance work. The piece, ’12’, spoke of internal pulse and external attraction and took the audience on a powerful, rhythmic journey.