Articulate, passionate and a strong advocate for independent dance artists, Gill Clarke has been a strong presence in UK dance for a number of years.
Gill Clarke was educated in English and Social Sciences and has spent her career as an independent dance artist,; performer, teacher, movement researcher, and most recently a producer/curator. She was a founding member of Siobhan Davies Dance Company and Independent Dance (which she now also co-directs), having also performed and collaborated with many choreographers including Janet Smith, Rosemary Butcher and Rosemary Lee.
For a glance at dance from Clarke’s perspective…
Her attitude is one I wish to emulate; such a strong and passionate voice for dance as a genuine, intelligent art form; as a stimulating and enticing way of integrating both personal and social ideologies. Clarke speaks of the affirming and transformative powers of dance, and validates it with ferocity over a “proper job”. It’s a doubt often difficult from keeping out of the far reaches of your mind, and to read such an optimistic turn of phrase is encouraging, to say the least.
In accepting her award for the Jane Attenborough Dance UK Industry Award 2010, Clarke, through Siobhan Davies, said: “I would like to accept the award on behalf of Independent Dance Artists – that powerful and under-acknowledged workforce that is made up of all those artists who work in the demanding freedom outside the relative security of institutions. These multi-talented artists are vital to the Dance ecology – they are the performers or choreographers of most of the contemporary work seen around the country, they act as bridge-builders, connecting a public of all ages to the rewards of engaging with dance, they teach and inspire the next generation of artists as well as established company members, and most importantly their investment and passion generates knowledge that will help us to keep re-defining Dance, ideas that will find their way into mainstream theatres such as this – and new choreographic forms in media and contexts that we cannot yet imagine.”
Siobhan Davies later said: “Gill does not waste time, she is constantly building up a non-hierarchical system of learning. These building blocks of knowing and doing support the development of dance made without using codified dance languages. There is now such a wealth of knowledge accumulated in the USA, Europe and the UK and Gill is one of the principal engines of these developments, her concentration is powerful and eloquent and she never diverts her focus which includes a responsiveness to the potential of others’ ideas. It is the mixture of attention and fabulous activity that makes her an irresistible force in dance made now.”
Susan Sentler Senior Lecturer at Laban says:
“Gill Clarke does not specifically work for a ‘particular institution’ but for the all within dance, and has devoted herself relentlessly to enriching the art form in a multitude of modes and within all kinds of frameworks. Her openness and generosity to students, young artists, practitioners, professionals, institutions, and the general public is outstanding. The hunger and passion for the art form she generates is extraordinary. She is inspiring as an artist, and is absolutely phenomenal as a teacher, educator, and mentor.”
There is a beautiful note about Gill Clarke written by Siobhan Davies. Clarke passed away on the 15th November 2011.