Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Tramway, Glasgow

THERE really is no conventional niche suitable for this latest project by Siobhan Davies Dance - so lets just applaud the visionary curiosity that powers it, the itch to bridge the distance between performer and audience by bringing them together in an open (and free) process of sharing.

During gallery hours from now until Sunday, February 9 (not Monday), you'll find Table of Contents in Tramway 5, the exhibition space you can look into from the street.

There is a table: a large expanse of wooden surface where the five dancers chalk out their movement intentions before performing them. There are random stools for onlookers to dot themselves around the space. The mood is at once genially informal, playful and yet absorbingly intense in its focus.

The dancers - Andrea Buckley, Helka Kaski, Rachel Kriske, Charlie Morrissey and Matthias Sperling - have been delving into archived material, much of it sourced from Davies's earlier work but some of it from their own back catalogue.

Those movements, and associated memories, are given immediate representation, in little episodes that are like portals into history, but beyond that, like an artesian well, there are layers of questions and possibilities about the nature of remembering and learning - not just in terms of dance, but in broader senses - and what archives really hold for future eyes.

Then there is the wonderment of being close to such talented, generous dancers, a simple pleasure in just watching for as long as you like. Stay and, chances are, there'll be one of the 'join in' chats around the table where the intellectual complexities, the juice and joy of this whole event become part of a spirited dialogue to remember.