“It’s about changing the context of how people look at you – asking the question, what is virtuosic?”
You don’t get much more high-profile at present in the Scottish dance scene than Claire Cunningham. Her invention of a whole new vocabulary of dance and movement built on and around her crutches has won her numerous grants and awards, and seen her career grow exponentially in recent years. Her story is one of personal discovery, both intellectual and physical. As she puts it: ‘What do you do with a crutch?’
Claire comes from Kilmarnock. She was a soprano singer and went to University College Dublin to study music, but the course wasn’t for her: ‘the students were fantastic, but the course was awful from a practical point of view: it seemed mainly aimed at training people to teach. But Ireland was all about getting away from home and growing up’. She transferred to York in third year and says the contrast was striking: ‘The courses were fantastic, so fascinating. It was a strange feeling to wake up in the morning and want to go to class. And there was so much performance there, all the time and so many different genres.’
Back home in Scotland, Claire began trying to find her way into recital singing and chamber groups, but found there was very limited scope for making a living. In 1999 she met Gordon Dougall, director of Sounds of Progress (SOP), a musical theatre company in Glasgow. Claire sang that same year in SOP’s production, ‘Irreparable Dolphins’, which along with subsequent productions she did with the company taught her a great deal about stagecraft. She talks fondly of her seven or so years at Sounds of Progress, first as an administrator then as musical coordinator. Indeed, she still uses the wonderfully light and high-ceilinged hall upstairs at SOP to rehearse her aerial work.
It was when she met renowned American choreographer and teacher Jess Curtis though, that Claire embarked upon the journey she is currently still travelling. Specialising in a style known as Contact Improvisation, Curtis is sometimes called an ‘inclusive teacher’ but Claire feels this misses the point: ‘Jess talked a lot about turning perceived limitations into virtuosity. He’s interested in different bodies and what they can do. It’s about changing the context of how people look at you – asking the question, what is virtuosic?’
Claire admits that she felt out of place and inexperienced in rehearsals for Curtis’ piece ‘Levels of Perception’ for Blue Eyed Soul Dance Co.. It was often during tea breaks, however, that things began happening – experimenting with the crutches, testing the limits of balance and gravity. Claire’s work since has stemmed, as she says, purely from how her body has evolved. Using crutches all the time strengthens the upper body and once Claire accepted that her crutches were for the duration, she could begin to experiment and push the limits of what increasingly came to feel like an extra pair of limbs.
Claire currently lives in Rutherglen and travels a lot. She recently completed a tour of her double-bill solo performance, ME (Mobile / Evolution). It won her a Herald Angel award for its run at the 2009 Edinburgh Fringe and has put Claire at the forefront of cutting-edge dance not just in Scotland but on the European and international circuit.
