Hannah Parsons (UK) is a queer dance artist, choreographer and performer based in London and Oslo, and working across Europe. Hannah's practice often explores voice and sound, applying a choreographic approach to sound, and a sonic approach to choreography.
She creates performance with STICKY Productions (Norway) and the collective, Unbaptised Infants (UK/ES). STICKY Productions have recently been selected as the Norwegian artists for the Moving Identities cohort 2023-24.
In 2023 STICKY Productions have been touring Økohelter in theatres and schools across Norway, and then began research and development on their latest work OOZE. Hannah has also been performing in Simone Mousset's work, Empire of a Faun Imaginary in France, Luxembourg and the UK.
Hannah graduated from Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in 2014 with a 1st Class Honours in Contemporary Dance.
IG @hannahparshons
OOZE - STICKY Productions 2023 - 24
A dance work exploring queerness, nature and diversity in the more-than-human world. Through an imaginary, sensory and somatic journey into the world of slugs, we invite sexuality, sex, fluidity and transformation into the room.
ØKOHELTER (ECOHEROES) - STICKY PRODUCTIONS 2022
Ecoheroes is an immersive dance performance for children that zooms in on the little creatures that live on, and just below the norwegian forest floor. For children and their adults ages 4+
FOR TOURING CONTACT STICKYDANS@GMAIL.COM
RITUAL - UNBAPTISED INFANTS 2021 - 2022
RITUAL is an immersive sonic dance performance, and a ritual for letting go.
A simple and powerful performance work utilising repeated actions of primitive expressions of the body. Embodied reenactments of grief, joy and exaltation are rhythmically crafted to entice and hypnotise the audience. Using sand filled bras that spill from the nipples, the performers cast a circle encasing the intimate audience for the ritual to take place. Through telepathic powers and spells, the performers release their audience from their offerings, generating a new sense of revival and catharsis.
FOR TOURING CONTACT UNBAPINFANTS@GMAIL.COM
.
TRACKS - UNBAPTISED INFANTS 2019
TRACKS is a series of short (and not too serious) works by Unbaptised Infants.
Each track is between 2-10 minutes and are assembled uniquely for each event like a set-list. Returning to the basics of dancing and singing together, each track is a kind of ritual. We expel our internal chaos through rhythm, harmony and not-quite-harmony, re-ordering it into something that feels more or less coherent.
FOR TOURING CONTACT UNBAPINFANTS@GMAIL.COM
FLESH series - Beliza Buzollo (Queer Garden) & Hannah Parsons. 2020 - ongoing
FLESH is a photographic series, a collaboration between dance artist Hannah Parsons and her partner, photographer Beliza Buzollo (Queer Garden). Their work places the nude body in the landscape, the body becoming the landscape, and explores illusions between beauty and grotesque - depending on how you bend your eyes. The work stems from intimacy and play from our relationship as a couple, and the meeting of our artistic practises.
The image to the left is OLD STOCKING, taken at Alum Bay on the Isle of Wight September 2020
UNTITLED SOLO 2019
Hannah has developed a solo improvisation practise exploring Emotional Anatomy. Exploring the work of Stanley Keleman, emotional anatomy is the idea that the configuration of our bodies is intrinsically linked to our emotional state and our patterns of thought. This work takes inspiration from Cindy Sherman’s Untitled Film Stills, seeking to capture the feeling of a whole story in a single glance. Supported by Bathway Theatre, Greenwich University.
Simone Mousset - Empire of a Faun Imaginary 2022-3
Combining an interest in vocal work, visual art, and bodies in movement, Empire of a Faun Imaginary is a melancholic world in search of the miraculous, that explores the claustrophobic potential of onwardness, in reaction with qualities of the eerie, the still, and the slow. Tussling with an existential difficulty to see value in things, Empire of a Faun Imaginary investigates the human brain’s capacity to undo itself, as well as loneliness, hunger, restlessness, sadness, the pursuit of fear, and the notion that only death has any clear value. It is a loud unheard cry. And it is also, almost, a challenge.
Images by Sven Becker
Elinor Lewis - TIMBER 2017-2022
TIMBER is a dance choreographed on two women & six, wooden, door-sized frames. Currently a work-in-development, TIMBER explores ways the human body can test the materiality of the frames & in doing so, also tests the limitations of the human form. The work seeks to interrogate audience attitudes towards risk, boredom, gender & female sexuality. The choreography amassed so far transforms the performers into slow-moving, part-human-part-frame sculptures. With dead-pan focus, the performers curiously test the limitations of the frames- straining against the wood, rocking the frames like babies & straddling the frames like lovers.
Livia Rita - FUGA FUTURA & Magic Fish 2019 - 2022
Livia Rita is an emerging singer, designer, alpine witch, climate activist, choreographer, film maker and visual artist with an inexhaustible devotion to a progressive way of thinking, based between the Alps and London. Their mystic eco-pop melodies have expanded into the bountiful conceptual debut álbum -- FUGA FUTURA – a place of healing and fantasy, where nature rebels and magic abounds all in an attempt to unite otherworldly revolutionaries.
Nicole Bachmann - A Circle Whispering Dot 2022
The performance ‘A circle whispering dot’ examines the relationship between voice, gesture and social norms, asking questions such as: How can we free ourselves from set definitions enforced by narrative power structures and use other forms of communication – such as abstract words, tone, gesture, movement, rhythm, resonance and repetition – in order to create meaning?
Martin Creed & Howard Hodgkins - Inside Out
The painter and printmaker, Howard Hodgkin, rarely passed comment on contemporary art. He was, however, a fan of Martin Creed, whose work encompasses theatre, dance, film and music, alongside the more traditional fields of painting and sculpture. This is the first exhibition to bring the two artists together, delving into their shared conviction that art offers a framework through which we can explore complex human emotions. To borrow Creed's words: ‘The process of working is a process of trying to get from the inside out.’
Pictured left of picture wearing backwards suit
Joe Garbett Dance - Doubles
Doubles is an exciting pop up performance where contemporary dance and Ping Pong combine. The project encourages communities to come together to enjoy art, sport and healthy living.
Pictured falling backwards wearing blue
Josiah McElheny - Interactions of the Abstract Body
With direction from Susan Sentler, Hannah performed with a group of 16 dancers daily as part of the Space Shifters exhibition at the Hayward Gallery, London from September 2018 - January 2019. This live art work involved performing an improvisation score whilst wearing these costumes/sculptures made by Josiah McElheny to engage with the exhibition and the public.
Marina Abramovic & Tin Drum - The Life
The Life is a performance piece, lasting 19 minutes, that builds on the artist’s long-standing fascination with the notion of material absence. The use of Mixed Reality allows Abramović to further explore how to use her own body as subject and object, mapping new territory at the intersection of technology and performance.
Pictured in white coat and glasses with Marina Abramovic
Clara Sjolin - Let Us Rest
Under the direction of Clara Sjolin, this dance theatre work was developed through improvisation, exploring the idea of performative hysteria influenced by the practise of French neurologist, Jean-Martin Charcot. The work premiered at the theatre Das Lofft, Leipzig, Germany in Sept 2018.
Pictured in blue dress singing to audience
Sylvia Whitman - Around the Edge
Led by artist Josefina Camus, Hannah was part of the restaging of Chilean artist Sylvia Palacios Whitman to recreate her works Cat’s Cradle and Negatives. Hannah performed these works first at The Tate Modern in March 2018, and again at art festival KunstFestSpiele in Germany in May 2019.
Image 1: Cat's Cradle, pictured walking in the centre
Image 2: Negatives, pictured far left behind banner
Seke Chimutengwende - Mass, Material and Disturbance
Mass, Material & Disturbance was a 3 week research project at TripSpace, as part of TripHazard.
‘Mass’ is like how do we work together? And 'Material’ is like what is the stuff that we’re working with? And ‘Disturbance’... I feel disturbed by a lot of things that are going on in the world. And I feel like I also want to disturb existing ways of thinking, existing orders that I think don’t function well.
Pictured centrally reading from book
THE MOVING VOICE workshops - London Performance Studio July 2023
DT17 - Children’s dance classes (2018 - 2023)
Seated Dance - For adults with reduced mobility (2019 - 2023)
Movement direction for Nat Norland, Dreamsick 2022
Movement direction for Emergency Chorus Theatre Company 2020
ProDance Training at TripSpace (February 2018)
Choreographic Assistant, GLYPT (2018)
Falling with Style - Contact improvisation workshops for festivals (2015 - 2018)
Insta @hannahparshons
@sticky.productions / @sticky.productions.kids
STICKY Productions: Anette Havna Tømmerholen stickydans@gmail.com
@unbaptised_infants
Unbaptised Infants: unbapinfants@gmail.com