HEAVENLY HELL

HEAVENLY HELL It is to be all made of fantasy, All made of passion and all made of wishes, All adoration, duty, and observance, All humbleness, all patience and impatience, All purity, all trial, all observance William Shakespeare 'As You Like It' act 5 “The Garden of Earthly Delights” by Hieronymus Bosch, was his most complex and enigmatic creation. The painting is my main inspiration because it provides a visual representation of the fears that dominated life in the Middle ages. HEAVENLY HELL explores my past as a dancer, a recollection and a reflection on my own past Heaven & Hell, using metaphor and analogy to create a universe where movement is the only way of breathing, living, being. On one hand, there is Untouched Heaven, the ideal place, yet sterile: an impossible dream of pure love, as seen from / through the eyes of a newborn child. On the other hand, there is Hell, a place where violence watches over the souls of those who live it. Stuck where no one wished they would ever be stuck - surrounded by memories of failure and violence. This series of photographs captures the experience of actors working together, mutually engaged in an investigation of the ontology which Bosch himself pursued, a constant battle between right and wrong while walking through a world steeped in “fantasy”.