In collaboration with Birmingham Dance Network and the exhibition, Reimaging Donald Rodney we present a new work premiere for Digbeth First Friday.

Dancers Becca Thomas, Suzanne Grubham and Genevieve Say were commissioned to develop a performance in response to Psalms, the late artist Donald Rodney’s autonomous wheelchair. Developed in 1997 for Rodney’s final solo exhibition before his untimely death, the wheelchair was modified at the School of Computing of the University of Plymouth to perform a repeated sequence of circles, spirals and figures of eight, as specified by Rodney himself.

In the new work, the dancers move in relation to Psalms and each other, tracing and illuminating the trajectories of the empty wheelchair in motion, evoking memories of a life lived and the simultaneous absence and presence of the artist.