Disrupted Rhythms 2024: The Project so far. (Updated)

2024 has been an exciting year for Disrupted Rhythms. This year we were back at Brighton Fringe in the awe-inspiring St. Mary’s Church in Kemptown. Our show combined film, live dance, live violin and live drawing in a multimedia spectacle exploring the nature of rhythm and its disruption. We delighted and honored to be nominated for the South East Dance‘s Award for Most Surprising Dance Show as part of the Brighton Fringe awards.

In collaboration with Centre for Modernist Studies at the University of Sussex, we also put on an additional show at the iconic modernist building, Meeting House, in Falmer. This show was accompanied by a panel discussion with speakers: Marcus Bell (Goldsmiths), Bradley Tuck (Exploding Appendix), Gemma Connie Cook (Brunel University), Hosted by Caroline Oulton.

Photography from these events and more on the project as a whole can be found below.

Rhythms are everywhere, they are so apparent we often miss them. We are often so wrapped up in them that they almost disappear. It is often only in dance, in music, and in poetry that we become alert to the rhythms around us. It is not that rhythms only exist in the sphere of the arts, but rather the arts heighten our awareness of them.

Bradley Tuck, Disrupted Rhythms: The Dance of the Rhythmanalysts: Preliminary Demarcations

In 2020, amidst the pandemic, we created a movement and dance collective that would meet and improvise together. The group was formed of people from a range of different ages, backgrounds and interests coming together through movement.  As our meetings progressed, we talked about turning our little gatherings into an elaborate rhythmanalytical investigation. We read the writings of rhythmanalysists like Henri Lefebvre and Gaston Bachelard and thought about ways of exploring their ideas through movement. Our project is a collaboration between dancers, photographers, composers, musicians, filmmakers, essayists and fine artists.  Together we began building a colossal project of interrogating rhythms from the heartbeat to modes of production, from customs and conventions to revolutions and crises, our starting point, however, is impromptu dance.   

Between 2020 and 2030 we intend to explore the changing rhythms around us and use them to create multimedia happenings. Here is what we have achieved so far:

• In the winter of 2020, we began filming and photographing a series of rhythmanalytic investigations into the nature of rhythms. To do this we used our bodies to dance and explore in different locations, with different costumes, with different set-ups. These investigative meetings continue. 
• In the beginning of 2021 Bradley Tuck wrote and published online the founding introductory essay introducing the project and linking it to rhythmanalysis as an encyclopaedic approach to thinking about rhythm. 
• In 2023, we turned the essay into a small booklet with accompanying images from our vast collection of photography. To purchase this click here
• In June 2023, we produced our first one-off live show. We took over St. Mary’s Church in Kemptown, Brighton, and screened a feature length film accompanied by 10 live dancers, a live violinist and a fine artist drawing the event.
• On the 24^th and 25^th May 2024 we will once again be performing at St. Mary’s Church.
• On the 31st May 2024 we performed Disrupted Rhythms in collaboration with the Centre for Modernist Studies at the Meeting House in Falmer. The show was accompanied by a live panel.

Rhythmanalysts:

Director, Producer, Writer: Bradley Tuck

Production Assistant: Nuria Castro

Photographers and Cinematographers: Kai Fiain, V. Teo, Lucy LeBrocq

Live Tech and Some Photography: Neil Philip Whitehead

Charcoal drawings: Gemma Cook

Composer: Nick Hudson

Live Improvised Violin: Lizzy Carrey

Performers: Nuria Castro, Marc Muir, Bella Franks, Jia Jimenez, Ines Pissarro, Jojo Denovan, Liv Sangster, Maria Adriana, Emmanuel Foxylion, Lilith Newson, Bradley Tuck, Eloise Pannett, Connie Finney, Kim Angelica Head, Leon Simmonds, Marta Hereu.

Mixed Photography by Lucy Le Brocq and V. Teo. (Below)

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Performances of Disrupted Rhythms 2023-2024 show at St. Mary’s Church as Part of Brighton Fringe. Photography by Neil Philip Whitehead.

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Disrupted Rhythms Show 31st May 2024. In Collaboration with the Centre for Modernist Studies. Photography by Lucy Le Brocq

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