Nerve in the Bone

This feminist performance explores the internalised, somatic experience of aging, and particularly sensations of menopause. It is a work about presence and absence, intimacy and agency, breath and voice(lessness). Dyson explores these ideas in her body-based performance art, informed by training in improvised Butoh theatre. In Nerve in the Bone, Dyson extends her historic performance practice with material objects and site, to reconsider her own body as the subject. Here she performs with found broken materials which relate to both the domestic space and her to experiences as a high-risk technical scuba-diver.

Dyson’s movement and expressions reflect sensations in hips, pelvis, and jaw to queer the framing of the aging woman. Her ‘song’ develops from breath, emerging as a siren-like notes resonating with the space.

Musician and composer Eilon Morris has been working with Dyson to construct live and recorded compositions using found sounds of the body and environment and percussion. Together Dyson and Morris are developing a strategy for expressing the internally felt and heard body, where it meets the natural environment, particularly the aquatic landscape.

 In addition, Dyson has been working with fashion designer Phillipa Jackson, to construct clothing for performance which investigates gendered attire in relation to aging, judgement the body as slack/ firm, dry/ plumb, smooth/ rough, etc.