Kendra Horsburgh is a co-Founder and managing director of BirdGang Ltd, an award-winning Hip-Hop theatre company, and is the movement architect for the upcoming site-specific adaptation of Arthur Conan-Doyle’s Selecting a Ghost.
As a part of Stanley Arts’ Days of the Dead Festival, Selecting a Ghost is an eerily witty tale of a newly-wealthy couple who have bought all the trappings of nobility for their new mansion and are only missing one thing: a ghost. Transforming the Stanley Arts into the medieval mansion backdrop of Goresthore Grange, audiences are invited to promenade from room to room with supernatural enthusiasts Silas and Matilda D’Odds on a hunt for their ghost. Featuring award-winning local Hip Hop company BirdGang Ltd, Selecting a Ghost combines classical theatre with audience interaction and contemporary dance. Will the D’Odds finally encounter their ghost or simply be left haunted by the ordeal?
How did you approach blending hip-hop movement with a classic ghost story like Selecting a Ghost? What was your vision for bringing the supernatural elements to life through dance?
Using movement and specifically Hip Hop art forms allow me to build characters that have strong identities. My process often starts with discovering the character and their leading body postures… I then explore what art form resonates to this and build on a beautiful mixture of dance and character movement. The supernatural is a space of exploration and imagination to explore illusions and trickery.
What were some of the unique challenges in choreographing a site-specific performance within Stanley Arts’ historical venue? How did the space influence the movement design?
Well the challenges are what makes this fun! This is about creating movement languages, shapes and ideas that are best experienced from 360 degrees. How does the character make you feel… Do you want to be close or far away? You allow the audience to experience the movement how they feel most comfortable… It is also important for the movement to be free to respond to the environment and keep a certain element for what we call “freestyle” that can be different each time the dancer performs it. Stanley Arts lends itself well to this exploration with many different levels and rooms, staircases and doors. The ghosts playground to be discovered.
How does working on a theatre production like Selecting a Ghost differ from your other experiences in terms of creative process and performance?
We at BirdGang Ltd never have a set creative process – I think this is why we identify as movement architects and allow the story, the building/location and purpose of the work dictate the process – we have tools we use but how these are implemented is always different. For SAG I am delighted to be working with Phill, I like filtering ideas and concepts through his vision for this piece. This is the beauty of collaboration and working with the writer is vital for the process and discoveries to stay true to the intention they were written with.
How does it feel to be part of a production like Selecting a Ghost that highlights local history, with Arthur Conan Doyle’s connection to Norwood and Stanley Arts’ role as a community hub?
It’s a huge pleasure! We at BirdGang Ltd, residents at Stanley Arts have been the fortunate beneficiaries of this incredible community hub – Finding our feet here and growing with the building since Dan Winder took it on. We are the pillars for the Hip Hop Theatre community here and feel very proud to represent and grow this audience and community. It is humbling and super exciting to work on something so local and historical whilst recreating it through our creative lenses… hope Mr. Conan Doyle and Mr. Stanley would be proud 🙂
How does your choreography explore the themes of death, rebirth, and the afterlife, which are central to the Days of the Dead Festival?
This will be discovered in the creative process… these are important narratives that will crystallize in the process – the line the play is trying to tread is the exploration between imagination and reality – do these ghosts really appear? We will explore the themes through techniques such as popping, waving, locking and other ways that stretch beyond the expected way of human movement…
Audience should leave with the question: were the ghosts real or imagined… and if they were imagined does that make them not real?
Selecting a Ghost runs at Stanley Arts Centre 6-9 Nov and 7pm & 9pm. For more information on Selecting a Ghost and tickets visit: https://stanleyarts.org/event/selecting-a-ghost/2024-11-09/1/