Lizzie Klotz is a dance artist, choreographer and facilitator based in Gateshead.
Rooted in care, play and embodied connection, Lizzie’s practice spans work for theatres, outdoors, galleries and film, unfolding across local, national and international contexts.
Often made in collaboration with artists and communities, her work is underpinned by inclusive processes that create accessible and meaningful experiences for participants and audiences alike, where people feel seen, valued and connected to their own power.
Abundance is her upcoming work, created in collaboration with the creative team.
Abundance will premiere at Dance City in Newcastle on Wednesday 2 April at 7.30pm, before touring to Queen’s Hall in Hexham on Wednesday 22 April at 7.30pm and Alnwick Playhouse on Friday 25 April at 12.30pm.
Abundance brings together dance, installation, music and communal gathering.
Where did the first spark for this body of work come from?
The work began through conversations – asking people what abundance was to them. Early on, I worked with Dance City’s over-55 company, Boundless, creating a 10-minute work built from images and moments that felt abundant, such as an empty supermarket aisle, fields of rapeseed, and a black hole.
Those ideas stayed with me, and later, during a MotherOther residency at The NewBridge Project for parent and carer artists shortly after the birth of my second son, I found myself returning to them. It was a moment of reconnecting to my practice after several years of early motherhood, and I realised there was more to say – particularly about how abundance sits alongside care, labour, joy and exhaustion.
From there, the work expanded into a multifaceted project, creating different ways for audiences to encounter and connect with it.
The performance includes both professional dancers and local volunteers. What has it been like to create a shared movement language across different experiences of dance?
A significant part of my practice is bringing together professional and non-professional dancers, and I’m particularly interested in the processes and performances that emerge from working in this way.
The process for Abundance has always begun with conversation – reflecting on what abundance means to us – followed by improvisation rooted in those reflections. Regardless of experience, I’m interested in what comes instinctively to each individual dancer, and how we can build from that. I tend to lean into what works, rather than pushing towards something that feels out of reach for anyone in the work.
Because of this, the material holds traces of each performer – their instincts, histories and ways of moving. Over time, we’ve developed a shared language, using prompts like messy, joyful, meditative, expansive and restful.
There are moments where the movement aligns and becomes quite similar, and others where performers move more freely – and those differences are really visible. That contrast feels important, holding individuality and not asking performers to be anything other than who they are.
It’s important to me that this feels like a genuine collaboration, and that there is a real sense of cooperation within the process and the performance. Everyone remains on stage throughout, and each role reflects the performer’s interests, capacities and personality. The aim is that everyone feels ownership of the work and a sense of power within it.
Colourful duvets play a central role in the visual world of the piece. What drew you to these objects as both practical and symbolic elements?
Duvets are such familiar, intimate objects – they hold rest, comfort, illness and care. I was drawn to how they can transform space so quickly, and how they carry both existing meanings and the potential for new ones.
In the work, they become playful, and sometimes places to hide or rest. They create a shifting landscape for the dancers, supporting both stillness and movement, and begin to take on a presence of their own, like additional performers in the space.
Seeing different bodies – particularly older bodies – playing, resting and moving with the duvets feels significant. It gently reimagines who gets to occupy space in this way, and how play can exist across a lifetime.
A young audience member at a previous work-in-progress said they wanted to go home and dance with their duvet too. That was a real win!
How does live music by Jayne Dent shape the atmosphere of the performance?
Jayne’s music creates a shifting, immersive atmosphere that frames the journey through the work.
She works with electronic sound that moves between extended drones, rumbling textures and harmonious tones, layered with open, lulling vocalisations. It brings a live, responsive quality that allows the work to breathe.
There’s an ongoing negotiation between sound and movement – moments where we move with the atmosphere she creates, and others where we gently resist or disrupt it.
Jayne draws on her wider practice as a musician, Me Lost Me, as well as her research, which she is currently developing through a PhD at Open Lab in Newcastle University’s School of Computing.
She has also adapted a duvet using e-textiles, connecting it to her equipment so it can be played like an instrument, bringing her physically into the world of the work.
What kinds of feelings or reflections are you hoping people might carry with them after encountering Abundance?
I hope people leave with a sense of permission – to pause and to rest, and to experience a sense of softness and possibility. It’s about creating space for reflection rather than offering a fixed answer.
It’s a work that holds a lot of feeling, which reflects how I navigate the world. It’s a kind of knowledge that sits in the body. I hope audiences feel washed over by a sense of abundance – something that feels like an act of self-care.
There’s also something in it about how we think about age – who gets to perform, who gets to take up space, and how that might shift. That feels quietly political.
If audiences leave feeling a little lighter, more open, or more connected to themselves, that feels meaningful.