Miranda Tufnell biography

For the last thirty years I have been pursuing a profound interest in the body, both as a dancer, making performances, and as an Alexander teacher and cranio-sacral therapist (both independently and within the NHS). My work has followed a passion to listen more deeply to the body's subtleties of movement, and to explore the human need to find a language for what is beneath our words.

Background
Studied English at University College, London (First Class Honours) followed by a dance training at LSCD and then Cunningham Studio New York. Other significant influences have been Alexander techinique, Contact Improvisation, Release work, Tai’ Chi.

Performance
Since 1976 making and showing work in galleries & theatres throughout Britain & abroad, often creating site-specific events with light & sound environments.
Collaborations with others have been a rich and vital aspect of this.
Dancers have included Martha Grogan, Dennis Greenwood, Eva Karczag, Tim Rubidge
Visual artists - Tim Head, Stuart Brisley, David Ward, Caroline Lee and Chris Crickmay
Muscians - Sylvia Hallett, and sound sculptor, Will Menter.

Performances 1976-86

 Include: Other Rooms, Night Pieces, Split, Huge Veil, Urban Weather, Steps, Silver

In 1980 with dancer Laurie Booth set up the Independent Dance Program in London to enable freelance dancers to broaden their training through regular workshops with dancers from around the world.

From 1987: After several years going to and fro to northern British Columbia, we moved to a remote hill farm in Cumbria, my sons were 2 and 4, I taught movement and trained at Fellside Alexander School. Coming to knowing a place through 18 years of seasons and weather has deeply informed my movement teaching. A weekly movement group met in my studio throughout these years and we explored the nature of body and the landscape of image.

In this time began an 18 year performance collaboration with muscian Sylvia Hallett. Landlight 1988, Passages 1990,( nominated for Northern Electric arts awards)Soft Shell, In the Grain of the Body 1993, Invisible Forces of Silver 1994. These pieces combined sound, movement and light to create a series of image landscapes that explore the nature of body. These opened in our village hall before touring. A film W I N G also exploring these themes was made in 1999 (10 mins).

Venues:
Whitechapel Gallery, London, Arnolfini Bristol, Almeida Theatre, The Place, Riverside Studios, London, Museum of Modern Art Oxford, Ikon Gallery Birmingham, Tramway and Third Eye Glasgow, Gulbenkian Studio Newcastle, Nuffield Studios Lancaster, Mappin Gallery Sheffield, Holland Festival, Opera House Skopje, Macedonia.

 
“I am reminded of tales of other cultures, other systems of belief, where the dream state is given value and seen as possessing a reality as strong as that of the material things ofevery day, where waking is a transition from one world to another.” SILVER - Performance Magazine

Arts and health
Since 1976 I have been involved with Alexander technique and worked part time since 1990 as an Alexander teacher within the NHS for a GP surgery. I trained with Franklyn Sills(1994-5) at the Karuna Institute in Cranio Sacral Therapy.
In 2000 this expanded into an arts and health collaboration with dancer Tim Rubidge. This became known as the Breath of Fresh Air project. We worked in close dialogue with the health service to engage people isolated through chronic poor health with a creative arts practice across Cumbria and Northumberland. As one doctor said “when we are ill the body becomes the enemy”; we saw our role as 'ambassadors for the body'. Writer and psychotherapist Brenda Mallon also joined the final year of this. A publication When I Open My Eyes 2005 gives an account of this.

Chris Crickmay
An ongoing dialogue with Chris Crickmay began in 1977 with a TV programme for the Open University on making dance for ‘non-dancers’ entitled "Dance Without Steps". Later we wrote the two books, Body Space Image 1990, and A Widening Field 2004. We continue to collaborate in performance and teaching

Recent performance

Spirit Level 2002
a group piece with storyteller Malcolm Green, Tim Rubidge/Chris Crickmay/Sharon Higginson.
Breath 2004
with video artist Simon Hyde and muscian Sylvia Hallett with Rosetta Life, and people from St Thomas's Dimbleby day centre hospice shown at Riverside Studios,London. http://www.agentsimon.co.uk/breathlive.html
Recurring Mice 2006 with Lucia Walker and women from St Thomas cancer support group and
Where Light Meets Stone 2006 a site specific event with sound sculptor Will Menter and Chris Crickmay

 
Body and Imagination "For me there has never been one way, I have needed to explore between moving, writing, making, sound and visual imagery; between working with others in bodywork or movement and working as a performer - shifting between the poetry of metaphor and language, the sensuousness of making and materials and the feeling world of the body, to make visible the elusive multi-layered nature of our experience."