I am Jo Shapland
I am a mature performer, dancer, choreographer, filmmaker, installation artist, fine artist and compulsive self-documenter. I am the primary artist and artistic director of Man Troi. Rooted in landscape, my work is developed and presented in spaces ranging from ruined farm-buildings to traditional proscenium theatres, from natural wilderness to urban architectural interiors.
I have a long-term interest in choreographic aesthetics of simplicity, task and ‘sculpting’ in time and space.
I have lived and worked in Wales since 1993, and have a deep connection to its cultural life and wild places.
Originally trained as a contemporary dancer, I now practice a psychophysical training that includes Asian martial and meditation arts, improvisation and aerial dance. I practice an authentic movement discipline in the landscape alone and with others as a process for sourcing reference material.
My practice is time-based.
My performances are time-based autobiographies.
My work is site-sensitive.
My practice is both interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary.
My practice is the unraveling of intricate processes.
My ideas congregate as Visual Polyphony.
‘…Shapland’s dance skills afford her a supersensitive awareness of spatial characteristics, the body’s movement through deserted spaces or traces on walls and floors of activities and presences.’ Robert Clark (The Guardian, August 2010)
‘…haunting, painterly beauty…. remarkable presence’ Elisabeth Mahoney (The Guardian, Jan 2010)
‘mesmerising’ Hannah Waldram (The Guardian, Cardiff, March 2010)
‘virtuoso dancing’ David Adams, (Western Mail May 2005)
‘quiet passion and intensity…this artist has integrity, vision and commitment’ David Adams (Theatre In Wales, June 2004)
