Soul Inspired

'Soul Inspired' demonstrates the ongoing collaborative relationship between Hammond, as costume designer, and the Zimbabwean choreographer Bawren Tavaziva. Hammond's research is concerned with the ways in which the costume designer can achieve the appropriate balance of cultural influences when working within a western contemporary art form that combines traditional and classical movement vocabularies to communicate abstract narratives. These narratives are essentially concerned with issues related to an African and migrant experience.

'Soul Inspired' consists of four works: 'Worlds Apart' commissioned by Royal Opera House 2 and premiered at the Clore Studio in the summer 2005, 'Last Night', 'Tribe', and 'Umdlalo Kasisi', which was commissioned by The Place Prize in 2004 and was one of five finalists to be premiered at The Place in London.

In two of these works Hammond was concerned with referencing a traditional African style of dress or undress that she developed and abstracted to meet both the aesthetic and practical requirements of a mixed heritage movement vocabulary. In the other two works, the role of costume was to identify location, in the one as a globally recognisable signifier of gender and in the other by creating a sense of another place and community.

Hammond's work with Tavaziva Dance became the focus for an exhibit at the Society of British Theatre Designers Quadrennial exhibition in Nottingham, January 2007 (at the V&A Museum, London from November 2007). Hammond presented a 15 minute film of excerpts from performances and rehearsal with discussion of the process which led to the designs. This approach to costume design, which stems from the movement, is underpinned by Hammond's own dance studies, and offers an alternative perspective to traditional costume design process.

Tavaziva Dance is funded by the Arts Council of England.

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