Solène Weinachter (Edinburgh, Scotland) @ Holding Space : PFS5
18 to 19 Feb:
Movement Workshop for students of PACE (closed door)
20 Feb:
Embodied Conversations for dancers and practitioners (registration required)
21 Feb:
Public performance of After All (ticketed)
22 Feb:
The Body as Home (registration required)
We open Week 2 of Holding Space: Pickle Factory Season 5 with Solène Weinachter’s After All.
Solène is a freelance dancer and choreographer. Her artistic practice is rooted in the intersection between dance, theatre, story telling, humour and what could appear as uncomfortable conversations. Her interest as a performer is rooted in the connection with the audience. Story-telling, dance, and laughter have been in the centre of her work since 2013. She has worked with a wide range of dance and physical theatre companies in Europe including: Scottish Dance Theatre, Lost Dog, Joan Clevillé, Gecko Theatre Company, Vera Tussing and most recently Oona Doherty. She is also a founding member of Collective Endeavours, a Glasgow-based music and dance improvisation collective. Her current projects are Antigone, Interrupted by Joan Clevillé, and a touring production of Juliet & Romeo by Ben Duke.
Public Engagements
20 February ’25 | Embodied Conversations
a somatic practice workshop with Solene Weinachter
Anuchintan Arts Centre
10.30 am – 12.30 pm
Workshop Fee: Rs. 750
The aim of this embodied conversation is to offer a held space, both physically and emotionally, to exchange on the subject of grief, loss and death. We will draw on tools from somatic practices and the death cafe container where participants are invited to discuss their understanding, thoughts, dreams, fears about and any other aspects of death and dying. Using tools from somatic practices such as breath work, self-massage and authentic movement, the workshop will allow the possibility to land in our bodies, exchange on prompts about death/grief/loss and reflect on the experience that arises through movement and writing.
This workshop is open to anyone curious and able to sustain focus for the length of the workshop. No previous experience in dance or movement is required but the will to be physically engaged is necessary.
21 February ’25 | After All
dance-theatre show from Scotland
Alipore Museum
7pm
Tickets: Rs. 300
AFTER ALL, created by Dundee-based French contemporary dance and performance artist Solène Weinachter, is a new dance-theatre show that celebrates the intricacies of humanity’s vulnerable and courageous existence, encouraging us to feel these essential emotions to their fullest.
Skillfully comedic and emotionally introspective, AFTER ALL explores the death rituals we have, the ones we’ve lost, and the ones that need inventing. Although death comes to everyone, talking about it is often a taboo that results in people holding their grief in isolation – something Solène aims to recast and remould through a fresh outlook on the human experience.
Through a series of humorous, impassioned re-enactments of the funerals of those she’s loved – as well as imagining her own – Solène attempts to conjure a better sort of space, for all of us, to be with death, dying and loss; bringing us together to explore the role that dancing may play in healing.
Solène melds dance, comedy, storytelling and theatre to ask: what happens in the end?
22 February ’25 | The Body As Home
Beyond After All – Embodied conversation around mortality & meaning
TRI Art & Culture
11 am – 1 pm
Entry by registration
Hosted by dancer and artist Solène Weinachter, this conversation lasts two hours, and usually occurs the day after the show.
Closed Door
18 & 19 February ’25 | Arts4All
a movement workshop with students of Piyali Learning Centre
PACE
11 am – 01 pm
The Pickle Factory Arts4All programme particularly focuses on creating opportunities for marginalised children. The partnership is a series of immersive workshops and performance experiences designed for students and burgeoning community leaders. Its mission to empower through arts education, particularly within marginalised communities, will be realised over the course of the year. The collaboration will feature a diverse roster of talent, including esteemed local, national, and international artists.
MEET THE ARTISTS
Solène Weinachter is formally trained in the regional conservatoire of Lyon and then pursued her training at London Contemporary Dance School where she obtained a BA(Hons) and an MA in contemporary dance and performance. She focused her studies on improvisation, performance and wrote her MA on inclusive practices looking at the politics of disabled and non-disabled bodies on stage.
As a full-time member of Scottish Dance Theatre and under the direction of Janet Smith, Solène created and performed work by choreographers such as Hofesh Shechter, Ina Christel Johannessen, Kate Weare, Benjamin Levy, Rachel Lopez de la Nieta to name just a few.
