Emilyn Claid on new work emilyn claid, Untitled

emilyn claid, Untitled is Emilyn Claid’s latest work made in collaboration with choreographers Heidi Rustgaard, Florence Peake and Joseph Mercier, with dramaturg Martin Hargreaves. Centred on the theme of transformation emilyn claid, Untitled uses three objects – clay, wolfskin and a headdress – to explore relationships between queerness, aging and presence.

To discover more about Emilyn’s new show, we chatted to Emilyn about her work and the process of making emilyn claid, Untitled.

Q: What were the motivations for creating emilyn claid, Untitled?

A: I was choreographing and performing my own work until the end of the 90s - doing a lot of making. The moment did however arrive where I stopped, and I did this for various reasons. Perhaps one of them was because, at the time, it was quite challenging to make queer work as a lesbian.

Afterwards, I went into academia and worked in this field up until two years ago. Since then, I’ve been asking myself: Where do I feel at home? I realised that is when I am making and performing. As times and conditions have changed, I decided to ask three choreographers, Heidi Rustgaard, Florence Peake and Joseph Mercier to collaborate on ideas around the notion of presence, and what it means to perform now, and at the age of 72. Each of them brings a different approach to the performance making process.

Q: What did each of the collaborative processes involve?

A: Florence Peake is a choreographer who is known for working with clay. Clay is a transformative material – it’s never a fixed ‘thing’ – and this intrigued me. Clay moves through so many moods and states, and as it doesn’t self-identify, it feels very queer to me. As I am interacting and engaging with the clay in different ways, it takes on different personas throughout the piece – whether that is something grotesque or something erotic.

The collaboration between Heidi and I involves a monstrous piece of wolfskin, which is again a queer object for me to explore the hybrid space between the human and the animal, and my own questions about the play between hunter and hunted.

Joseph encouraged a ‘camp’ aesthetic that has always been a part of my history and I work with an excessively decorated headdress that symbolises events in my past, with humour. And I dance to Donna Summer.

Q: How has it felt to work on a piece about your presence and queerness?

Whilst it is a personal work, I wouldn’t say it’s autobiographical as it is my intention to always work in the ‘now’. Overall, I would say that emilyn claid, Untitled is more of a rich collage of images, texts and moods, with a surprising combination of humour and grief.

It also asks questions about what it means to be performing in your seventies. I’m not interested in performing in a way where I am trying to be ‘young’. I’m performing the work how I am right now at the age of 72. This was one of the main reasons why I returned to performing. What does it mean to perform in my 70s after everything I’ve done and learnt?