RESOLUTION 26: Ruth Polden, Rose Ryan and Nick Pope, Paul Davidson and Noah Meteau

Resolution Festival

This image is split into three parts. On the left, a layered image featuring a sea with two distant figures standing before it, a light brick wall casting shadows of three posing figures, and three people shown from the shoulders up, one facing forward, with two behind her in profile facing right and left. In the centre, blurred image of a person with long black hair, seen upside down, wearing a long white dress, leaning sideways with arms raised to shoulder level and elbows bent at right angles. On the right, three people, all wearing white t-shirts and black trousers, are in an all-black theatre setting, with two standing back to the audience, lifting the legs of a third person lying on their stomach, looking forward and reaching ahead.

About RESOLUTION 26: Ruth Polden, Rose Ryan and Nick Pope, Paul Davidson and Noah Meteau

A layered image featuring a sea with two distant figures standing before it, a light brick wall casting shadows of three posing figures, and three people shown from the shoulders up, one facing forward, with two behind her in profile facing right and left.

Boundaries Pushed

What can be more powerful as a political statement than a group of elder experienced dancers transforming, as they reclaim their authenticate presence?

Raising questions about the presence of the older body within the performative space. Committing to sensation and moving in a sensate state allows feelings and memories to manifest in performance. Relinquishing what was. Meeting what is relevant and alive in the present.

Three choreographic collaborators and dancers, over 60, re-emerge into dance performance, as a company committed to amplifying the relevance of older dancers in performance and exploring perceptions of the aging experience.

About Ruth Polden, Rose Ryan and Nick Pope

Rose Ryan is a Movement Director, Intimacy Coordinator, Educator, Dancer, Mother, Daughter, Sister, Grandmother, Partner, and Carer. She is deeply fascinated by the sensory experiences in improvisation, confronting what is real, recognising/listening/responding to what is occurring in the moment - the immense potential to build relationships, transform, question, research and express through movement-based languages.

Theatre credits includes: Under the Kunde Tree (Makundul Productions); Romeo and Juliet (RNT) Pericles (RNT); TV/ Film includes: Locked In (Gaumont/ Netflix); Magic Mike 3, The LastDance (Mammoth Productions, Warner Bros); performance includes: Intergenerational Dance (Yael Flexer), Pushing Boundaries (Galit Liss).

Nick Pile is a teacher of Art and Performing Arts working with students with special educational needs, mentor, improvisation artist, dancer and father. He is passionate about exploring and researching his current movement vocabulary. Performance/ Choreography/ collaborations include: BAD Dance, Laurie Booth Co, Divas, Woman, Kirstie Simpson. Founder and Artistic Director Physical Waste Co, Air Company Jean-Claude Carles. Lila Nett, Marc Neff .Neff. Biennale des Danse Lyon. Laurie Booth ZAP, All Greek to Me Theatre Co, Intergenerational Dance (Yael Flexer) Pushing Boundaries (Galit Liss), Ouse Dragon Project.

Ruth Polden is a somatic movement geek, Feldenkrais Practitioner, Yoga Teacher, Co-Director YogaBirth Teacher Training, dancer, mentor, mother, daughter, sister, partner. She is interested in times of transition in performance and in life.

TV/film includes: A Calm Week (Hed Artzi Productions), The Restaurant (Channel 2 Productions).

Performance /Choreography/Collaborations include: Batsheva 2, Jerusalem (DanceEnsemble), Diti Tor Company, Mark Harris Group, Closing Remarks (Victoria Marks), Tony Thatcher, Julyen Hamilton, Intergenerational Dance (Yael Flexer), Pushing Boundaries (Galit Liss), Ouse Dragon Project.

Blurred image of a person with long black hair, seen upside down, wearing a long white dress, leaning sideways with arms raised to shoulder level and elbows bent at right angles.

Still blind, let me see

A dance-theatre piece inspired by Wong Kar-Wai’s In the Mood for Love.

It explores love, longing, and restraint through the language of movement, blending physical theatre with traditional Chinese dance. The piece reimagines forbidden love—first between two men, then two women—revealing tenderness, strength, and the silent beauty of desire.

By challenging gender expectations on stage, it reshapes how bodies connect beyond imposed roles. Through poetic motion and emotional precision, the work becomes a dialogue between past and present, intimacy and absence, as a reflection on how love and memory live within the body.

About Noah Meteau

Noah Meteau is a multi-disciplinary artist based in London. His dance, both generous and introspective, draws from contemporary movement and physical theatre, exploring emotion and fragility as sources of motion.

Founder and choreographer of the  Strange Birds Company, as well as a writer, he creates works that intertwine dance-theatre and poetry, where silence and movement converse. His latest creation,  Still blind, let me see, deepens this dialogue through the lens of forbidden love and restrained desire, blending traditional Chinese dance with contemporary expression to explore how intimacy, identity, and memory are carried within the body.

cast and creatives

Director and Choreographer: Noah Meteau

Assistant Choreographer: Siyu Lu

Three people, all wearing white t-shirts and black trousers, are in an all-black theatre setting, with two standing back to the audience, lifting the legs of a third person lying on their stomach, looking forward and reaching ahead.

Same Shirt, Different Day

The piece depicts the ‘9 to 5’ trap in which most of us operate. We daydream at our desks of running free, and indeed of working meaningfully in what might be a fantasy of boundless freedom, integrating with nature in the wider world. Might WFH provide some kind of answer? Our protagonists try this only to find themselves still trapped by deadlines, bureaucracy and digital control. Even the shirt remains in place. The mix of concrete narrative (desk-bound) and abstract (daydream) is reflected in a fusion of contemporary and street styles of dance.

About Paul Davidson

Paul Davidson is a contemporary/street dancer and choreographer. He is an  NYDC  alumnus and has a BA and MA (Dist) in Dance Performance from London Contemporary Dance School. Paul toured nationally with  NYDC and was commissioned to choreograph the inclusive dance film Escape the Nowhere, involving Tin Arts, Wheelfever, Corali and NYDC. He appeared in Tim Yip’s film Love Infinity and  Thick&Tight’s Adieu. In 2024, he founded  Resonance Dance, a platform for emergent performers/choreographers and for his own exploration of the current political landscape, already reflected in the films on his YouTube channel PaulDavidsonDance.

cast and creatives

Choreographer: Paul Davidson

Dancers: Paul Davidson, Jasmine Leach and Sarah Ye Chan.