she wolves

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“It is in the claiming and naming of our power.”

From a spur of the moment idea to an explosive poem and performance from Tara Griffin roaring with energy and combined with original music from Charlie + Jake and improvised movement from dancers all over the world, She Wolves is a piece that celebrates the multitudes that make up the mosaic of womanhood.

“I will not be changed, instead I will make change.”

For our Open Collab show in March 2021, we brought together the voices and talents of women from all over the world to share their experiences and stories and put on a mini festival to celebrate International Women's Day.

As part of this, we asked friend of the show Tara Griffin to contribute a piece, and though she didn't have a poem that fit the brief already, she promptly got to writing. A few hours later and we were sent a voice note of her performance: an unstoppable freight train of emotions, experience, references and empowerment that left us crying on the kitchen floor. The project quickly grew as we created a track around her words to match the energy and passion she shared, and it inspired us to reach out to some talented improvisational dancers based in Argentina, Mexico, and right here in Bristol. With a turnaround of just a few weeks in the lead up to the show, we are forever grateful that all these collaborators poured so much enthusiasm and generosity into the project, including everything from flaming hoop and acrobatics to a beautifully designed dress and a steaming volcano in the background of a shot!

It started with a tiny nugget of an idea: to create a little multi-disciplinary piece for our Open Collab show celebrating International Women's Day.

It's become an international collaboration that has brought together our varied talents, voices and experiences to celebrate all things woman.

“We are the very definition of golden.”

poem

I'm a pigeon loving Londoner who adores writing Romantic-esque poetry which, so I've been told, weaves regality and grit into a world where everyone is "king of their own bus stop".

Tara grew up in Camden Town and cites London as one of her biggest influences and inspirations. Her aim is to tell the stories of London and Londoners as best she can, to as many people as she can. She has a passion for experimental film photography and adores the Lomography colour negative 400.

She enjoys using her skills to aid charitable and creative ventures as well as in museum settings. Recently, she has been using photography and participatory practices to illustrate and explore themes in museology.

website | instagram

music

We are a multi-instrumental live-looping duo from Bristol, UK. As a duo, we have been creating and performing jazz-infused original music at places like Ronnie Scott's, Cheltenham Jazz Festival and the Bristol Harbour Festival. We were also the house band of the week on BBC Radio Bristol.

Since lockdown began in 2020, we have been putting on a monthly livestream show called Open Collab. For this show, we put out an open call for poetry submissions from all over the world. We then curate these submissions and improvise musical worlds around the performances live on the stream. We are very often genre-agnostic, letting the poetry lead us into anything from sonic soundscapes to soulful gospel grooves.

Our latest original music has taken inspiration from all of these improvisations and ideas that we have been developing over the last year of creative, multi-disciplinary collaborations. This has resulted in a work-in-progress EP that combines all these things.

website | instagram

dancers

Ratna Dakini is a Tibetan Buddhist yogini, poet, dancer, and translator from Mexico.

She has self-published two collections of poetry: bird yes (2019) and Sunbird (2020). She has a background in contemporary dance and teaches Hatha Yoga. She currently lives in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, where she regularly performs poetry & Improv dance with live musicians. She is currently working on the manuscript for her third poetry collection.

website | instagram | patreon

Francesca studied contemporary and classical dance in Tuscany, Italy. During the three years at Circomedia she studied Creative Movement together with a few months of contemporary and classical dance.

“She wolves” project gave her the opportunity to explore with improvisation and free creative dance, with a playful approach.

Dancing with poetry and music inspired her to create something new and exciting.

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I am a dancer and an artist of movement and expression exploring different ways to communicate. Through the dance and movement I feel I can be myself and I can connect to other people in many ways. I like to dance tango because it allows me to connect to the other person through the embrace and musicality. I also like to dance on my own (it can be in the public space, contemporary dance and other types of movements) to express wherever I want, my life, my joy, my troubles. I feel that connection without words is essential to open horizons of feelings and expressions. I would like to share these experiences with others in different ways: learning how we can build a conscious and creative experience as artists of our own life. I would like to use elements of different theoretical approaches from psychologies –as gestalt, psychoanalysis, bioenergetics- as well other techniques as analysis of movement, arts therapist, authentic movement, and theatre, how anatomic levels can helps to reach deeper understanding of the body system. We may use the term of therapeutic work or a workshop or atelier structure.

Malena Grilli was born in 1986 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. At the age of ten, she began her training as a ballet dancer at the Colón Theater Higher Institute of Art. At the age of 17, she extended her education to other styles such as contemporary dance, tango and other urban dances. Subsequently, she studied theater, physical theatre and Dance on Screen. She graduated in Performing Arts from the University of Buenos Aires. In 2013 she immigrated to Paris, she did teach Tango for young and adults with visual impairments and she obtained a Master in research of Dance in 2016.

Malena is interested in interdisciplinary work in the arts, in particular in artistic intervention in public spaces. Collaborate with visual artists, performers, musicians and writers. Always interested in languages and cultural exchanges, he has lived in Bristol (UK) for four years. In 2019 she published her first book of poems "Meguri", Alción Editora (Argentina).

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filming

César López

Simon Abel

editing

Jakob op den Brouw

“I will not be changed, instead I will make change.”

Originally written and produced for International Women's day, the first incarnation of She Wolves raised money for WomanKind, now the official release will donate all revenue to the Alexandra Wylie Tower Foundation. This charity is close to Tara's own heart:

"The Alexandra Wylie Tower Foundation supported me through my teenage years and beyond, all run by the most inspirational woman Lindsey Wylie in honour of her inspirational and beautiful daughter Allie."

Help us support this wonderful charity by buying the track on Bandcamp, or donating directly to our JustGiving page.

buy the track onBandcamp

donate onJustGiving