I’m very happy to be part of a group discussion with some wonderful artists: Rhiannon Faith, Fernanda Muñoz-Newsome, Madeline Shann and Beth Cassani.

For dance artists, practitioners, students and anyone interested in dance and feminism (of all genders!) How does a feminist awareness impact on making dance in our current climate? What inspires, enrages and concerns feminist makers? Join us for a conversation and find out more about the practices of these artists, about how feminist thinking (and activism) impacts on their work. How does feminism influence what work they create, how they create it, who they work with and what structures they create in?

Info and tickets (pay what you feel)

My orgasms are going to Leeds!

This day-long screening features screendance and more by a range of different artists. The screening timetable will be available on the day. Films by: Lizzie J Klotz, Amy Watson & Dennis Keighron-Foster, Eleanor Sikorski and Outline Productions | BBC.

Info and tickets (FREE)

Very excited for my orgasms to get another outting!

Reel Femme is a film night that showcases self-identifying women's filmmaking in the heart of Sheffield. Held every other month at the wonderful Dina venue.

Reel Femme #9 is on the theme LOVE.

As we are holding our first event in 2019 around the annual love fest that is Valentines, we are curating an evening around different ideas of what love might mean. Expect many takes on this broad topic with some brilliant short films directed by self- identifying women, woop! As usual, this event is open to all and with £3 suggested donations going to local womens charity VIDA.

Come and get cosy with us and celebrate not caring about V-day!

Info

I’m thrilled to have been invited to present my animated shorts at London Short Film Festival as part of an incredibly inspiring programme of animation by women.

DRAWN BY DESIRE: WOMEN'S ANIMATION ON SEX

Sex is a ubiquitous subject in art, but often falls into tired tropes. Looking to the medium of short form animation, Nobody Ordered Wolves asks how we can create new ways of looking at sex in hopes of finding new ways of thinking about sex, beyond the coy and often pornographic.

Animation creates a unique safe space for women animators to visualise desire, reshape sexuality and say what is otherwise unsayable about bodies brought together, showing sex away from the male gaze. The films in this programme range from the nakedly educational, via the confessional, to the absurd and delightful. Standby for a seminar on the clitoris, that moment when a cartoon teddy realises ‘I like girls’ and a pansexual plasticine softboi - in short, sex and all it can mean to us. 77’

Info and tickets

Comebacks makes a trip to Brighton in a double bill with Jan Martens.

Info and tickets

South East Dance launches a new micro-festival of contemporary performance with a choreographic edge.un-disciplined presents three days of creative encounters, conversations and performance by artists and imaginative thinkers who are not bound by a specific genre. 

Comebacks I thought of later
By Eleanor Sikorski
Have you ever kicked yourself for not being more quick witted? Or replayed a conversation in your head that you wish had gone differently? This is about that. These are tales of sex and sassy comebacks, where things are turned on their head. Tragedy becomes beauty, regret becomes comedy and the mundane wonders and traumas of life get a good kicking. Eleanor talks about sex, relationships, being young and the ups and downs of calling people 'dicks'. She reflects on how her own life might have been different had she come up with all the right comebacks at all the right times.

Ode to the Attempt (a solo for meself)
By Jan Martens  
Ode to the Attempt is a solo that Jan Martens created for himself. After producing some almost dogmatic pieces like The Dog Days are Over (2014) and Sweat Baby Sweat (2011), this solo is a safe zone for Martens to fool around in. The result is a collage-like self-portrait laying bare choreographic and other choices and his way of working and living. Authenticity, manipulation, coolness, perfectionism, humour and melancholy form the extremes between which Martens moves, wondering whether he is part of the new generation. In this solo Martens provides insight into his way of working and living. He bares himself before you, inviting you to have a look in his head and his computer.

Also happening as part of un-disciplined: VOODOO by Project O

Eleanor has been invited to take charge of a 'Fiver Friday' double bill at Chisenhale Dance Space.

Eleanor will perform 'Peek-a-boo with the Apocalypse. 

Fernanda Muñoz Newsome will perform a solo.

Watch this space. 

Come to see the latest incarnation of Eleanor's recent work, presented as part of First Drafts at The Yard Theatre in Hackney Wick.

More info and tickets

Peek-a-boo with the Apocalypse straddles Eleanor’s emotional relationship to the end of the world and her D.I.Y. fascination with the theatrical reveal. Sometimes she can see the gut wrenching enormity of the universe revealed in the everyday, sometimes she is thrown off her feet by small things and sometimes she is bored by spectacle. 

This piece is about transformation and scale and how much or little it takes for us to be surprised by what we see.

See in double bill with NICK FINEGAN for £7.50

About the event:

“Who doesn’t want to be in the audience for the moment a brilliant idea starts to come to life?” – Evening Standard on First Drafts

First Drafts returns with a fortnight of big, bold, untested ideas that are so new that we don’t even know what they are yet.

In December, we welcome 18 artists to The Yard stage to share a brand new idea in front of an audience for the first time.

Work that begins at First Drafts will shape The Yard’s future programme. Ideas from Jerwood First Drafts in 2015 included Made Visible by Deborah Pearson and Removal Men by M.J. Harding; two shows that we we went on to produce as four-week runs

“Ideas first seen here will go on to form our programme over the next three years. If you’re looking for the future of theatre, The Yard is where you’ll find it.”

Jay Miller, Artistic Director

Oh yeah, and tickets are a fiver.

Rehearsal space provided with support from Theatre Delicatessen

You are very welcome to come to my open studio at Chisenhle Dance Space. It will be at the end of two weeks of research for my new piece.

Eleanor is trying to build herself a context. A room, a backdrop, a golden picture frame, a climate, an angle of light, a short history… it could be any of these things, as long as the colours match her mood. During this residency she will build these places, sit within them, see what happens and observe who she becomes. This is not about sitting in the sun, this is about triggering stories, making scenes, capturing images and making something worthy of your time.

Studios will be open from 1pm-5pm and you can feel free to come and go. A donation bar with refreshments will be available. Fellow artists in residence Melody Squire will also have an open studio on the same day.

Please note: CDS is on the 4th floor with no lift.

Residencies are supported using public funding by Arts Council England

Comebacks I thought of later at The Place.

Have you ever kicked yourself not being more quick-witted? Or re-played a conversation in your head that you wish had gone differently? This is about that. These are tales of sex and  sassy comebacks, where things are turned on their head. Tragedy becomes beauty, regret becomes comedy and the mundane wonders and traumas of life are laid bare.

I am thrilled to be sharing the an evening with May-We-Go-Round? by THE HICCUP PROJECT. 

More info and tickets

Eleanor will present a new extended version of her solo Big hands, big heart as part of Summerdance a TripSpace Projects.

Dive into a 360 degree evening of in-the-round choreographies from the hottest happening dancemakers this side of the canal. Envelop yourself in the liveness; drop dead on the dancefloor.

PROGRAMME

Lilly Pöhlmann & Tora Hed | Screws for Fixing
Christopher Owen | Broken Fall Organic
Eleanor Sikorski | Big hands, big heart
 

More info and tickets

Eleanor will be performing an improvised solo, sharing a triple bill with Collective Endeavours and  Steve Noble.

Collective Endeavours from Glasgow believe in taking dance to places where it isn't usually shown and spend a lot of time working on music/dance group improvisation. For their second show at I K L E CT I K , there will be Joan Cleville, Solène Weinachter and Nerea Gurrutxaga dancing, Caroline Krabbel (sax) and Jer Reid (guitar). There will be a solo from Eleanor Sikorski, and also drumming by Steve Noble.

Info

LONDON TOPOPHOBIA 13
Blooms in the Desert of London

LONDON TOPOPHOBIA is an artist-led group running performance events in London.
They are a group of artists, working with sound/music composition, choreography/dance research and performance, performance art, electronics and light/sound installation.
London Topophobia is a meeting point for makers to share and air performance works at different points in the creative process. It exists both as a useful point of departure for artists, and as an alternative take on what the London performance scene has to offer in the current political and economic climate.
As part of their Nomadic series, they will be returning to an exciting off-the-radar space in Hackney to host an extra special night of performances.

£6 on the door

Trip the Light | Intercontinental Drifts is a monthly platform (February-July 2016) where cutting edge choreography from across Europe and the UK meet. A night of new moves, new waves and new choreographic terrain. 

Each night presents a host of juicy dance works topped off with a band to get up and split your jeans to. Sit back, be immersed, then exorcise your demons on the dance floor.

Information and tickets.

For one night only we will be taking over ASYLUM, a beautiful old chapel in Peckham. Please join us for an evening of dance, art and drinks.

Doors open @ 6pm
Performances @ 7pm

More information and to buy tickets

'The Face to Face'
by James Morgan, Esther Siddiquie and Alex Springer

"They stood facing one another, both silently demanding, 'thou shalt not kill me'. In an attempt to do justice to 'the other', two bodies negotiate an impossible process of joint decision making.

'Come-backs I thought of later'
by Eleanor Sikorski

"Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought" (Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1820). Sikorski takes some relatively shit experiences and turns them into great entertainment.

'Gender Bend'
by Nina von der Werth

"We enter the restaurant. We take a table in the corner. I move his chair back slightly so he can sit, then sit facing him". A long hard look at the gender prejudices we subject ourselves to daily.

Art by Alex Springer