Motion in Stillness – compelling exhibition explores the art of dance and movement

The word “choreography” comes from the ancient Greek χορεία (choreia) and γραφή (graphos). It means the writing of movement. In Motion in Stillness: Dance and the Human Body in Movement, presented by Vortic and Victoria Miro at the Victoria Miro in London, a group of painters and sculptures are taking that meaning literally.

The dancing that their works depict moves beyond the canvas of the painting, or the borders of the sculpture. Their choreography extends to the gallery’s visitors, moving around looking at the works, unaware that they too are part of the dance.

The gallery text next to Megan Rooney’s Night Folly (2024), explains that, to create her work, the artist “moves her body constantly around the canvas … shuffling, reaching, crawling, bending – the result of which is a paint surface made up of a huge variety of different marks”.

This can be seen in the dark, bold lines on the left hand side that suggest that, here, Rooney was close to the canvas. On the right side there is sense of distance in the soft delicate paint marks.

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The dance-like motion of the artist’s painting is also visible in Kyle Manning’s Staccato (2024). Manning asked Sara Mearns, principal dancer with the New York Ballet, to sit for them. The ombre strokes of paint Mearns is depicted with feel as though they take flight and swirl around the viewer – we are caught up in the movement.

I experienced a similar feeling when looking at Florence Peake’s Falling, Landing all at once 1 (2024). Many of the works in the exhibition capture a sense of a movement that has just happened, moments before they were created, and hint at what is coming next.

In Untitled 7 and Untitled 8 by María Berrío (2024), I experienced kinaesthesia (an awareness of the position and movement of the parts of the body) as I looked at their pictures of young dancers. As a dancer myself, I too know the feeling of “concentrating on a teacher’s corrections”.

Many of the works are concerned with body positions and entanglements. Where the porcelain sculpture Dance by Rachel Kneebone (2017) reveals an intricate web of bodies unfurling and evolving, Xiyao Wang’s Zhuangzi Dreaming of Becoming a Butterfly No. 3 (2023) gives the sense of sharp and direct movements.

Paula Rego’s two works, Legend of the Fire (1997) and Legend of the Fire – A Lenda do Fogo (1997) show bodies in action. France-Lise McGurn’s Why sleep? (2024) has bodies moving beyond the canvas frame onto the gallery walls.

It is Karon Davis’s Avery (2023), however, that moved me most. It’s a white plaster cast of a young dancer with her hand on the ballet bar, positioned at the side of the gallery space. It is difficult to be sure if the dancer is resting her hand on the bar or gripping it.

I would have loved to have seen the artists in action, dancing as they choreographed their artworks. However I am able to see traces of their movements in the making of the pieces. Sometimes they are the choreographer, sometimes the dancer, sometimes the audience and sometimes the dance itself. As I moved around the gallery space, at times I felt I was able to join the dance too.

Motion in Stillness: Dance and the Human Body in Movement is on display at Victoria Miro and on vortic.art until January 18 2025

Sarahleigh Castelyn does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.