Faces was a performance by Shallal 2 community performance dance group at Falmouth Art Gallery in March 2017. The ideas for the original performance were based on the exhibition 'Faces of Cornwall':
The exhibition entitled ‘Faces of Cornwall’, displays a wonderful range of portraits by artists including Henry Scott Tuke, Thomas Cooper Gotch and Charles Napier Hemy. Depictions of inventors Henry Trengrouse and Humphrey Davey sit alongside children, fishermen and nobility. Local characters are captured in the frames, such as Cornish speaking Dolly Pentreath, Falmouth youth Jack Rawling and Tuke’s housekeeper Mrs Foreacre.
Our work is devised and improvised, so the starting point was to visit the exhibition and select people in the paintings who we were drawn to. We looked at the faces and expressions, the posture and clothing. We imagined the stories of the people and explored the moods of the paintings. Movement, music and words were merged to form our interpretation of these Cornish faces.
Jo Lumber, Shallal 2 associate artist
