Royal Opera House

This live drawing performance is a collaboration with choreographer Charlotte Edmonds and dancer Joseph Sissens, a First Artist of the Royal Ballet, who performs Edmonds’ solo piece, ‘Jojo’. It was staged in the Clore Studio at the Royal Opera House, London as part of the reopening celebrations in 2019 after the redesign by architects Stanton Williams.

During the performance Dalton draws directly onto a television screen which is playing a prerecorded version of the ballet. The drawings are filmed and projected at large-scale whilst Sissens performs on stage.  The drawings are lead by both the dancer’s movements and a knowledge of the choreography; the drawn images form an evolving duet with the performer. For the audience the result is a disorientating blurring of past and present; during the finale three ‘digital Josephs’ appear with the ‘real-life Joseph’ creating an exhilarating and perceptually challenging moment.