Six beautiful trans people lie in a heap on the carpet. We realise we’re among them.
Her head in your lap, knees curled around your chest. My shoulders propped up against their ribs,
a hand draped sleepily across his cheek.

In this continuously looping online film, I invite you to join me in an imaginary domestic space. To pause with me in a precarious intimacy. How might our bodies be warped, or even merge, in this moment of encounter?

to feel something tipping charts a cyclical process of emergence and disappearance, of breathing, of being with others and being alone. It weaves together deeply textured poetry and movement, exploring visibility, dormancy, and trans embodiment.

The work is audio described and captioned.

Single channel, looping video work. 37 minutes. See below for presentations and credits.

About the Work

This work has its origins during the lockdown of May 2020, emerging from a daily improvised writing practice in mine and Tristan's bedroom, which was also the shared lounge in our queer family home. With little space or desire to dance, I closed my eyes and conjured movement through language, seeking a feeling of embodiment that at that time felt impossible. The furniture groaned and rose into fleshy mountains and the walls rippled and warped with my breath, yearning for a more malleable reality.

Filmed two months before I first engaged with trans healthcare, the work imagines a present where transition is held and experienced collectively, allowing for cyclical phases of visibility and dormancy. The film’s central text describes a pile of trans people lying on a plush carpet, wrapped languidly around each other. Together they take a breath in and float a centimetre off the ground. They take a breath out and return to the earth, slowly turning to stone.

Credits:

Co-commissioned by The Place and Wellcome Collection.
Made with support from Dance4 and Chisenhale Dance Space.

Performance, Writing and Choreography: Frances Morgan

Cinematography and Editing: Eleanor Sikorski

Set Design: Tristan Albrecht

Music and Sound Design: Wordcolour

Lighting Design and Location Audio Recording: Mike Picknett

Costume Design: Carlota Rossello

Producing and Technical Support: Mitchell Sowden

Technical Assistance: Kate Stonestreet and Lewys Holt

Audio Description - Read by Eleanor Sikorski, written with Frances Morgan. Support from Quiplash.

Captions - Written by Frances Morgan, Eleanor Sikorski and Wordcolour. Support from Collective Text with Joseph Dunn and Melissa Toner.

Lead image by Tristan Albrecht, screenshots by Eleanor Sikorski

to feel something tipping,

under and towards you

Exhibitions:

The film has also been exhibited as part of sculptural installations featuring painted latex wall hangings by Frances Morgan, and flesh-rock sculptures by Tristan Albrecht.

+ October 2022: three day solo installation as part of NottDance 22 - Backlit Gallery, Nottingham
+ March 2022: month-long installation as part of ‘In Dedication’ group exhibition - We Exist at The Koppel Project Hive, Holborn
+ June 2021: month-long online screening - Wellcome Collection and The Place

If you would like to programme the work or see it in full, please email: hello@esmorgan.com

Click here to see a recording of Frances speaking about the work in 2021 with Amy Bell, hosted by Wellcome Collection.