The Bite Magazine - Autumn/Winter 2019 - Issue 26

Using drawings and jewellery to emphasis movement in choreography, Jada Brookes is fascinated by Sarah Warsop’s works of art. bite jewellery Sar h Warsop T he Athenian philosopher Plato once said, “Music is the movement of sound to reach the soul for the education of its virtue.” Before becoming a jewellery designer ten years ago, Sarah Warsop was a dancer and choreogra- pher who danced professionally for over 25 years with Rambert Dance Company and Siobhan Davies Dance. She received her first degree from Laban Centre in London for Movement and Dance and then went back to school to complete an MA (Master of Arts) in Jewellery at Central St Martins, London. Today, she uses her jewellery making skills to capture movement in metal. Looking back, Sarah said, “I started going to jewellery evening classes and remember running from the dance studio to my jewellery class on a Monday evening. Seven years later, I was still going and thought I should take it further. That’s when I applied to do an MA. I thought I would leave my dance life behind, but I began looking at how I could capture a sense of movement in metal and that curiosity has continued to sustain me creatively.” When choreographing, Sarah would reach beyond shape and form to investigate what drives a certain set of movements. With jewellery, she works to contain those particular movement qual- ities within her objects, arresting time to take a closer look at the intricacies of dance that is usually so fleeting. Being a jewellery designer has given her the creative freedom to design and make amazing works of art. Not only does she make jewellery but she also draws, capturing the essence of the movement onto paper. It is from these drawings that she forges directly into precious metals to maintain a sense of rhythm, direction, speed, and flow within the final piece. Describing her design signature as “movement contained in a sculptural form” this is exactly what you see when you look at her work. The first piece of jewellery she made at St Martins was actually centred on dance. “I was trying to find my way into what I wanted to make. I made a small wire sculpture based on a piece of dance. It was the start.” By exploring how physicality and physical presence can be ex- perienced through a drawing made by the human figure, Sarah expertly demonstrates how the mark and the body’s physical and emotional state are inseparable. Examples of her drawings include After George Frederick Haas, a direct response to com- poser Haas’ Saxophone Quartet in which the artist used layers of colour, rhythm, and dynamic and transformed sound and movement onto paper. What Isn’t Here Hasn’t Happened, a collaboration with artist and bookbinder Tracey Rowledge, which was commissioned by Siobhan Davies Studios in 2011, in which graphite drawings explored mark-making through choreographed movement, and vice versa. This led to the Body 30’57” charcoal drawings which used the suggestion made by Japanese composer Tohru Takemitsu that the purpose of notation is "to change the noun ‘music’ into the verb ‘music” to activate notation and bring it into being. Consisting of five collections, Sarah easily translates her draw- ings into jewellery pieces. She used Treatise, a score by Cor- nelius Cardew that invoked a physical almost visceral response to create a new set of notations used in the Body 30’57” collec- tion of jewellery. Whisk is an 18-carat gold collection designed and made directly from the movement choreographed for What Isn’t Here Hasn’t Happened which forges each element, main- taining the original character of the movement. Images courtesy of Sarah Warsop