Dancer explores life of Mexican artist

GLASGOW will play host to an exclusive preview of an exciting, new dance performance when it welcomes a show based on the life of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo.
Caroline Bowditch created the performance which looks at the life of artist Frida Kahlo.Caroline Bowditch created the performance which looks at the life of artist Frida Kahlo.
Caroline Bowditch created the performance which looks at the life of artist Frida Kahlo.

It is the first stop for the new show which will then head around the UK.

Falling in Love with Frida is an intimate performance that explores the life, love and legacy of painter Kahlo in the 60th anniversary of her death.

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Kahlo was the lover and eventual wife of famous Mexican painter Diego Rivera.

Frida KahloFrida Kahlo
Frida Kahlo

However, both had a string of love afairs during their tempestuous marriage.

Kahlo also suffered lifelong disability, due to being involved in a traffic accident when she was younger which left the 18-year-old Kahlo with, among other injuries, a broken spinal column.

Although she recovered from her injuries, Kahlo spent the rest of her life with recurring pain and sometimes had to conduct her painting while bedridden.

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The performance was written by Caroline Bowditch for the SICK! Festival and Nottingham Playhouse theatre along with Dance4.

Paul Russ, chief executive of Dance4, said: “This is a fascinating and emotion-stirring performance that explores one of Mexico’s most famour women painters whose life is remembered through her art.

“Caroline, an associate artist with Dance4, has developed this wonderful performance by immersing herself in the life of Frida Kahlo over the last year.

“This is a portrayal with a difference that offers a fresh perspective on the life of this fascinating woman — and is certainly not to be missed.”

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Caroline, an Australian who is now based in Glasgow, is an award-winning artist and choreographer.

She has created work for the London 2012 Olympics Cultural Olympiad and was awarded Creative Scotland’s Arts and Business Award for Nurturing Talent in October 2011.

Caroline said: “During several of my meetings in Mexico people would say to me ‘Frida was always happy’ ‘She saved her pain for her canvas’.

“At various points in my life I have had a sense of ‘putting on a happy face’ but today I began to wonder how many other people do that too?. Is it a woman thing? A disability thing? It made me think, along with everything else, the dancers and I may just need to do some exploring with masks, physically and metaphorically.