She Rose: Dance, Language Landscape
The language of a place lives and endures in the bodies of its people. When a place loses its language, the movements of its concepts and emotions leave the body. Jersey is in the danger of losing its language, and the dances are almost forgotten in the bodies. She Rose started with the name of a place: Rozel (Rose+ elle), an interpretation of the sound of a language, which inspired Sioned Huws, internationally renowned Welsh dancer and choreographer, to trace the existing presence of Jèrriais through its cultural connections to Normandy and Brittany.
She Rose celebrates the connection between body, language, and landscape. It welcomed everyone, with or without a background in dance, to weave a thread, by way of their bodies, with Jèrriais. The Breton dance acted as a guide, a metaphor for a thread that sutures the edges between, landscape, language and the body. The choreography was not predetermined, it was the collective spirit of those who respond to the invitation, weaving and unweaving its own form, as little fingers linked one person to another, in the limitless possibilities of a living language.
The Process
Developed over the course of two years, and three artist residencies, which involved an in-depth artistic research and exploration of the questions of language, landscape and body. During her residencies in 2023 and 2024, Sioned Huws met many Jèrriais speakers including François Le Maistre and Joan Tapley who inspired her dance idea for She Rose performances. Sioned attended Jèrriais classes for young children, Jèrriais chat sessions, and visited Jersey’s harbours, farms, heritage, nature. Through workshop sessions and social gatherings, she worked with 8 local artists who had an interest in movement and language. The workshops and conversations with local native speakers , informed the next phase, a research visit to Britteny, where according to Le Maistre, has the closest affinity with the disappeared dance of Jersey.
Sioned invited much loved Breton singers, Steren Diridollou and Marine Lavigne, and Azenor Kallag, a Breton dancer to join her for creating two performances in April 2025 through 3 open public workshop sessions in the middle of St Helier which formed the two public and participatory performances in town and in Le Pinacle , Les Landes, Jersey’s epic ancient landmark.
We celebrated and danced the presence of an ancient language in May 2025. This year’s May dance was a gathering of dancing bodies, and those who watched and passed by, moved by the Breton songs of sea and people, of lovers , community, joy and resistance. We called upon and spoke with our moving bodies, as we held hands, the language of this land, the tongue of Le Pinacle - Jèrriais.
We started by two open and free drop in dance sessions in the middle of St Helier, at the square, Cyril Le Marquand Court. And a third workshop session on Friday which included a dance to the Jèrriais reading of La Fontaine dé Mit (The Fountain of the Little Ones), a Jersey folk story told by the 92 years old, Jèrriais speakr Joan Tapley, which was recited by Steve Le Roy Harris. These were warmly welcomed by over 95 participants, and 200 audiences including residences, passer bys, and workers of the area. The performance on Friday was attended by 21 participants and 75 audiences who joined us in the square.
The performance at Le Pinacle, due to heath & safety and environmental considerations, involved a smaller group of 8 dancers, some of whom have been with us, since the first residency. It had a different presence, energy, and meaning, as it embodied all three elements of She Rose: Dance, Language and landscape. We could only host 25 audiences, who watched the performance on the hills of Le Pinacle, overlooking the Pinacle rock, the sea, the dolmens, the singers, and the dancers.
The Moving Arts Collective also invited Rebecca Coley, the local filmmaker, to document the performance at Le Pinacle. Her final piece is a witness, to our collective tribute to Jersey and its language, which itself is a poetic commentary. The film will be coming soon to this platform.
She Rose is produced by The Moving Arts Collective. Supported by the Jersey Community Foundation with funds from the Channel Islands Lottery' and the Government of Jersey’s Creative Island Partnership in collaboration with ArtHouse Jersey, and with the support of the Jèrriais Team of Jersey Heritage.
Artist - Sioned Huws
Sioned Huws is a Welsh choreographer based in London; her work focuses on systems patterning small details that allow for the unexpected. She trained at the Laban Centre for Movement and Dance 1983-86, danced with Transitions 1986-87 and studied at the Merce Cunningham Studios, New York 1988 – 90 where she started making her solo choreographic work. 2011-18 She was recipient of a Creative Wales Ambassadors Award and International Program Award - The Saison Foundation, Tokyo.
In projects such as Deer Dance, an ancient dance from Japan, in collaboration with traditional and contemporary dancers and choreographers, Sioned Huws reveals the poetry of dance and community. Her works give voice and body to the complexity of community, landscape, and mythology. Jersey has a rich natural and linguistic heritage which needs to be remembered, celebrated, and danced - an alternative way of keeping them alive through movement.