Grief Floats 2025
Company of Others
Phillip S Brown
9/26/20252 min read
Grief Floats 2025
Company of Others
King Edward's Bay, Tynemouth
Costumes by Phillip S Brown
Grief Floats is a gentle protest, an act of remembering, and an annual communal reflection on all we have lost and continue to lose, set against the breathtaking backdrop of the North Sea.
Grief Floats was shared with audiences for the first time on August 2023, and we premiered the full work in August 2024 to over 1000 audience members, at King Edward’s Bay in Tynemouth, UK.
Grief Floats was made as an acknowledgement of, and response to the lack of humanity being shown to those most vulnerable in our world, and the feeling of grief that this can ignite. It is made through the lens of people who experience being ‘othered’ and reflects on the unique experiences we have such as grieving the loss of connection to our ancestral lands that a person of the diaspora might experience.
The costumes echo the way the sea reclaims all, breaking us down to our core components and allowing space for new life to take hold. The performers are monuments out at sea, in various stages of decay. Some still have their outer shells whilst others have been chipped away–their core on display. Sparkling in the sunlight, eroded by the waves.
Over the three years of production, each dancer has received their own costume that often reflects their own culture or connection to dance.
Sequins in a rainbow of colours are used to highlight specific movements or moments, whilst robes in different stages of decay hang from the body. Some costumes elegantly drag across the sand, only to enter the water and begin to float. Others swirl around the body and sway with the waves, before clinging tight to the dancer as they move through the foam and break water.
Skin tone mesh dresses bejewelled in sequins catch the light and twinkle, creating an illusion that mimics the reflection of the rising sun on the sea. Images of crystallisation, sea creatures and stone come to mind as the dancers walk out to sea, as if returning home.
More information from Company of Others can be found HERE.
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