About the performance

the pleasure of stepping off a horse when it’s moving at full speed

by Courtney May Robertson

As a starting point for this short solo, Courtney takes a metaphor for selfcontrol; a rider taming a wild horse. She looks at the struggle between embracing one’s desires and regulating behaviour in accordance with societal pressures. Visual projections encapsulate Courtney within an octagon. Through a combination of poetry, dance, and song, she travels across landscapes of personal desires, memories, and conflicts. The space acts like a time capsule; intimate home videos are spliced with samples from YouTube, documentaries, and old films. the pleasure of stepping off a horse when it’s moving at full speed is Courtney’s attempt to embrace the, sometimes messy, contradictions that make up a multifaceted human.

Courtney May Robertson is a Scottish performer based in Rotterdam. Upon graduating in 2013, she joined Club Guy & Roni’s Poetic Disasters Club and has since performed extensively across Europe in the work of Jan Martens, Connor Schumacher, and Florentina Holzinger, amongst others. She began creating her own small-scale / DIY produced performances in 2015. As of 2020 she is an ‘artist in residence’ at ICK Artist Space in Amsterdam. As a trained dancer Courtney’s work starts with the body, but spans various disciplines including video, generative art, and writing. Recurring topics in her work revolve around a widely spread phenomenon she has defined as ‘the relentless desire to dominate’.

courtneymayrobertson.myportofolio.com