Mary Prestidge is a dance artist based in Liverpool. She was an Olympic gymnast and started her professional dance career at Ballet Rambert in 1969. In 2008, Prestidge co-founded Liverpool Improvisation Collective (LIC) studio at Bluecoat, creating an artist-led and designated dance space to allow artists to research and share their work.
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Where the Arts Belong: Making Sense (Of It All)
Prestidge was among a group of leading artists involved with our Where the Arts Belong project which involves the artists working creatively with people living with dementia. Bluecoat's exhibition Where the Arts Belong: Making Sense (Of It All) showcases the work the artists created during and as a result of their time involved with the project so far.
Prestidge worked with Belong residents in a series of dance workshops, encouraging them to express themselves through movement. You can watch footage from these sessions in a film on display in the gallery, made in collaboration with her partner the composer & turntablist Philip Jeck (1952-2022). As people living with dementia can be shocked to see themselves, the footage you see focuses on the hands of the residents instead of their faces.
Prestidge also invites you to step into a window seat space and experience the show from a different perspective via her subtle work ‘An Invitation’. Meanwhile her vinyl words high on the gallery wall are designed to encapsulate some of the feelings evoked by dementia.
Don’t miss the exhibition, showing until Sun 12 Jun.
