James Pett and Travis Clausen-Knight talk about A Stranding

This year’s Ballet Icons Gala on March 9 again sees James Pett and Travis Clausen-Knight (PCK) securing a place for contemporary dance amidst a flurry of tutus, pointe shoes and international ballet stars. Maggie Foyer talks to them about their newly choreographed work, ‘A Stranding’.

For their new work, James and Travis will be joined by former Paris Opera Ballet étoile, Marie Agnès Gillot. Gillot is not as well known to London audiences as she should be. She has danced all the classical ballerina roles but also excels in contemporary works. It was for her performance in Carolyn Carlson’s Signes that she was promoted to étoile.

The three met in the highly charged creative environment of Wayne McGregor’s Tree of Codes which premiered in 2015, a collaboration between McGregor’s company and six soloists from the Paris Opera. James explains, “We were very lucky as we danced a lot with her in the ballet and really got to know her. There was something there, such a deep respect and love. We became very close friends and always stayed in touch. Now it’s been a long gap since we actually saw each other but the mutual want has drawn us together which is so refreshing. It’s really special that someone who has experienced way more than we could dream of trusts us enough with the work and wants to share with us.”

The sharing of common ground between the three in the creative process, their attentiveness to each other and the respect for Gillot’s devotion to her art formed the foundation for the collaboration on A Stranding.

As Travis says, “We’ve had a history together and we knew we wanted to make something. That was the driving force from the beginning.”

When we met, the two men had just returned from a rehearsal period in Normandy. James describes it as “such a great place to create, to get lost in our world. Marie-Agnès lives right by the sea, and she let us use her space, I think it’s a converted church. We’d have times where we were working with her and times when we were just wandering and looking at the sea, the stones and all the kinds of colours. We imagined her standing with her feet in the sand. It’s a very simple image, but there was something about the stoic nature of it that kept driving us. Marie-Agnès explained about her connection to nature. She felt her freedom of expression came from being in nature and Travis wrote a beautiful poem inspired by her.”

A Stranding
Is she weeping?
Wind kissed ear
Her sinking vigil
On sand hushed quiet…
Lay hold of the somewhere, suspended.
                                                        Travis Clausen-Knight

Getting down to the actual creation, James notes that the pair worked like Yin and Yang, trusting and learning from each other. “I like to be really prepared but I’ve learned a lot about spontaneity. You can’t calculate expression and emotion you can only explore it.”

Travis continues, “The piece is about six minutes long, Marie-Agnès starts with a solo followed by pockets of solos and duets to finish with a trio. We have learnt so much working with her, and she’s really tried to find the essence of our language. The dialogue in the studio has brought us to a place where it just kind of evolves.”

James adds, “This creation for me has been filled with love spending so much time together, separating then coming back together has fuelled the creative juices. It’s just been a wonderful experience and yes, Marie-Agnès has pushed us. She might interpret a movement phrase in a different way that sends us in a completely other direction. That’s the beauty of creating and being in the studio. The process of creation is different with each person. Each body informs the aesthetic and there is the challenge of how your body reacts to the other. In this work we didn’t want to see it as a triangular relationship, it’s just three people dancing.”

And the music? “We went through so much music. Finding a six-minute track is not easy and there is so much out there. We found Love Song on Max Richter’s new album and it felt right. Marie-Agnès was direct, saying she wanted it, so that was decided.’

For the costumes, Travis explains how they chose the fashion house Demo, run by friends from Hong Kong who they had worked with before. “We wanted something you feel really tells who you are. They are doing work we love; stylized, androgynous, English. We don’t want disguise, we want the feeling of people caught in the moment.”

James and Travis are now starting to create a lot more with other people, and have recently made a creation in Croatia. “We’ve also had the good fortune to work in other areas like galas where we meet other dancers. A lot of them connect to our work but are surprised to find that we are also the creators,” says James. Looking at the line up for this year’s Dance Icons Gala it appears that PCK will again be the only choreographer/ dancers on the bill. Exciting times ahead.

A Stranding premieres at the Ballet Icons Gala at the London Coliseum on March 9, 2025.