Still An emotionally charged 40-minute solo by and for Susanna Hood, still takes you on a journey through an infernal landscape of dream and memory, at one moment plummeting into darkness, the next blossoming into light. Together with musical collaborator Nilan Perera, Susanna mines the full potential of the body as an instrument, seamlessly interweaving voice and movement to communicate on a powerfully visceral level.
	The choreographic and compositional form of the piece stem from three years of creative research into colour. Its thematic structure draws on both a recurring dream/nightmare and traumatic childhood memory of sexual abuse. T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets and Dante’s “Inferno” also inspire elements of the piece. Susanna’s roles in the performance are choreographer, dancer, vocalist and co-composer with fellow musician Nilan Perera. She wears a wireless microphone that amplifies an ongoing vocal performance and the ambient sounds of her movement, which Nilan manipulates through various effect pedals. The vocabulary is an equal blend of sonic and kinetic gestures and phrases as she moves through a landscape of light and shadow.
As the company’s first landmark work, still is a strong example of Susanna’s artistic vision: delving into the spaces between existing forms to shed light on new forms of expression, and putting these new forms to use in a multi-sensory, highly visceral performance work. The original production in November 2000 received an overwhelmingly positive critical response, from the press, the duo’s artistic peers, and a very broad audience base that extended beyond the typical dance audience to theatre-goers, architecture patrons and electronic and new music fans. Both past and present audience members continue to speak of its impact.
	In the winter of 2004, the piece was reworked into its current incarnation, stripped down to it’s most essential elements of movement and sound with a new lighting design by Rebecca Picherack. It was then presented in Toronto, Montreal at Tangente and in Vancouver’s Dancing on the Edge Festival. It remains as part of the company’s touring repertoire.
“a must see event – as precious, as rare, as that proverbial pot of gold… a dance work reflecting the dazzling prism of her jewel-like soul’ (The Globe & Mail)