Stretch
Sophia Clist with Nick Burge
Stretch is an interactive installation, an inclusive artwork, accessible to everyone. A wall made of hundreds of strands of fine shirring elastic under tension, stretching across a space, its many miles of elastic creates a permeable threshold or boundary, embracing the architecture of the space it occupies. A blank canvas, the sculpture invites interaction, quietly provoking those who encounter it into physical engagement, to manipulate it, to discover its potential to transform and be transformed, and to make their own multi-sensory journey.
Presented as an interactive installation, members of the public are invited to explore and inhabit the sculpture, discovering Stretch’s physical properties and sound-making potential for themselves. Raw and recorded sounds, created and activated by touching and manipulating the sculpture, are captured, processed and amplified in response to interactions. Live and manipulated video footage from the surroundings is also projected onto the elastic. Throughout the day a number of interludes occur in which professional dancers create spontaneous interventions within the sculpture. Extraordinary improvisations result.
Stretch was originally commissioned by Crying out Loud and continues to show nationally and internationally at festivals, theatres and in public spaces, most recently as part of Nottdance 2025
Venues and festivals include: The Catch – Lyric Theatre Hammersmith; Lilian Baylis Theatre, Sadler's Wells; Nottdance; Transit Dance festival, Marl; MILK International Festival of the Arts, Toronto; Chicago Humanities Festival; Illuminate – Birmingham Hippodrome / DanceXchange; Awesome Festival of the Arts for Bright Young Things, Perth; Art Week Exeter – Exeter Cathedral.
Stretch is an evolving artwork conceived and designed by Sophia Clist and developed with long time collaborator Nick Burge. Dancers include Jane Mason, Kim Bormann and electro acoustic musician Theo Jackson Clist and musician and sound artist Emma Welton; and in times past Ragnhild Olsen, Craig Vear, Jonathan Eato, Sarah Cameron and Anouk Llaurens.