Abundance is an installation created by artist and choreographer Lizzie Klotz and designer Bethany Wells in conversation with community neighbours in Shieldfield.
Exhibitions
NewBridge Gallery is now closed until Friday 16 October.
You can join us on 5 September and 3 October for Saturday Social. You can still shop NewBridge Books throughout the weekdays!
Abundance is an installation created by artist and choreographer Lizzie Klotz and designer Bethany Wells in conversation with community neighbours in Shieldfield.
You are invited to walk, lie down, rest and be held in the space, connecting to the feeling of abundance – however that might be accessed in your body – through moments of stillness, play and reflection.
The installation is part of a wider interdisciplinary project devised by Lizzie with a host of collaborators, including design by Bethany and music by Jayne Dent (Me Lost Me). At the core of Abundance is a live performance, touring to theatres across the UK, with an intergenerational cast of professional and non-professional dancers. At NewBridge the spatial playground initially created for the dancers becomes an immersive environment for you to inhabit.
The environment is an invitation to participate – on your own terms. As you enter the space, you will be bathed in colour, encountering duvets and written prompts transforming the gallery into an immersive host, at once sensuous, tender, joyful and weighted: sheltering, enveloping, nurturing and celebrating.
Duvets are there to be used; to move, gather, lean into, dance with or rest within. Written prompts offer suggestions for moving with intention; mirroring the way a dancer might respond to a choreographic score in rehearsals and performance. The soundscape composed by Jayne for the live performance can be listened to on headphones or accessed via a QR code, to accompany your exploration of the space.
Abundance is shaped by experiences and connections with artists, collaborators and community members across multiple contexts in the North East. It has developed out of Lizzie’s collaboration with Boundless – Dance City’s over 55s performance company – and builds on relations forged during her MotherOther Residency at NewBridge for artists who are parents and carers. This led to collaborations with community members from NewBridge’s neighbourhood programme, including clay workshops with artist and ceramicist Megan Randall at the Memory Cafe, and a community feast and dance party with NewBridge Community Facilitator and chef Kaltouma Hassaballah, by and for women in the local area.
Continuing ideas of convening and connection, an accompanying programme of activity including Open Rehearsals, gatherings and artist-led events, create gentle moments of activation, and live-ness within the installation.
Image credits: Amelia Read
This Visual Story has information and pictures to prepare you for your visit to the Abundance. It explains what to expect when you visit us at The NewBridge Project.
Join us for a series of gatherings and open rehearsals with artists working with performance, sounds, noise, and dance. Abundance becomes a space to gather with others and a set for artists to test out ideas-in-progress.
Come along to one of our regular socials, step into gentle moments of activation and live-ness, experience performances-in-development or take part in rehearsals that invite you to make sound or move collectively.
Friday 19 June, 12–3pm*
In celebration of Refugee Week, The NewBridge Project are hosting a closed dance party co-created by and for women from all cultural backgrounds.
The Lady Party developed with NewBridge’s Community Facilitator and chef Kaltouma Hassaballah is happening in Abundance – a new installation by artist and choreographer Lizzie Klotz and designer Bethany Wells made in conversation with community neighbours in Shieldfield. Connecting to the themes of the exhibition, the event creates space for intercultural celebration, eating, dancing and abundance among friends and neighbours.
*Please note the gallery will be closed on this day.
Lizzie Klotz is a dance artist, choreographer and facilitator based in Gateshead.
Rooted in care, play and embodied connection, Lizzie’s practice spans work for theatres, outdoors, galleries and film, unfolding across local, national and international contexts. Often made in collaboration with artists and communities, her work is underpinned by inclusive processes that create accessible and meaningful experiences for participants and audiences alike, where people feel seen, valued and connected to their own power.
She has worked in collaboration with theatre maker Luca Rutherford since 2018. Together they draw on both of their practices to create work that is playful, vibrant and responsive, spanning dance theatre, public art, installation and socially engaged practice.
Across all her work, Lizzie champions care as a radical and necessary act – believing that we can be radically soft, and softly radical in our approach to making work, connecting with each other, and moving through the world.
Image credit: Amelia Read
Bethany Wells is an award-winning performance designer working across dance, theatre and installation, with a particular interest in site-specific and devised performance. Trained in Architecture at the Bartlett + Royal College of Art, she sees all her work as a form of spatial, social and sensory activism and is always looking to expand what can be achieved socially by collective live experiences.
She has recently worked with Claire Cunningham Projects (MIF / National Theatre of Scotland), The Grief Series (Leeds 2023) and Nwando Ebizie (ArtsAdmin / London Sinfonietta). She is an Associate Artist with Middle Child (Hull) and a regular collaborator with Polite Rebellion (Leeds).
Alex Ayre, Alys North, Amelia Read, Amy Becke, Andrea Scrimshaw, Anne Hemy, Arts Council England, Barnaby Booth, Brainbox Studios, Carolyn George, Charlotte Cook, Chris Fonseca, Christine Partridge, Colin Lowery, Dance City, Dan Goodman, Dan Russell, Eve Walker, Frances Stacey, Hana Azahed, Heather Banfield, ID.Y, J Neve Harrington, Jayne Dent, Jia-Yu Corti, Jim Newrick, Joe Munsey, Joy Parkinson, Kaltouma Hassaballah, Karolyn Hurren, Leah Goldie, Liz Highmore, Lou Duffy, Luca Rutherford, Megan Randall, Moving Art Management, Northumberland Dance Development, Newcastle Cultural Investment Fund, Rachel Eden, Rosa Postlethwaite, Rosemary Lee, Rosie Morris, Rowena Plant, Sandy Lewty, Sue Loughlin & MotherOther, Tom Newell, Victoria Horne, Virginia Kennedy, and the NewBridge team.
Poster by Joe Munsey
Our building has lifts to the gallery, accessible and gender-neutral toilets, baby changing and breastfeeding facilities and two accessible parking bays. You can watch a walkthrough of our building and learn more about accessibility here.
Contact admin@thenewbridgeproject.com if you have any questions or need support to take part in this event.
NewBridge has a Safer, Braver Spaces policy. Everyone here treats each other with respect and consideration. Transphobia, misogyny, racism or harassment of any kind is not welcome.
Abundance is an installation created by artist Lizzie Klotz and designer Bethany Wells and a host of collaborators from The NewBridge Project’s Neighbourhood Programme. This is supported by Arts Council England and The Newcastle Cultural Investment Fund.
6 June — 15 August 2026
Preview: Friday 5 June, 5–8pm
The NewBridge Project
Shieldfield Centre
4-8 Clarence Walk (off Stoddart Street)
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE2 1AL
The NewBridge Project is accessible. You can find out more here, or feel free to contact us prior to visiting if you require additional information regarding access and facilities.
The NewBridge Project is a charity, registered charity no. 1173849.
We are grateful to our funders, including Arts Council England, Newcastle City Council, Garfield Weston Foundation, Jerwood Foundation, Community Foundation North East, Newcastle University and the The North East Mayoral Strategic Authority.
We are proud to be a Gallery of Sanctuary.
