Image: Shomari Knott/SKVISUALS
Words by Maxine Flasher Duzgunes
Lookin’ up from underneath / Fractured moonlight on the sea / Reflections still look the same to me / As before I went under. These wistful lyrics from Florence + The Machine’s “Never Let Me Go” kick off London-based dance artist Simge Çam’s short dance film, Anatomy of Resistance (2026), created in collaboration with Yuliia Palaida. Drawing on a diverse dance background developed in Turkey and her current work with Palaida’s London-based company MELT, Simge brings a multifaceted movement vocabulary that extends beyond established stylistic boundaries.
Set in a tunnel of light not unlike a ship’s headlamp over a vast ocean, Simge stands in a warm white gown with duplicated blue shadows on either side. A thin vapor streams into the shot like a low-hanging fog catching strokes of moonlight. She moves at first stationary, with undulations that ripple from her feet to her fingertips. The image of both floating and fighting comes up for me as she accents the flowy waves of her arms with the angular strokes of her chest and elbows, introducing a movement dynamic that fluctuates like a body of water. The duplicated shadows and shifting camera angles lend the solo a sense of dual presence, as though Simge is sharing the space with another version of herself. Some transitions reveal room for greater technical refinement, as sharper lines occasionally interrupt the intended fluidity. This, however, does little to diminish the work’s expressive force.
As the song compares the sea to a “cathedral where you cannot breathe,” the dance seems to embrace the wonder of this underwater expanse and yet also struggles in its suffocating captivity. Simge then breaks out towards the edge of the light, using gestural isolations that surge through her body and then morph into fluid leg extensions and drag turns. With each move she follows the poetry of the lyrics, as if on a pathway with designated steps but still flooded with the spontaneity of the moment.
The coarse battle between Simge’s various style backgrounds of heels, street jazz, urban dance and contemporary set the ideal scene for a film about the volatility of the waves within us. In the choreography, there is a specific attention on how the arms carry the rest of the body and generate enough momentum to roll in and out of the floor. At times, Simge’s arms free-flow with the direction of her weight and at others they are sculpted precisely with the trajectory of the phrase. One of the most compelling aspects of the movement is Simge’s ability to turn physical instability into an expressive quality. Moments of imbalance, resistance and interrupted flow reinforce the emotional tension of the work, becoming more than departures from conventional technique: they form part of its choreographic language. This physical uncertainty reflects the body’s struggle to stay afloat, revealing the psychological depth of the artist’s movement.
Marking Simge’s first original screen-dance film and her first professional work in contemporary dance, Anatomy of Resistance represents a new direction in her artistic practice. The film’s conceptual thinking comes into sharpest focus in its closing sequence, where the choreography brings the body’s struggle against the pull of the deep to a poignant resolution. Her arms billow with both passion and ease while the lyric “the arms of the ocean are carrying me” repeats for a second time. Simge finally surrenders to the floor – an uneven icy field – continuing to play with the urge to reach the surface with prolonged arches and developés. In the final moment, her legs sprout up and down vertically like tendrils, her two shadows appear to merge and she delivers herself to the deep. A beautiful depiction of release amidst the intensity of the body and its journey to stay buoyant.