Stand of the Sun is a performance exploring humanity’s relationship with the hot heart of our solar system. Activating the sculpture My Body is a Sundial through music, spoken word, dance and lighting, it interweaves historical and community stories of extreme heat with mythology and artistic inquiry, embarking on an embodied conversation between star and human.

Travelling through time and space, from deep-time beginnings to the present-day metropolis, Stand of the Sun tilts closer to our closest star to wonder, what does it feel like to move through our over-heating cities and heat-stroked bodies? How does the sun experience our over-heating world? What would it say to humanity today, if only we could listen?

At its heart, this multi-disciplinary storytelling experience offers a new solstice ritual for urbanites amid climate chaos, creating space to process uncanny, shifting, sensorial and emotional qualities to our ancient, celestial relationship with the sun. Body-time and solar-time converge to stir empathy for an entity so different to ourselves, yet intertwined with our fate. Immersive lighting and harmonic invocations inspired by nature surface inequities baked into the fabric of our cities. Composite storytelling challenges modern-day understandings of resilience. Choreography inspired by Western and Caribbean flow invites audiences, artists and academics to wonder together: what wisdom(s) might emerge from an embodied attentiveness to broader definitions of community?

Stand of the Sun was commissioned by Melting Metropolis, a Wellcome Discovery Award project at the University of Liverpool and Queens College, City University of New York.

Written and directed by Bryony Ella, Research Artist at Melting Metropolis, the work evolved across a three-year collaborative process involving community groups and stakeholders, creative practitioners and academics, in response to new research into sensorial and lived experiences of urban heat islands London, Paris, New York and Port of Spain.

Melting Metropolis is supported by a Wellcome Discovery Award, grant number 225843/Z/22/Z.

Photography by Alberto Romano, 2025

• 19 June, 6:30-9pm, Saatchi Lates: The Sun and Moon, London (performance)

• 20 June, Somewhere the Sun is Shining, Melting Metropolis (performance film with artist Q&A), London

• 24 June, Solutions House, Climate Action Week, supported by Wellcome with Futerra, London (performance with artist Q&A)

• 4 July, 6:30pm, g39 with Artangel and Abi Palmer, Cardiff (performance with artist Q&A)

Alleyne Dance: Choreography, dance

Andrea Lepori: Sound engineer

Antoine Marc: Choreography, dance

Aron Kyne: Sound design

Austin Tang: Lighting technician

Bryony Ella: Writer, director, spoken word (Human)

Bumi Thomas: Composer, vocals, spoken word (Sun)

Carlene Etienne: Steel pan, oversize side drum

Clare Hirst: Flute, saxophone

Cosimo Keita: Percussion

Elixir: Sound healing, ambient soundscape

Emmanuel Clem: Vocals

Han Sayles: Production electrician

Kieron Daniel: Cello

Joanna Penso: Producer

Max Rademacher: Ngoni, vocals, guitar

Miles Danso: Upright bass

Olia Poliakova: Dance

Pharoah Russell: Musical director, drums

Rachel Sampley: Lighting design

Renako McDonald: Dance

Robert Dunkley-Gyimah: Dance

Rose Aida Sall Sao: Dance

Seren Kapor: Cello

Tomi Allen-Nurse: Jewellery design

Vincenzo Capodivento: Sound engineer

Zamar-Eden Sam-Jolly: Vocals

• Richmond Arts and Ideas Festival, Orleans House Gallery, London, 2025 (performance)

• European Society of Environmental History (Public Engagement in Environmental History), Sweden, 2025 (film)