Showcasing Scotland’s dance artists making work for screen
- 4 new films commissioned by The Space interviewing choreographers and directors about the processes behind making their pieces
- All of the dance artists are members of Glasgow-based, artist-led dance organisation The Work Room
- Katrina McPherson, an award-winning director, screen dance artist and author of ‘Making Video Dance’, is producing the artist interviews
- All films will be available to watch online for free via a new YouTube channel
Glasgow-based dance organisation The Work Room has been commissioned by digital commissioning agency The Space to showcase work from artists experimenting with dance and film, in a new series called ‘In Motion’. The works were created specifically for screen, commenting on subjects as diverse as Brexit, the uncertainty and stress felt when continually being forced to move house, women reclaiming the streets at night, and civil disobedience.
These films highlight how Scotland’s choreographers and dance artists are combining film and dance to make powerful creative expressions about the world we live in.
The first film will be released on Tuesday 3 April and will be streamed live on The Work Room’s Facebook page @theworkroomglasgow as well as available to watch on YouTube.
A new film will be released every Tuesday until 24 April.
Faux Pas, by Stasis
Shot in Glasgow’s Barrowlands, this film reacts against the visual stereotypes of young women often portrayed in mainstream film by showing how the female form can reclaim the streets at night. These women are far from vulnerable as they work closely and collaboratively to make space for themselves and have a riotous time among the industrial backstreets.
Never Walk Alone, by Bridie Gane
A timely piece that explores the UK’s relationship with Europe, Bridie uses extremely slow movement infused with a retro theatricality to produce a wry commentary that will resonate with many.
Movement in Progress, by Lucas Chih-Peng Kao
Taiwanese dancer Kai ended up moving house twelve times in a mere two years whilst living in Glasgow. This part-documentary part-dance performance is a touching story about how it feels to continually be on the move and how we hold onto memories attached to where we live.
Cells of Illegal Education, by Farah Saleh
Between 1988 and 1992, schools and universities in Occupied Palestine were closed by Israeli military rule and those who refused to abide were labelled as ‘cells of illegal education’. In this film, Fareh Saleh reenacts, transforms and deforms gestures that were exercised by students at Birzeit University to take a closer look at the role of civil disobedience in instigating societal change and how their echoes are felt in contemporary times.
Filmmaker and director of In Motion, Katrina McPherson says, “For nearly 30 years, based in Scotland and often working internationally, I have made work in collaboration with many different dance artists, and taught the subject all over the world. It makes me particularly happy to see the wealth of activity in this area now happening in Scotland. Dance artists and filmmakers are using whatever technology they have to make movement-based work for screen that explores and communicates ideas, themes and stories they feel passionate about. I am very excited to have the opportunity to share some of this work with you through In Motion, a curated selection of original screen dance works, made in Scotland, and available to watch worldwide online.”
Director of The Work Room, Anita Clark says, “We are very excited to be working with The Space to bring screendance from some of Scotland’s independent choreographers to new audiences. The Work Room empowers artists to lead in their practice, and In Motion is enabling us to develop this digitally.”
Fiona Morris, CEO and Creative Director of The Space said, “The Space is delighted to be partnering with The Work Room and supporting the organisation in both building its digital capacity, and ensuring its works are accessible to the widest possible audience.”
https://theworkroom.org.uk/
Watch the films online at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC73044vqz2LDQ2Rbg9AS_2A
Notes for editors
About The Work Room
The Work Room (TWR) is an artist-led organisation, committed to supporting a sustainable environment for independent artists working in dance in Scotland. Our mission is to empower artists to lead in their practice, enabling them to make high quality, pioneering dance for diverse contexts at home and internationally. We are based within Glasgow’s Tramway where we have a studio for choreographic residencies.
The Work Room is supported by Creative Scotland as an RFO and by Glasgow City Council.
About The Space
The Space is a commissioning and development organisation, established by Arts Council England and the BBC to support greater digital access to the arts. The Space is committed to supporting and facilitating the UK arts sector to realise its digital ambitions. The organisation commissions arts projects and provides a production and distribution support to ensure that these projects reach a wide and diverse range of audiences. The Space has supported In Motion through funding from Creative Scotland, Arts Council England, and the BBC.
Biography
Katrina McPherson is award-winning screen dance artist, whose single, multi-screen and online works have been presented at venues and festivals world-wide. She trained as a dancer and choreographer at Laban, London after which an early career fascination with the creative possibilities of dance and the moving image took her to art college to study video art. A number of works directed by Katrina are held in collections including Lux Artists’ Moving Image UK, Routledge Performance Archive and the British Council. She is a director of arts programmes for UK television making films for BBC, Scottish Television and Channel Four, and was co-director of Goat Media Productions from 2001-2015. Katrina has taught screen dance in the UK, Australia, Germany, USA, Canada and China and she is the author of Making Video Dance (Routledge 2006), the first workbook for screen dance which is used as a core text for courses at universities world-wide, with a new edition due out in the summer 0f 2018.
