Earlier this year, I, along with 4 other artists, gratefully received a commission from children’s theatre organisation Lyra, to create a new performance work with a group of their Young Artists.

What’s extra special about this commission, is that the children and young people themselves played an integral part in creating the call-out for artists and after an audition workshop with them, choosing who, and importantly which idea they wanted to work with for the next year. No pressure!

In short, my proposal was to create a video performance installation exploring DREAMS. I am interested in the wildness, eccentricity and unpredictability of our subconscious realities and in celebrating the weirdness and wonderfulness of dream images, without needing to scrutinise their meaning or connection to our awake reality. My work as a video/dance artist has on many levels been influenced by dream imagery and particularly by artists that often use dreams as a profound or subtle source of inspiration. I couldn’t think of a better group of people to collaborate with on these ideas than children and young people.

Since August, I have been working with Lyra’s Saturday Dance group, where we have been exploring amongst many ideas: dream/body logic, common dream themes and The Harlequin’s Carnival by Joan Miró, aswell as giving the group a full intro to the medium of videodance! As these ideas took shape and we generated (too much) material, I secured the Castlebrae Business Centre as a filming location, an Art-Deco style, Category-B listed former school, an important building in Craigmillar’s history.

I still can’t quite believe it, but we spent the last 2 weekends of the term on location filming our first dream with Owa Barua, who I have brought on as a collaborator for the project. The dancers energy and performance quality was nothing short of incredible, they were all un-phased by being out of the dance studio, adapting their movement to narrow corridors and staircases, taking the long days in their stride and just so excited to be on camera.

At the end of November I presented a work-in-progress sharing at Lyra and I have to say it’s the first time I have been truly confident to present my work in the development phase. The work is on a path we are proud of and excited by. I can’t wait to get back into it in January and experience the next phase of creation until the final presentations in April 2020!