I’ve just had a ball leading a 2-day Introduction to Screendance workshop organised by Dance North as part of Inverness Film Festival at Eden Court.
Participating in the weekend was a group of brilliant women of all ages, all with very different backgrounds and disciplines, but all of whom were approaching the workshop with very little understanding or knowledge of video dance practice. The group was made up of dancers, socially engaged practitioners, performance artists, visual artists and a documentary filmmaker!
All participants were incredibly open and willing to try new exercises and tasks, and were so interested and supportive of experimental approaches to the collaboration of dance, movement and video. We had a really busy, quite intensive weekend full of moving (with and without cameras) indoors and outside (putting on quite a few “performances” for the confused public), having wonderful conversation and watching plenty of work too. I have been overjoyed and overwhelmed by the feedback the participants have been sharing about their experience, some of which is below…
“I found the workshop extremely well-designed and executed. I particularly liked the balance between watching examples of screendance and learning techniques and context, with actual exercises of embodied experience. Having plenty of exercises where we were thoroughly immersed in both the dance and the filming – moving continually between one and the other – was quite magical and meant I learnt an incredible amount in a short space of time.”
“In particular I simply loved the fact that a group of no collective previous experience of working together could create a piece of work together – able to take turns to film and dance in one fluid improvised piece. What a great beginning to a workshop… And given that we could only join on day 2 and yet be accepted into and as part of the group, feeling welcomed in fact is testament to a brilliantly led/facilitated workshop, and group members willing to work together. Full on creativity and very little ego, very refreshing.”
“Attending Natalia’s workshop not only helped me move forward in an artistic sense; it was an incredibly refreshing workshop due to the opportunity to bond with like minded people and dancing creatively together. Overall it was a much more exciting take on reality. I enjoyed the fact that nothing was easy or too difficult… Most importantly, I didn’t need to have a dance background or specialist knowledge in order to feel the joy in getting involved.”
I am so happy that the workshop was such a positive experience for all involved and excited that Dance North are supporting artists working in the hybrid practice of screendance whilst providing opportunities for local artists and communities to engage with them.
It’s important that screendance, whilst demanding a synthesis of different disciplines, isn’t continually pushed off of the margins of these practices and therefore misunderstood and underrepresented. I’m hopeful after this weekend that I’ve got more budding screendance artists behind me who feel the same!
