A Work Book for Video Dance

KATRINA MCPHERSON is Scotland’s leading practitioner in the relatively new art of video dance.

The Newtonmore based artist is currently writing a much needed Work Book on video dance as her Creative Scotland Award project, and explains why video dance is more than simply shooting a dance sequence.

EACH MORNING I set off for work, through the back door of our cottage on Newtonmore’s Main Street and down to the bottom of the garden. The journey takes approximately 40 seconds, depending on the weather. I am heading out to my shed, bought with some of the money I received as part of my Creative Scotland Award.

It’s been money well spent for, kitted out with desk, phone, a heater and insulation on the walls, this shed is the perfect workspace and a haven from the chaos that is generated by two adults working from home and a lively 15 month old toddler. After all, to borrow a phrase, everybody needs a place to think.

So, what am I thinking about?

In 2002, I received a Creative Scotland Award from the Scottish Arts Council to research and write a workbook for video dance. Over the past 18 months, give or take some time off to have a baby, I have been working on the project.

The book is aimed at dancers and choreographers who want to make dance for the screen. My aim is that it should be an accessible guide through the production process, from having an idea and writing it down, through choreographing for the camera, filming and editing. Most of what is contained in the book is based on my own experience of making video-dance and includes a production diary of ‘The Truth’ a new half hour video-dance that I directed earlier this year.

To balance my view, I have done interviews with other leading video-dance makers from the UK, the USA and Canada. These have included choreographers, directors, choreographer/directors, an editor and a cameraman, as well as individuals who commission work. The benefit of having these other voices present in the book is that they provide alternative ideas and approaches to my own.

But what is video-dance?

Video-dance is relatively new art-form, one that fuses avant-garde approaches to dance making with innovation in video art and televisual practises. Video-dance is right now in the middle of an explosion of popularity, largely the result the increasing flexibility and relative cheapness of digital video technology and by forward-looking commissioning schemes, most notably the high profile ‘Dance for the Camera’ series, commissioned over eight years by the BBC and the Arts Council of England.

Not only does video-dance offer many exciting creative possibilities, but it is also an excellent way of reaching new and diverse audiences, both at home and on the international arena. Video-dance travels well – I know, because I make the trip to the post office at least once a fortnight to send copies of my work for screenings somewhere far afield – this week Helsinki, next week Melbourne!

Why Me?

My initial impulse to make video-dance came when, on graduating from the Laban Centre, London in 1988 with a degree in Dance Theatre, I felt the urge to bring dance to as wide an audience as possible. Although I was keen to be a choreographer, I was reluctant to make work that, I felt then, would only be seen by other dance enthusiasts at one of the small, dedicated dance theatres in the big cities, and I saw television as the potential solution to this dilemma.

Because at that time the chances of finding a workshop or course dedicated to video-dance were slim, I felt that the best way to learn about making dance for television was to study video. I was lucky enough to gain a place on the post-graduate diploma course in Electronic Imaging at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee.

While my expectations of learning about what was then high-end video production where more than fulfilled at DJCA, what I had not reckoned on was that I would also come into contact with the world of video-art. This was definitely an added bonus, as I found many of the approaches being taken by video artists at that time had interesting bearing when applied to video-dance. Ideas that I formulated while at art college have formed the basis of many of the 20 or so video dance works that I have made in the intervening 12 years.

My initial aim had been to make dance for the telly. However, I have found that, while I have since directed a great deal of arts and documentary programmes for the BBC, Channel 4 & ITV, I have only had one video-dance commissioned for broadcast, which was ‘Pace’, made in 1995 with Glasgow-based dancer and choreographer Marisa Zanotti and commission by BBC2/Arts Council of Great Britain.

However, I am in no way disheartened by this situation, because I feel that the fact that most of my work has been funded by non-broadcast or private commissions has given me a freedom to experiment and take risks that might not have been possible in the context of a broadcast commission. And, as I have mentioned, the opportunities for getting video-dance work seen beyond television are ever increasing.

When it comes to writing the book, the fact that I can draw both on my experience directing television programmes and on my own artistic approach is of great benefit. What the Creative Scotland Award has given me is the opportunity to reflect on my own journey to this point, to discuss and share experiences with other practitioners, and to find ways of communicating my observations of the creative processes involved in making video-dance.

Writing is a very different process from directing – much more solitary, requiring a very focussed concentration, yet also incredibly satisfying. I am really enjoying being able to work so close to home – directing always required me to travel a great deal – yet email (hopefully one day soon broadband), the phone and post keep me in touch with the international world of video-dance.

The sleeper service (long may it last) is an invaluable link South when face to face contact is needed. I hope that, when finished, the work-book that I am writing will be as inspiring, illuminating and enjoyable to its readers as the process of writing is proving to be for me.

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