PHOSPHORESCENCE: a weekend of dance in partnership with DanceLive

Friday 15 October @ 6.30pm

Saturday 16 October @ 3pm - 9pm

Sunday 17 October @ 2pm - 6pm

DanceLive returns live to Aberdeen from 14 - 17 October. The 17th iteration of the festival from Citymoves Dance Agency; will include online, indoor and outdoor performances. We are delighted to be partnering with Citymoves on this project with Phosphorescence featuring as part of DanceLive 2021.

We invited dance artists Luke Pell and Lucy Cash to curate Phosphorescence; a weekend of creative encounters including dance, talks, films and sensory workshops. Phosphorescence is about coming together and shining a light on what matters to us all now.

You can read Luke and Lucy's reflections on the festival here.

Artist Mhairi Allan completed a residency as part of Phosphorescence, read about Mhairi's experience here.

'Everything in the universe has a rhythm, everything dances'. Maya Angelou

Phosphorescence brings together a collection of artists working with innovative and engaging forms to shine a light on ways in which we can tune in to what matters now in the places and conditions we find ourselves in. It presents dance alongside other art forms to reveal the rhythms, patterns and sensations that movement invites us to feel.

Highlights include a visual artist translating weather and mood into ice cream; a dance artist migrating through spaces between dream and waking; two writers connecting patterns of movement to patterns of words and a screening of From Scotland with Love a joyous encounter with everyday Scots lives retrieved from a feast of archive material.

The programme begins on Friday night with a conversation from environmental artist and photographer, Jeni Reid, followed by a special work-in-progress from our dancer and maker-in-residence Molly Danter. Saturday and Sunday include a mix of live performance, screenings and talks with a single ticket purchase for each day.

More details…

Friday 15 October @ 6.30pm

PHOSPHORESCENCE - BETWEEN MOVEMENT AND PHOTOGRAPHY

The programme begins on Friday night with a conversation from environmental artist and photographer, Jeni Reid, followed by a special work-in-progress from our dancer and maker-in-residence Molly Danter.

Saturday 16 October @ 3pm - 9pm and Sunday 17 October @ 2pm - 6pm

Saturday and Sunday include a mix of live performance, screenings and talks with a single ticket purchase for each day.

Saturday 16 October @ 3pm - 9pm

A PREPARATION - FOR A PHYSICALLY DISTANCED LOVE SEAT

(Also on Sunday)

A movement score by Luke Pell and Lucy Cash which invites the doer to connect through touch and observation to a nearby landscape whilst listening to a vocal guide. Movements involve finding a series of simple everyday positions and actions such as: being still in one spot; gentle walking / wandering and lying down / reclining / resting with the help of a love-seat platform!

Luke and Lucy have been considering the role of touch in our lives and the changing ways in which we are able to feel, attend, touch and be touched as a result of the last eighteen months.

Created as part of Luke’s project, Salves for Future Selves (2020) a project for Dance Base Edinburgh with artists Biff & Cooper; Claricia Parinussa, Farah Saleh, Lucy Suggate and Ruairí Ó Donnbháin.

SOFIA KONDYLIA PERFORMANCE: ASLEEP

Asleep is a pop-up piece for one performer, one pillow and a circulating audience. It explores the body’s creativity and imaginative possibilities in relation to Covid-19, presenting the performer in continuous ‘sleep’ mode. With her eyes dreamily closed, the performer is dependent upon her inanimate partner, as they move together between abstraction, intimacy, and home isolation.

Sofia Kondylia is hosting a workshop to accompany her performance of Asleep for groups aged 60+.

Choreography, Performance: Sofia Kondylia, Dramaturgy: Eleni Mloukie, Music: Antari Loops, Voice: Elli Kampitsi, Scenic design: Sofia Kondylia, Supported by: Citymoves Dance Agency SCIO and Aberdeen Gallery, Archives & Museums

SOFT LINES: MOVING WITH TASTE

How do the immediate surroundings make us feel? Can an ice cream flavour capture and hold the idea of a landscape? Join us for an unusual tasting event.

Inspired by the River Dee which hugs Banchory and the Barn, with its wild garden and surrounding allotments, artist Ieva Grigelionyte will present ‘Soft Lines: moving with taste’ – an edible exploration of our place. Sensory, nostalgic and mnemonic experiences will be translated into ice cream flavours that are as delicious as they are inspiring.

SCREENING OF: FOREST FLOOR (4 MINS, 2020 ) AND HOW THE EARTH MUST SEE ITSELF (13 MINS, 2019)

Forest Floor Shot in Abernethy Forest in the Cairngorms, Forest Floor considers different bodies and physical access challenges in a rural location. Close friends Julie and Robbie sit quietly together on the ground, a simple idea requiring a novel approach. Robbie Synge (Cairngorms) and Julie Cleves (London) are performance artists. Their work together playfully investigates cooperative, embodied solutions to access problems, often Involving simple DIY-made objects.

Awards include: Best of Fest, Dance Camera West, USA (2021); Best of International Shorts, Flickerfest, Australia (2021).

How the Earth Must See Itself (A Thirling) Also filmed in the subartic alpine environment of the Cairngorm Mountains How The Earth Must See Itself (A Thirling) draws on the writing of Nan Shepherd and the choreography of Simone Kenyon to invite the viewer into a meditative, sensuous and poetic being with the mountain. Filmed on S16mm film, fragile, weathered images evoke the fallibility of our perceptions.

"No one knows the mountain completely who has not slept on it. As one slips over into sleep, the mind grows limpid; the body melts; perception alone remains. One neither thinks, nor desires, nor remembers, but dwells in pure intimacy with the tangible world.” (The Living Mountain – Nan Shepherd)

A film by Lucy Cash and Simone Kenyon with extracts from The Living Mountain read by Shirley Henderson; produced by the National Theatre of Scotland and Scottish Sculpture Workshop.

Performers/devisors: Jo Hellier, Claricia Parinussa, Caroline Reagh, Keren Smail and Petra Söör Composer: Hanna Tuulikki Choir leader and vocalist: Lucy Duncombe Cinematographer: Peter Emery Sound Designer: Pete Smith

Nominated for best Scottish short film award, Glasgow Film Festival, 2020

MOSS SCORES

Dancer and maker-in-residence Molly Scott Danter will perform material that emerges from their week in residence at the Barn with visual artist Caroline Dear. Molly and Caroline have been looking at the growth patterns and structure of moss in connection with their shared interest in movement and landscape and the ways in which people and place are intertwined.

SCREENING OF: FROM SCOTLAND WITH LOVE

From Scotland With Love, Virginia Heath’s hypnotic archive film with transcendent musical score by Scottish composer King Creosote, offers a cinematic reflection on 20th century human experience.

We're delighted to have Virginia join us for a post-screening Q&A to talk about the process of making the film; telling stories through gesture and movement and how the film celebrates a sense of community.

Conceived and created over the length of a year for Glasgow Commonwealth Games, the film was BAFTA Scotland Nominated 2014 for Best Feature Documentary.

Sunday 17 October @ 2pm - 6pm

MOLLY & LUCY: A PAIR OF RESTING...

Lucy is a dance artist and Molly is a retired greyhound. Through ongoing companionship they have evolved a practice of reclining together which began four years ago as a way to bond, connect and commune at a bodily level. During the pandemic their reclining has taken on deeper significance especially in relation to the act and role of rest and why it is so difficult to achieve. The ‘giant dog bed’ is an invitation into a practice that draws on the greyhound’s ability to translate their rest into power.

For Phosphorescence, Lucy Suggate is creating a two-screen video work that draws on material from her performances with Molly as well as an essay film that explores a loose sticky web of ‘Humanimal’ - relationships between human and more-than-human.

Every day, I wake up to the presence and body of Molly, the greyhound. First thing in the morning she’s all Bambi like, limbs tangled up and endlessly folded. I feel like I am in the presence of a mythical creature. Not really a dog, more shapeshifter. Saint Guinefort - protector of infants, a velveteen assassin, that can reach 43 miles per hour in three strides. It’s the softest, furriest relationship I’ve ever had. So much of it relies on our felt/smelt sense of each other and it is a constant negotiation around communication & consent.

SOFT LINES: MOVING WITH TASTE

How do the immediate surroundings make us feel? Can an ice cream flavour capture and hold the idea of a landscape? Join us for an unusual tasting event.

Inspired by the River Dee which hugs Banchory and the Barn, with its wild garden and surrounding allotments, artist Ieva Grigelionyte will present ‘Soft Lines: moving with taste’ – an edible exploration of our place. Sensory, nostalgic and mnemonic experiences will be translated into ice cream flavours that are as delicious as they are inspiring.

CARE AND ATTENTION ACROSS FORMS (ELIZABETH REEDER & AMANADA THOMSON)

Elizabeth Reeder is an essayist and novelist whose last novel, An Archive of Happiness was longlisted for the Highland book prize, and Amanda Thomson is a visual artist and writer whose first book, A Scots Dictionary of Nature, was published in 2018 and has inspired wonderful interplay between language and landscape. Elizabeth and Amanda will talk about their own work and collaborations across forms and their own connections to place, language, movement, and share thoughts on the Phosphorescence weekend. They’ll talk about microbursts, a collection of essays on illness, care, creativity and grief where images and formatting create new relationships and understandings; and recent works that touch on nature, landscape, family and place, asking the question, what are the ways that we might write, show and encourage care, attention and attendance?

A LONG TABLE - WHAT DANCE MAKES MATTER

The Phosphorescence programme ends with a score for audience and artists, designed to hold space for conversation.

The score was developed by performer and director Lois Weaver from performance company Split Britches and is a form for discussion that draws on the setting of a dinner table to encourage conversational exchange. The Long Table allows voices to be heard equally - disrupting hierarchical notions of ‘expertise.’

Conceived in 2003 it was inspired by Maureen Gorris’s film Antonia’s Line, the central image of which is a dinner table getting longer and longer to accommodate a growing family of outsiders, eccentrics and friends – until finally it has to be moved outside.

The table is set with a number of chairs for conversationalists and a row of chairs on either side for audience to listen, and to take a place at the table if desired. Instructions for how to join the conversation will be provided.

Since 2003, the Table has been set at institutions and festivals worldwide, and invited hundreds of people to sit and share their views on myriad topics. The Long Table is an open-source format; and for this edition at Phosphorescence we will be considering What Dance Makes Matter.