FOR Scottish Ballet, DIG (Dance International Glasgow) is not simply a chance to perform a newly commissioned work, live, on the opening night of the entire season. DIG also hosts an introduction to the company’s pioneering digital project, Under The Skin.
In recent years, live streaming has meant audiences in Scotland and beyond could access the actuality of the company at work in class, in rehearsals, even backstage, preparing to perform. Under The Skin builds on that, by involving new technology in the creation of short works that can only be seen on-screen.
Scottish Ballet’s artistic director, Christopher Hampson, invited artists from different disciplines to enter into creative collaborations with the dancers. The results have, as he hoped, revealed how movement can take on different qualities when it becomes part of another genre. Filmmaker David Eustace, poet Jackie Kay and digital artist Pawel Kudel have brought their own perspectives to dance-making, while a collaboration with the BBC has proved truly ground-breaking with a duet, The Perfect Place, captured using 360 degree technology – you really can follow the action round the room and become immersed in the story-line.
Scotland’s poet laureate, Jackie Kay, looked at ageing, and her words have given rise to choreography, by Hampson, that explores what the body harbours of our younger and older selves. Principal dancer Sophie Martin had only just returned from a sabbatical when she found herself braving the wintry chills at St Peter’s Seminary in Cardross while David Eustace shot the hauntingly poetic What Dreams We Have. Bleak woodland, mists, and the deserted, flaking walls of the Seminary frame Martin’s on-screen performance with atmospheres not even the finest stage set could achieve.
Highlights of Under The Skin will be available as a free-to-view installation during DIG, as will live daily streaming (from Monday April 24) of choreographer James Cousins as he sets about creating a work in just one week.
scottishballet.co.uk/event/digital-season
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