I was delighted to be successful in my application for a residency at Citymoves Dance in Aberdeen. 

Aberdeen is such an appropriate place to be exploring and further developing the piece that I have been making, which as you may know if you’ve been reading this blog, is about borders and boundaries.

Whilst making the piece I have been incredibly influenced by my Shetland upbringing, and the boundaries that that created (in a good way!).
Whenever home I enjoy the restriction the water boundary causes. Whenever on the mainland I work all across the UK. I accepted all the work I felt passionately about this year, however it has meant that I have travelled around a lot. I love coming home and being restricted to one place. I find it allows my possibilities to grow, and I really appreciate what I have where I have it. However that place is a place that is connected via boat to Aberdeen, therefore Aberdeen was a very appropriate place to explore the work further.

The work had previously been performed at Hidden Door Festival and at Dance Base, both Edinburgh. Initially I had intended for the work to have 4 dancers, however one had got injured incredibly last minute before the most recent Dance Base residency, meaning the final rehearsal before our premiere, therefore I last minute acted on the changes and made the piece a trio instead of a quad.

However, another performance had already been booked in and travel booked in advance. Therefore the trio needed to become a quad. This performance was to be at Mareel, Shetland Arts. Just across the North Sea to Shetland.

And luckily for us, we were the first in residence at the very new (albeit very old) studios. The new studio is The Anatomy Rooms, in the old dissection room of the Marischall College.

What an amazing space to create in. The space is so light and airy, and is set just by the Anatomy Rooms arts space. This was  a great opportunity to meet fellow artists, however this time it was great to meet artists from a variety of art forms. We engaged with musicians and visual artists, and all input and opinions were refreshing and inspiring.

In fact, the Anatomy Rooms and Citymoves were incredibly welcoming. They scheduled an open lunch and artist discussion for the Tuesday, open class for the Thursday and of course our performance on the Friday.  This provided opportunity for me to meet artists in the local community, which I loved! The Anatomy Rooms contacted a Shetland artist, Vivian Ross Smith, who supported the residency with a reading extract. It was so refreshing to see Vivian’s opinions on the subject and the reading she submitted inspired many a discussion. See Vivian’s blog here. 

It was so lovely to be in Aberdeen for a full week. I normally pass through the city. I enjoyed my time spent in Aberdeen thoroughly, made all the better by the wonderful space and support from Citymoves.

What a brilliant residency!

Next stop, Shetland!

We will be performing ‘What we choose to see’ on Friday 21st July at Mareel. Tickets can be found here.

Images are by the wonderful Sid Scott at See Imagine Define.