Wondering what it’s like to study on this pioneering screendance course? Scroll down for key moments over the years, recent blog posts, images and videos.
Students award prize in an Italian film competition
Turin-based organisation COORPI runs an annual, international one minute dance film competition, La Danza in 1 Minuto. In March 2022, they invited the 2020-21 MA Screendance students to select their special mention from the nominees.
The theme of COORPI’s call was power; be that from a personal, political, psychological, or social perspective.
The students chose the animated film Living, by Cesar Diaz Melendez, as their winner, and gave a commendation to Go on by Majid Ashgari. The filmmakers received a certificate with the students' jury statement.
Thank you very much to you and to your students' valuable involvement. We are very happy with the choice they have made and will gladly award both mentions. Thank them warmly on our behalf!
COORPI
International collaboration: Climate Emergency
In January 2022, MA Screendance students took part in an online collaborative project with virtual reality and interactive video specialist Martin Percy.
Martin directed Climate Emergency Interactive, an interactive video and watch party devised with University of the Arts London students that aims to raise awareness about the climate emergency.
LCDS collaborated with the University of Sao Paulo Performing Arts department (USP) and the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts (HKAPA) to develop a new phase of the interactive project, in which students from London, Hong Kong and Sao Paulo met online and created 17 new works (video and photography) in response to Martin’s film.
Word on the Street
As part of their thinking about who the audiences for screendance might be, our students interrogated the word ‘screendance’ and what it might mean to the general public. Alexa Stevens and Madi Plunkett decided to take the question to members of the public in King’s Cross. Watch the results here.
Field Trips
In October and November 2021, the cohort went on field trips across Greenwich Park and Central London. It provided an opportunity to experience the challenges of working on location and to apply some of the concepts discussed in class. They developed their camera skills, experimented with composition in the moment and responded to the environment outside of the controlled conditions of filming in a studio space.
One of the highlights has definitely been the fieldwork we’ve done. I’ve loved being able to put our academic coursework into practice, and to do that with each other as a group.
Alexa Stevens
Screening student films at the British Museum: Camden Alive
In March 2020, MA Screendance students joined the Camden Alive project, a programme of arts and cultural events commissioned by Camden Council. They collaborated with the Sidings Community Centre in north Camden and augmented reality company Arcade, who were responsible for the augmented reality technology. The project culminated in an event at the British Museum where 5 student films were screened alongside other Camden Alive commissioned art works. Have a read of this Camden News article to find out more.
We were excited by the opportunity offered by Camden Alive to connect in a new way with our local community. As we are running the only postgraduate course in screendance in the world - choreographing for the screen - there was a natural match with the digital innovation at the heart of Camden Alive. Our students made a set of striking short films centered on some of the extraordinary people they met at The Sidings, which we are proud will form part of the virtual museum and be enjoyed by generations to come.
Helen Keall, Director of Operations at The Place
