Back to School

Yes, that's right in a moment of madness I accepted an offer to return to uni and do an MSc in Screendance. I found out about the course when an audience member mentioned it after seeing Dark Matter in April. I originally thought it'd be a 6 week intensive that I could pop along to, brush up on my editing skills and then get back to work. It was only when I got chatting to the course leader that I realised the intensity of it all. Not only is it a Masters degree but it's a full year, not an academic year, so I'm signed up to this until Sept 2008.

The course itself will introduce me to new software and techniques and has the opportunity for me to access the Dundee College dancers to create new work. There are only 2 of us full time on the Screendance strand and one other part time but we've been teamed up with Time Based Artists, Sound Artists, Illustrators and Animators as 'Media Arts and Imaging' so there's a range of people to work with on different things.

I'll be spending this year looking into interactive software and it's use within a non-dance context to create dance. It'll all become clear soon enough but basically it means lots of hours in tech suites programming for different eventualities then taking it into the real world, finding out it doesn't work the way I want it to and going back to square one. There will also be a choreographed piece using the software just in case.

It's all very exciting and I'm already noticing little things in my work that could be changed easily and make it much slicker so I'm off to do my first assignment now... the DVD of the last Blaze & FireBox performance.