Flash! Bang! Whatta picture...

I've just uploaded a whole load of photos from the DISI party at the end of March and Club Noir at the start of June to my flickr page. Go and have a gander and a giggle.

Also, the first showing of 'As the sparks fly upwards...' went really well. It wasn't a huge turnout but the feedback was invaluable and I can't wait till September to do it for real.

Burning and Burning

What a week it's been. In uni I've been busy editing the multi-camera shoot for Scottish Dance Theatre's latest piece DOG which is actually a lot of fun. In one viewer you have the choice of footage from the four different cameras and in the other you see your current selection. It's very tactile and very similar to choreography in that you pick the best view of each section to show the audience. Anyway, it's all good fun but not when you only have two days to learn it, do it and get it onto DVD for Scottish Dance Theatre to show to a festival in Athens. And even less fun when you're left to your own devices to do it. To say I was feeling a little un-supported is putting it mildly. Anyway thanks to Derrick's Linton and Blackie and a marathon DVD burning session today it's all done and they better like it!

Back to my own stuff next week learning Isadora. Woo hoo!

Other burning news. My pee is on fire again. Not funny at all. Back to the doc's tomorrow to get it sorted. I'm getting really fed up with it now, it seems like every few months I have cystitis. It used to go away after a few hours and a dose of Cystopurin but not it lasts at least a week and medicine only takes the sting out of it slightly.

After that pleasant news... I also finished a new film this week (yes, that's how busy I've been!). These Things Happen was filmed at Angus Balbernie's creative lab a few weeks ago and at first I was struggling with all the footage of very different improvisations and trying to figure out how to put them all together but I had a lightbulb moment at the start of the week and decided to do the minimum amount of editing. The footage I decided to work with was filmed on my mobile and the only thing I did to it was to rotate some of the scenes that were filmed in portrait so the film feels like it's rotating but the dancers stay standing. It's going to be screened at The Dance House's Re:Surface event next Wednesday evening. If you'd like to come along, get in touch and I'll send you an invite.

That's all for now.

Company Class at The STAND

FireBox Dance Theatre is pleased to be opening it's company class to other advanced/professional level contemporary dancers. The class is a fusion of Cunningham, Limon and Bodyslam as well as FireBox's own fast-paced, energetic style.

Company class Monday evenings 7.30pm-9pm at The STAND, Clydebank. Drop in fee £6 or buy a term card for £40 lasting 8 classes. See www.fireboxdancetheatre.co.uk for more info.

The STAND Studio, St Andrew's High School, North Douglas Street, Clydebank, Glasgow G81 1NQ

The studio is on bus route numbers 11, 62 and 66 and is about 10 minutes walk from Clydebank train station.

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.