It all began as I took my first steps onto the stage after graduating from Laban. I was fortunate enough to perform with some really fun dance, theatre and circus companies, an experience that left me awed and inspired. However, beneath the shimmering lights and the applause, I carried with me a vision – a vision that became a strong urge to carve a unique path that blends all my ethnicities and curiosities with the world of performing arts.
I longed to be part of something profound, as well as fun and enjoyable. I wanted to explore, discover, and make works that would not just entertain, but also challenge and provoke, while igniting a fire of introspection in the audience! I wanted to create performances that dared to question the core foundations of our innate, socialised, and personal existence – unpacking our perceptions, our logic, our mundane and awe-filled experiences and also our all-pervading socio-economic structures.
My urge to express this multiplicity of ideas through the universal language of dance was fed by everything from the intricacies of marketing to explorations of contemporary societal values. It felt like expressing this complexity demanded a multi-media setup.
As always, I am interested in exploring what lies beyond traditional conventions. My vision demands an interdisciplinary approach: film, projection, interactive design, and the newest digital technologies available to create a harmonious experience of immersion; a creative blend of artistic forms that transcends boundaries.
Yet there is so much more to my creative journey than the pursuit of innovation. I still work to dissolve the partitions that divide us within the theatre’s walls. I like to work between the lines and spaces that separate performance from audiences, the MA what is MA? that separates stage from audience.
Pas de Cinq
The multidisciplinary performance, Pas de Cinq offered an immersive experience where everyone present was an active participant in the unfolding narrative. The choreography called for a unique setup without traditional stages or seats, with the audience at the centre of an open space. Surrounding them, four walls displayed underwater dance films, while dancers performed in close proximity to the audience and a Butoh dancer descended from the ceiling on a Perspex table. Circus performers used aerial silks and cocoons in the vertical theatre spaces around the audience. This setup encouraged the audience to actively engage by walking around, exploring, and fully immersing themselves in the performance.
This mash-up of styles and format went further! I began to infuse neo-classical ballet and contemporary dance with the polycentrism, polyrhythmic and poly-architectural essence of Raqs Sharqi. Using the body’s geometry, I allowed this rich mixture of cultures to lead on the aesthetics and the dramaturgy of the narrative.
The Poetry of Choreography
The poetry of choreography is whispered through every articulation of bones, and expressed through what is seen or felt from the linearity of muscles, all the way through to the spaces a performance inhabits. I longed for the sensuous sway of hips to be a brushstroke on the canvas of IJAD’s performances.
The stories IJAD collates are those of authenticity and communities. They are collected secrets, shared fairy tales and gathered dreams, from refugees, or small villages in Cambridge, Colchester, Ely, Taipei, Perugia, Dusseldorf . . . I am still on the enriching journey of seeking new ways to gather and share stories and build communities in digital spaces.
This incredible journey has given me the opportunity to discover new narratives, not just from my own experiences but from the hearts and minds of the audiences who become part of the performance. Their stories are notes of authenticity, the hidden pens that inscribe the rich tapestry of human experience onto the stage.
So, what inspired me to create IJAD?
It was the relentless pursuit of the unexplored, the powerful creative energy for artistic evolution, and the innate desire to connect with humanity’s deepest emotions. IJAD became the vessel through which my thoughts, ideas, and challenges found their expression, and it continues to be the stage where the narratives of countless individuals and communities come to life through the mesmerising language of dance. It’s a journey that invites you to join in, to dance to the rhythm of authenticity, and to unlock the stories hidden within us all.
We are choreographers, dancers, theatre makers, technologists, academics, athletes, magicians, and world-makers! We invite you to dream, and together create the new.
We are creating hybrid performance that offers physical (in-person) and remote (online) audiences an equally valuable experience. Using new technologies allows us to invite more people to enjoy our live shows and opens up the discussion about what “live” means and how to create connection with audiences wherever they are in the world. We take into account how viewing remotely differs from being at the venue – our audience is not captive, maybe we don’t have their full attention or three bars of wifi? As for those inside the venue, seeing artists responding to, and playing with live streaming technology, gives our physical audience an awareness of those tuning in remotely from beyond the four walls of the venue. And understanding that this is a different kind of show. There are limitless possibilities
We can do digital hopping , blending physicality and digital spaces: the integration of physical movements in the digital environments through the use of mocap. By combining sensography with projection mapping or virtual reality, artists can create immersive experiences that transport audiences into fantastical worlds or engage them in interactive storytelling.
Building and delivering multi-user metaverse, like that created by Bianca li in her performance work, using virtual reality: le Bal de Paris: Another example is the incorporation of live streaming technology, allowing remote viewers to actively participate in the performance. Artists can engage with virtual audiences through real-time chat or gaming, or even inviting them to influence the direction of the performance, like Home X. This interactivity bridges the gap between physical and remote audiences, creating a sense of shared presence and collective experience.
Be a part of the future of performing arts
This is a call to all hybrid artists, developers, venues, tech companies, academics – anyone who wants to be part of the growing sector of hybrid performing arts.
IJAD Dance is planning a new programme of panel discussions, training and artist residencies. If you’d like to be part of our programme as an artist, organisation, thinker, technologist – get in touch!
We’re aware there are challenges to producing experimental work in the arts, when it’s all about the bottom line, and at the most basic level, survival. We also know that risk-taking and experimentation are the cornerstone of creativity, and they are what keeps the arts vibrant, alive and relevant.
So, what’s the answer? You are, and we are, collectively.
Developing work, particularly with technologies involved, of course costs money. We believe that by embracing new partnerships and working together we can share that load, and let the new evolve.
At IJAD Dance, we have been creatively risk-taking since our inception, and we don’t plan to stop now. Through presenting hybrid work since 2010, we’ve learned there’s no progress without taking a chance on new ideas. Progress is our driving force and raison d’être. We like being on this edge. Each time we slip, we learn and grow, and so does the sector as a whole.
We’re exploring unchartered territories where virtual meets reality, and imagination can create worlds where audiences influence multiple possibilities of each story, to create infinite narratives. Let’s stretch ourselves physically, intellectually creatively, inviting audiences to be amazed and expand their imaginations.
While hybrid performance remains in its infancy, there is space for artists who want to take ownership and make their mark creatively. Could you be one of them?
Tell us about yourself and your approach to or thoughts about performing arts and technology via this questionnaire: https://forms.gle/gAT7rvidRJGXHyUg8
OOT Artist Residency and OOTFest
Here at IJAD we offer a lab-style, collaborative environment to bring together artists, audiences, producers, programmers and technologists. In this space we foster experimentation, and experiential learning with a focus on the intersection of new technologies and performing arts.
Our aim is to nurture individual creativity and sectoral development by testing and sharing new approaches to hybrid performance, via training in digital technologies, to upskill creative practice and enhance audience participation and engagement. OOTFest is our global performance opportunity for risk takers at this exciting intersection.
This is an era driven by AI, ChatGPT, and all kinds of speedy technological advancements. Can the culture industry sail swiftly through this paradigm shift, or does it need to negotiate a pivotal crossroads?
The convergence of dance and performing arts with new technological spaces creates opportunities and challenges. Can they evolve in parallel to one another, or out of each other, in the way arts have evolved throughout creative history?
Like any new sector, hybrid performance is risky; we’re still learning how to find a sweet spot that simultaneously entertains and engages remote audiences in VR headsets, and those sitting in a venue watching the show IRL. We’re also still looking into how virtual worlds can be rendered in high enough quality while being live streamed, and ways an artist can maintain contact with a physical audience while wearing a VR headset. Think about that! It’s tricky.
If you’re an artist interested in experimenting with hybrid forms, dare to dream, get in touch.
If you’re a venue or organisation interested in collaborating to programme exceptional works using emerging technologies then we would love to hear from you.
Over 92% of UK adults own a smartphone, and around 171 million people worldwide are using VR, with this appetite for new tech growing exponentially. Performing Arts is an early-adopting sector, due to the seemingly infinite creative possibilities offered by embracing and combining new technologies.
At this exciting time in performing arts, when emerging technologies are offering new ways to share ideas and really involve audiences, we invite you (artists, producers, technologists, curators, academics) to join us in discussion and experimentation at this fast-growing intersection.
What is hybrid performance?
‘Hybrid’ is generally used to describe a performance experienced by both live and remote audiences, but at IJAD we see it more as the potential to interweave a variety of innovative digital options within the creative process.
This offers a huge evolution of the ways narratives and artistic ideas can be developed and shared, leading to new forms and areas of experimentation: audience interaction in VR or by phone app, motion-capture, infrared tracking, with visuals and sound activated by movement, and more.
Work with hybridity embedded into it from the outset considers the multitude of possible audience experiences: people using different devices, in different types of location, the level of WiFi connectivity, and the fact that people may be dipping in and out of the performance, behaving in ways unlike traditional theatre viewing.
Audience co-creation
The hybrid artist’s journey with audiences can start with co-creation, where artists employ various methods to engage audiences in creative, artistic activities, such as creative games, feedback, and giving artistic prompts. These lead to rich communication and unpredicted artistic outcomes, while offering audiences a creative opportunity. Online co-creation sessions between artist and audiences can inform a work’s trajectory at the R&D stage and also live, during performances.
In hybrid performance, audiences may be able to interact with performers, and with one another; in VR, either remotely or while in the physical audience; via phone apps, locally, nationally and globally; and affect outcomes and narratives, co-creating work as it happens.
For example, in our latest festival of hybrid performing arts, OOTFest22, Pierre Engelhard’s Synchronicity used social media to request audience movement ideas. These recorded movements were then replicated by dancers in a live performance, in which the choreographies each generated a unique soundscape via the dancers’ body-worn motion-sensors in conjunction with generative music software.
What are the benefits for audiences?
Hybrid performances offer something new and challenging, but it can be difficult for artists to connect with audiences while the use of creative technologies in performance remains outside the mainstream. If we want to bring our audiences along with us on the creative journey, we must consider what the benefits of hybrid performance are for them.
Democratisation of the arts
Co-creation using technologies can take many forms. This democratisation within the arts invites audiences to be actively engaged in choice-making, meaning ‘the artist’ is no longer sole creator of the work.
Remote connectedness
Hybridity can give audiences multiple ways to engage in the same performance. OOTFest22 saw Unwired Dance Theatre’s DISCORDANCE offer a choice of levels of immersion and participation, so remote and physically present audiences could either co-exist with the artists in the virtual environment, interacting there with live dancers in London and a dancer in New York, be virtually present in the VR space without interacting, or be physically in the audience, yet experiencing the results of other audience members’ interactions in VR.
Even audiences watching a hybrid performance live in a venue in the traditional way gain a sense of connection with the global others who may be virtually present in their various remote environments. At OOTFest22, the audience at London’s Rich Mix were in a sense remotely connected to the live audiences watching the livestream collectively at the Atelier de Melusine Gallery in France, and other remote viewers worldwide watching from home.
Becoming Post-Human?
Tech hybridity is already an accepted part of our daily life. We can pop into a VR playspace for a one hour game and go back to work, or put a headset on to experience a dance class, an immersive film, or have a meeting with colleagues across the globe.
Is recording your thoughts and ideas on a tablet or a smartphone a hybrid act? Using an electronic hearing aid? A self-drive car? AI? It can be said that interactions between human and tech are merging us into post-human, hybrid beings.
By working with hybrid performing arts, we’re adding to this fascinating evolution, rethinking and re-imagining how technology can improve lives, in terms of health and access as well as entertainment. There are many people with difficulties of access due to physical, geographical, emotional or financial reasons, or caring responsibilities, who may not be able to attend physical performances and for whom hybrid work can open up creative and engagement possibilities.
Who knows, these hybrid explorations might help us push forward to new concepts of reality, new dimensions and understandings of time, space and matter!
We invite you to join our journey into hybridity where access is open, lines are blurred between artist and audience, and we can be a global, mutually supporting network.
Sign up to our newsletter and join the discussion, to evolve the performing arts via our upcoming Ideation Day, (Date TBC) round table and panel discussions, or joining our hands-on tech artist residency, or . . . . we are open to your suggestions. Let’s talk!
Let’s Talk!
We’re excited about where the combined possibilities can lead, and want to open up the conversation by sharing our ideas and experiences, and hearing about yours.
Through our Open Online Theatre (OOT) artist residencies and Connective Matrix discussion forum, we’re exploring what hybridity offers in terms of creation, imagination and collaboration, and of course ways to keep the human aspect relevant.
During the pandemic, IJAD Dance focused on Open Online Theatre,which allowed them to recreate and rethink how the performing arts sector could support young to midscale artists nationally during the closure of cultural venues and beyond.
We are not big, not an Amazon, or a Google…but we managed to deliver an ambitious programme for artists, beginning in September 2020 and culminating in a week-long live-streamed festival in February 2021, which involved work from 49 professionals.
We used five strategies to keep our approach fluid:
Whatever’s happening, carry on!
Build a space for process, questions, trust and support
Be fluid and adaptable, be agile, nothing is personal, it’s ok not to be sure
Always remember your North Star
Know your team, and your collaborators
Whatever’s happening, carry on!
“The pandemic lockdown scenario(s) demand reflexive and immediate responses to explore and negotiate the physical chasm that has opened up between performer and audience, between lecturer and student, and between space and place.”
Paul Sadot
For a year now, the stories have been about empty: empty theatres, cinemas, schools, streets and community spaces.
And the question has been ‘how do we transform our habitats into spaces conducive to work?’
30 March 2020:We worked at full power while venues were working at 11 to 33% capacity. Email correspondences became a waiting game, like Dumas’ book, L’Attente.
The suspense was in waiting to see how directors would negotiate the absurdity of our new reality.
Immediate reflective responses were what we at IJAD were planning at the time; our momentum was ‘all systems go’ with Open Online Theatre, a virtual venue developing and showcasing new work at the intersection of performing arts and technology; training artists to rethink their practice to make work specifically for live-streaming, via the art of sensography.
IJAD wanted to create a system for artists to monetise their process and performances, and gain training in business and social media, as tools for sustainable careers.
March to June 2020:The first three months of the pandemic were about using our creativity, our listening ears and our communicative nature to work out how to create and supply what the market needed.
Yes, it took a lotof energy; it was very hard to find alternative spaces to perform and to devise methodologies to create between spaces, between times and between bodies.
The narratives, be they abstract or linear, are what we deliver through whispers, poems, words, visuals, movements, touches, and that is what we do as artists.
COVID-19 forced us to pause and to analyse, while we also faced living in fear, and the grief of knowing that friends and family members were contracting the virus or dying from it, while we were unable to visit the hospital to lift their spirits, or support the deceased family, or rejoice for a newborn baby.
Everything quickly became screen-based, and for this our emotions needed to adjust and learn a new way of existing.
Lockdown rules had imposed new spaces, new sensitivities and fears that were challenging both existentially and physically. This newly-pressed existence suddenly became a multitude of isolated existences.
As creators and performers that have been working in the telematic arena, we found ways to invite others to engage with the potentialities of this new performance architecture, this new spatiality.
OOT:Building a space for process, questions, trust and support
“I feel that as I move forwards as an artist, my thought processes will align with the
marriage of each of these components to push the boundaries of the art form.
I really feelthat a process like OOT at the time OOT came about, the different modes of thinking andmy own creative enquiry sitting in science tech and dance, resulted in a process that was very special to me.
Creating a space that reflects on invigorating our practice by using technology within the artwork we are creating, hence the hybridicity, this is a place where we are growing the community of intersection where tech and performing arts are pushing with the new. Hybrid is in the way we integrate the tech and science in the work and where the audiences receive the work.
This was muchmore than a professional artist development programme, but more of a supportmechanism to prepare me for all of the creative processes that I experience movingforwards.”
Lauren Tucker, OOT Artist
Rewind to January 2018:Five international artists trialled the Open Online Theatreprogramme, in its beta version; the programme ran for eight weeks, including three days of workshops in sensography, social media, editing, and film.
At the end of eight weeks, we had a sharing. The programme went well with no major issues; we had an international audience of 600, with 50 people present in the theatre. Artists had great freedom of choice, and live streaming happened as a natural flow.
March 2020:Two years on we faced completely new parameters: in terms of space, digital space, technological incapacity, human interactions, audiences with digital overload, and venues running at reduced capacity.
Fast forward to February 2021: The Open Online Theatre Festival reached 16 countries and 59 cities, hosted online, and from a gallery in France!
‘Be fluid and adaptable, nothing is personal, it’s ok not to be sure’
Joumana Mourad
It’s true,we had system that was successful in 2017-2018, but 2020 came along with entirely new demands: audiences had a ‘Zoom habit’ and digital fatigue, we had more easily accessible Facebook, Instagram, etc. and the artists had different needs.
February 2020:After looking for 10 talented artists to join the programme, we now had artists from Manchester, Birmingham, Devon, Greenwich, London, Brighton….
March 2020:We found ourselves in limbo, between two places, negotiating the space between home and studio, and re-imagining the home asthe studio.
Where are the choreographers, dancers, dramaturgs, performers, engineers, sound people, lighting people, set designers, curators? Where are they creating? Are they forced to pause? What happened to this abundant sector?
Creating art, performances, theatre, dance is what we are born with. It’s our breath – it asserts our existence.
For centuries, these representations have metamorphosed; creators became alchemists and kept on creating magic. In the last few years, through telematics, streaming, interactive design, games, street performances . . . the myriad of potentials has grown even more!
“I really valued the opportunity to grow as an artist in directions I hadn’t expected while overcoming challenges with the support of dedicated mentors and discovering a new network of creative artists.”
O. Pen Be, OOT Artist
Our objective was to create a space where all the artists could be together, and share the experience of all the elements of the programme.
August 2020: The Beirut explosion prompted IJAD to subsidise a Lebanese dance artist to join the programme. There were issues with wi-fi connectivity, but we managed by purchasing a 4G installation at the artist’s studio.
November 2020:We embedded in the programme was a two-day mid-point meeting to go over elements of sensography, and have a sharing of the artists’ works in progress. It coincided with the beginning of the second lockdown, so we quickly adapted it – and our marketing and communications – to be held online.
Our festival date at the end of November was looking questionable; in fact, everything we had planned soon became impossible and the uncertainty of a longer lockdown took its toll on the whole team. The theatres we were working with had less and less flexibility; some had bookings that we were unable to compete with cost-wise.
All the participants and IJAD’s team made a joint decision to postpone the festival until the beginning of February 2021.
OOT artists were offering workshops and co-creation sessions, IJAD was hosting roundtable discussions, there were artists’ Zoom meetings, all of which kept the mood positive.
The glimpse of the New Year ahead came with some optimism. Our plans for the festival in February were taking shape. We’d decided to host some panel discussions, and everything was looking good as momentum built.
“I am very grateful for the opportunity; I have learnt a lot about my creative practice and
developed as a person along the course of this programme.”
Daisy Harrison, OOT Artist
4 January 2021:After a day filled with incredible meetings to make plans for the festival, Boris Johnson announced longer strict lockdown measures. Monday night became another sleepless night filled with new plans and strategies. And deciding whether to deliver the festival or not!
5 January 2021: We spent time waiting for government website updates, talking to colleagues in our industry and to dance bodies, with everything and everyone telling us to wait. This was heavy going as there was still a lot to put in place should we decide to go ahead.
We decided internally that we would keep on preparing, and only in the worst-case scenario would we cancel. By 3pm, we had taken on a Covid health and safety production manager, to navigate the complex safety rules. This was a brilliant investment, as we had someone on board who would act diligently and professionally, giving us accurate information, enabling the team to make informed decisions together.
6 January 2021:After more meetings, and clearer guidance from the government, we decided – with the support of our artists – to definitely go ahead with the festival.
6-8 January 2021:Looking for a festival venue with all the health and safety strictures in place took time and endless emails, many of which went nowhere.
Finally we identified one and loved it! We had a date, we had a theatre, and we still had the uncertainty of lockdown.
11 January:A meeting with the artists. Six hours of sharing narratives, performances, choices around continuing to create, finances, ethics, payments for all the artists, lockdown, lockdown and more lockdown.
Two artists chose to be physically present in the theatre for the festival, another from her kitchen, the rest from their living rooms.
We had until 1 February to pull the festival together, which included six performances and four panel discussions.
It goes without saying our team was dedicated, focused, and more than anything committed to the arts. There was somuch wisdom, kindness and 100% support.
Covid taught us: Be kind, sensitive, grounded and elastic.
Audiences, artists and performers: IJAD needs you!
For those who have been with us on this journey so far, you’ve
witnessed our new discoveries and the evolution in our themes and methods of creating and producing. We’ve been using social media to interact and collaborate with fellow performers and audiences alike, creating performances out of these interactions. And now we’re taking the level of collaboration up a notch, and we need your help. Read on to find out how…
For those of you who don’t know, we’ve been focussing on three ever evolving parallel universes:
· The Personal
· The Universe
· The technology of sharing and interacting on the web
Interact with us
Where before we were asking for Tweets that would be incorporated into
our performances, today we are asking for your tweets to interact with
us, to inspire and effect and create the performance itself.
So whether you’re joining us again or new to IJAD, welcome to the
latest exploration in the In-Finite series…
So what’s it all about?
In-Finite Space is all about, you guessed it, space. And space in all
its forms. For this performance we’re asking you to think about the
existence of 2 types of space and your relationship to it:
– the space you experience as ‘personal’
– the space we consider to be ‘the universe’
For example you might think of The Universe as gravity, the big bang
and the stars in the sky. By contrast, we experience a more personal,
perhaps more tangible type of space which is closer to our everyday
lives – the personal space we form in the buildings and rooms we live
in, or the space within our dreams… The third kind of space, the
digital one, is where we hope to see your imaginations at work. We
believe that the digital space we exist in can help us get closer to
imaging the other types of space… Through sharing ideas and creations.
How can I get involved?
With IJAD the traditional one night stand performance is a thing of the past.
We’ll be having the conversation from today! You can join us at any
time to give your creative ideas, or comment , or watch. Over the next month, we’ll choose a theme from the above and ask you to give us your take on it. You could send us a photo, write a
twitter poem, sketch or paint your response. We don’t mind what form
it comes in, as long as it’s original and produced in response to one
of our posts.
You’ll find the posts on facebook, twitter, Pinterest and Vine and you
can tag your response with #InFiniteReach.
To get you started here’s your first post, it falls under the theme of
The Universe:
A ripple from the past undulates away from my centre where all memories are resting, into the extremity of my skin, Manifesting itself through giggles, games, imagination a world filled with fairy and astronauts dust, allowing me to take time and space to recreate a new reality to my imagination.
We’ve also been working on a Pinterest board which you can follow here: http://www.pinterest.com/ijad08/subjects-universspace/
Need some inspiration? Last year we received this tweet:
@IJADdance
sky is
at the end
of my fingertips
As I reach upward
Where I stand
And finishes
eyes closed
in the far corner
of my imagination
and we danced this…..
Who is IJAD?
We are a performance company dedicated to exploring new ways of
bringing audiences closer to our performances. Over the years we have
done this through digital technologies, live-streaming, photography,
durational and interactive performances. These days you’ll mostly find
us on one of our social media channels – Vineing, Pinning or Tweeting,
and of course, dancing!
This has been a bumper year where the wheels haven’t stopped whirring. Here’s Camilla’s whistle-stop tour.
March saw us present our first performance which combined the three elements of social media, streaming and live performance. In-Finite continued to delve in to the world of secrets and explored the tension of the secret kept and secret revealed. It received over 1000 online views, reached over 400 people on social media and was seen in 11 countries. This was kindly supported by The Asfari Foundation and The Arts Council as well as many generous private donors.
Read the story of Infinite here and view the trailer here.
Not a bad start to the year. We were commissioned to perform a scaled down version of In-Finite in Switzerland for ArtCorps Antilope Festival. Interest in our approach continued and we were invited to run a workshop at Brunel University as part of their Artaud Forum where we built on the outreach workshops we ran at Rich Mix in Shoreditch, London; one of which was delivered across London and Spain.
Swiftly following was more interest from the academic community where we presented our method and it’s applications to the Theatre and Performance Research Association in Manchester. The digital world pricked up it’s ears and we presented our vision at Digital Shoreditch, a week long festival which celebrates the outstanding creative, technical and entrepreneurial talent of East London and Tech City. On the self same day we zoomed up to Cambridge to present a screening of In-Finite at contemporary art gallery Kettle’s Yard.
The summer saw us take part in The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea’ InTRANSIT Festival where we were the largest contributor presenting a whopping 22 performances over 7 days in the outdoor spaces of the Borough and was attended by Councillor Tim Colerdige of RBCK
Sustaining the interest from the academic community we entered in to discussions with Aberystwyth University and the digital performance professor there and opened conversations with Goldsmith’s Centre for Urban and Community Research. A bid for £15,000 to Creative Works London was successful and we are still conducting research with Goldsmiths into twitter conversations that we stimulate for our performances and cultivating new methods of engagement.
Autumn spun around in no time and we were back at Brunel University taking part in a workshop series (also featuring Akram Khan) for their Contemporary Performance Making Series.
RBKC funded us along with The Science Museum to perform again at Nour Festival (last year at we performed for this festival at the V&A Museum) with 3 performances in one night during their Lates series of events about Space where we had amazing attendance online and at the event, the Mayor of RBCK, Councillor Charles Williams attended the event, especially to see our performance which gained 4 stars.
To say a HUGE thank you to all our friends and partners we hosted our First Annual Gala at Camden Proud Old Horse Hospital where we showed snippets of our work peppered with performances from Joumana. We ran a unique Twitter Pilot which was a resounding success that will greatly inform 2014’s work and were able to catch up with you all which we know is sometimes hard at performances!
We achieved a 4 page spread in The Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing Magazine, popped up in the Metro twice and appeared on countless web magazines including Dance UK and various disability press. In-Finite Space Part I had not one but two embedded journalists working alongside us and were even appear on the radio.
We’d also like to thank our amazing twitter and facebook followers who join in by submitting all sorts of amazing ideas such as poetry, pictures, ideas and answers, some of which really took our breath away.
We have an exciting 2014 lined up, so keep an eye out in January where we look forward to announcing another year of contemporary magic which you can be a part of
Barry Macdonald
On Tuesday 19th November at 7pm IJAD will be at Camden Proud, the old horse hospital. Proud is a truly unique venue situated in the heart of stables market, just walking distance from both Camden Town and Chalk Farm stations.
Whether you’re a regular member of the IJAD audience (online, at our IN-Finite performances or, of course on Twitter) or want to find out what it’s all about, join us on the 19th! Discover how we’re using tech to make our pieces more engaging and accessible, meet all the people behind the performances and mingle with the Creative Director, Producer, dancers, collaborators, trustees and superfans. Here’s your chance to ask the questions you’ve always wanted to!
Tickets are just £10 and all the proceeds go towards helping us fund future performances.
Tickets are available in advance by donating £10 through our Virgin Money Giving Page, (we will add you to the prepaid guestlist) or you can buy tickets on the door.
Phillip K Dick
(Hollywood films include Blade Runner(1982), Total Recall(1990) and Minority
Report(2002), A Scanner Darkly (2006))
This is the final part three of my quotes that I hope to inspire you into finding
science marvellous. Herbert was a philosophical wrangler, Asimov was
fascinated by technology – Dick has far more interest in human to human
machinations and how future advances will bring out the worse in mankind.
He’s brilliantly dark.
'It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane.'
'My schedule for today lists a six-hour self-accusatory depression.'
'The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If
you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must
use them.'
'If you think this Universe is bad, you should see some of the others.'
'You will be required to do wrong no matter where you go. It is the basic
condition of life, to be required to violate your own identity. At some time,
every creature which lives must do so. It is the ultimate shadow, the defeat of
creation; this is the curse at work, the curse that feeds on all life. Everywhere
in the universe.'
'There will come a time when it isn't 'They're spying on me through my phone'
anymore. Eventually, it will be 'My phone is spying on me'.'
'The pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Parmenides taught that the only things
that are real are things which never change... and the pre-Socratic Greek
philosopher Heraclitus taught that everything changes. If you superimpose
their two views, you get this result: Nothing is real.'
'There exists, for everyone, a sentence - a series of words - that has the power
to destroy you. Another sentence exists, another series of words, that could
heal you. If you're lucky you will get the second, but you can be certain of
getting the first.'
'A man is an angel that has gone deranged.'
I want to write about people I love, and put them into a fictional world spun
out of my own mind, not the world we actually have, because the world we
actually have does not meet my standards. Okay, so I should revise my
standards; I'm out of step. I should yield to reality. I have never yielded to
reality. That's what SF is all about. If you wish to yield to reality, go read
Philip Roth; read the New York literary establishment mainstream bestselling
writers….This is why I love SF. I love to read it; I love to write it. The SF writer
sees not just possibilities but wild possibilities. It's not just 'What if' - it's 'My
God; what if' - in frenzy and hysteria. The Martians are always coming.
Isaac Asimov
( Hollywood Films include Bicentennial Man (1999) and I, Robot(2004) )
Isaac Asimov is probably the most well known sci fi author.
He wrote about how technology integrate in our lives. We’re still
fascinated by his work as his ethical ponderings about
the role of computing and robots which are become ever
more relevant as we achieve his vision – you’ll know his work
on screen with Bicentennial Man and I Robot. I don’t think he’s a
great writer of people, but great at foretelling massive scientific shifts.
'The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster
than society gathers wisdom.'
'Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinder
critics and philosophers of today - but the core of science fiction, its essence
has become crucial to our salvation if we are to be saved at all.'
'It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor
in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking
into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be.'
'Humanity has the stars in its future, and that future is too important to be lost
under the burden of juvenile folly and ignorant superstition.'
'There is a single light of science, and to brighten it anywhere is to brighten it
everywhere.'
'Tell me why the stars do shine,
Tell me why the ivy twines,
Tell me what makes skies so blue,
And I'll tell you why I love you.'
----------------------------------------
'Nuclear fusion makes stars to shine,
Tropisms make the ivy twine,
Raleigh scattering make skies so blue,
Testicular hormones are why I love you.'
'I write for the same reason I breathe ... because if I didn't, I would die.'
What is Science Fiction? An exhibit at The British Library showed to make any attempt to form sense out the world using metaphor is sci-if and traced (extant proof) back to the Ancient Greek and Romans .
More recently we think of science fiction as the type which emerged from the 1900s where magazines such as Astounding Science Fiction and Thrill Book picked up a cult following and was primarily written by scientists. We now have a SyFy channel and a plethora of series on TV making wonder become a staple form of entertainment.
For me, sci-fi is primarily human. The genre uses the future to illustrate the human relationship we have with our physical world. Some writers, like Kim Stanley Robinson write prophetically. His books, Red, Blue and Green Mars are all written predictions after a career working as the Mars specialist for NASA. Other writers use futuristic settings which are outlandish to show what they believe to be the immutable human condition.
Science Fiction writers tend to be social commentators and dreamers which makes their books remarkably accessible. They’re visionaries who think massively outside their time and so, in celebration, I have collated quotes from three sci-fi writers who had quite an impact on me growing up – for the time in my life they appeared to the messages which profoundly jiggled around the way I thought about the world. I hope they you have a similar experience with their ponderings on life.
Frank Herbert Quotes
(Hollywood Films include Dune (1984 – starring Sting))
‘Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic.’
‘The mystery of life isn’t a problem to solve, but a reality to experience.’
‘A process cannot be understood by stopping it. Understanding must move with the flow of the process, must join it and flow with it.’
‘Nature does not make mistakes. Right and wrong are human categories.’
‘Do actions agree with words? There’s your measure of reliability. Never confine yourself to the words.’
‘A person needs new experiences. They jar something deep inside, allowing you to grow. Without them, it sleeps- seldom to awaken. The sleeper must awaken.’
‘Whether a thought is spoken or not it is a real thing and has powers of reality.’
‘The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something we do not understand.’
‘The concept of progress acts as a protective mechanism to shield us from the terrors of the future.’
‘A human being can stand any amount of pain.’
‘The function of science fiction is not always to predict the future but sometimes to prevent it.’
‘He who can destroy a thing, can control a thing.’
‘There is no escape – we pay for the violence of our ancestors.’
‘Truth suffers from too much analysis.’
‘There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story.’
‘Absolute power does not corrupt absolutely, absolute power attracts the corruptible.’
‘If you think of yourselves as helpless and ineffectual, it is certain that you will create a despotic government to be your master. The wise despot, therefore, maintains among his subjects a popular sense that they are helpless and ineffectual.’
‘One of the best things to come out of the home computer revolution could be the general and widespread understanding of how severely limited logic really is.’
‘The difference between sentiment and being sentimental is the following: Sentiment is when a driver swerves out of the way to avoid hitting a rabbit on the road. Being sentimental is when the same driver, when swerving away from the rabbit, hits a pedestrian.’
And while we’re in the mood for pondering. This is what we’re are doing with In-Finite Space. We’re taking the mathematics of our world and interpreting our human relationship with physics through an exploration of our bodies and minds via a multi-media performance. You can contribute by answering our daily questions about space on #InfiniteReach in whatever format you like (verse, image, video). I would love to know what your favourite sci-fi quotes tickle your mind (Dr Who has some great writers) – let us have them and see if you can spot them in our dance!
