Performances made for film by contweedancecollective, Bridie Gane, Rob Heaslip and Katrina McPherson, and Farah Saleh
- Cells of Illegal Education A choreography that revisits gestures of civil disobedience in Palestine, exploring ways to continue peaceful education in times of conflict.
- Foul Fish An unusual sea creature washes ashore in this performance made for film.
- Water & Man A ritual for water in seven short minutes.
- Our Heritage Investigating dance as one of the ways stories are told and histories remembered, this performance was filmed in two countries and compares German and Dutch memories of living under national socialism.
These performances on film combine choreographic experimentation with the expansive perspectives of the cinematic framework.
Foul Fish and
Water & Man are atmospheric, visually playful works exploring watery environments at a time of global warming and extreme fluctuations; in both films, surrealism suddenly seems a logical framework for reflecting on the climate crisis and where we might go from here. In contrast,
Our Heritage and
Cells of Illegal Education take up questions of the archive and historiography and how dance can be an intervention in the current politics of oblivion. All four films are thought-provoking, exhilarating works by artists who have previously collaborated with the Goethe-Institut Glasgow.
Cells of Illegal Education (Farah Saleh)
Cells of Illegal Education (
C.I.E.) is a video dance installation that revisits gestures of civil disobedience carried out in Palestine. We will be presenting just the video element of the installation.
Cells of Illegal Education reenacts, transforms and deforms gestures carried out by Birzeit University students between 1988 and 1992, while they were trying to continue their education. During this period, schools and universities were being closed by Israeli military rule, and students and teachers who refused to conform were labeled 'Cells of Illegal Education'. The illegal classes were organised in alternative spaces, such as houses, the entrance to the university and the university itself. The video revolves around two group pictures and a painting documenting these three situations. It attempts to recreate the students acts before, during and after the pictures were taken. Intertwining archival materials, oral testimonies and imagination this installation is a gestural reflection on the phenomenon of civil disobedience and popular resistance and their echoes today, from romanticism to reenactment.
Previously shown at: Granoff Center (Providence, Rhode Island, USA) in March 2016, Ramallah Contemporary Dance Festival (Ramallah) in April 2016, Somerset House (London) in December 2016, Alserkal Avenue (Dubai) January in 2017, CCA (Glasgow) in October 2017, HAU (Berlin) in November 2017, and Fruitmarket Gallery (Edinburgh) in February 2019.
Runs: 12 minutes
Concept and Choreography: Farah Saleh / Performers: Salma Ataya, Fayez Kawamleh, Ibrahim Feno, Maali Khaled, Hiba Harhash, Farah Saleh / Video: Mohanad Yaqubi / Camera: Sami Said / Producer: Zina Zarour / Music: Muqata’a / Coloration: Karam Ali
Foul Fish (Bridie Gane)
An unusual sea creature washes ashore in this performance made for film. Foul Fish imagines a dystopian future where land and sea meet, creating a hybrid creature: part human, part fish, part rubbish heap.
Runs 5:43 minutes
Choreography: Bridie Gane
Performers: Katie Miller, Tess Letham, Skye Reynolds
Camera: Lucas Chih-Peng Kao
Music: Pete Judge mit James Gow
Costume Design: Alisa Kalyanova
Water & Man (Rob Heaslip and Katrina McPherson)
A ritual for water as a powerful force, a natural element, a dwindling resource, a sum on an accounting sheet.
Water & Man was screened at the prestigious American Dance Festival's Movies by Movers Festival in 2022, and was an official festival selection at Dance Camera West, Red Rock Screendance Film Festival, Dare to Dance in Public, Exeter Dance International, Light Moves, InShadow and Screendance Festival.
Runs: 7:48 minutes
Direction: Katrina McPherson
Performance and Choreographer: Rob Heaslip
Music: Philip Jeck
Our Heritage (conweedancecollective)
In this beautiful and moving performance on film, choreographers Laura Saumweber and Johanna Knefelkamp-Storath worked with non-dancers to explore how dance and movement can be a way to transmit embodied memory down the generations, with a focus on the impact of national socialism. The performers range from teenagers to a woman in her 90s, underscoring how even though remembrance can fade as the number of those who survived the concentration camps dwindles, books, archives, museums, storytelling and dance are ways to aid memory and to build a bridge to the past.
Accompanying the screendance film is a video recording by Dutch journalist Yoeke Nagel reading from her book about her grandmother's role in the Resistance.
The film is in Dutch and German with English subtitles. The reading by Yoeke Nagel is in English.
Runs: 28 minutes; the reading is on a separate screen and runs just over 8 minutes.
Choreography: Laura Saumweber and Johanna Knefelkamp-Storath
Reading: Yoeke Nagel
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