l i g h t o u c h

l i g h t o u c h is a contemporary dance work that takes as its starting point the affect of light on the dancing body. The piece was created for one of the two practice-based modules on the MA Making Performance course at Edge Hill University and premiered within a professional and academic context. 

Extract and image from hand programme of the performance 26.09.13. 

Photography: Helen Newall

Dancers: James Hewsion and Michelle Man

l i g h t o u c h  explores the choreographer’s long-held fascination for the affect of light on the dancing body. Through lighting states that reveal, smudge and extract the body from space, the piece plays with thresholds of appearance and disappearance. By touching on layers of chiaroscuro, it challenges how we sense the dancing body as it slips into shadow. When sight stutters, how might the traces of movement be perceived? What then constitutes our connectivity with this dance? 

The elaboration of l i g h t o u c h  has been the central vehicle to guiding my research during 2013. Through analysing and writing to the creative processes of this project from both a choreographer’s and dancer’s perspective I seek to flesh out the lines of inquiry that have provided the framework to this practice. In doing so I hope to come closer to a language that talks specifically to light in relation to the dancing body.

I have created this Blog as a means of sharing 'capturings' of the research. This includes filming of studio based practice, rehearsals and performance.

Video 1: First Play to Light, 28.02.13, Edge Hill University, Studio 3: twilight

Video 2: First Play to Shadow, 28.02.13, Edge Hill University, Studio 3: twilight