While the hot Scottish summer and the clear blue skies have reportedly reached our Screen.dance home ‘up North’ at Citymoves Dance Agency in Aberdeen, we are here to remind you that the first of three deadlines, i.e. the early deadline of 20 July 2021 for our current open call as part of Aberdeen’s 17th annual DanceLive 2021 festival, is approaching fast! Submit here or by clicking on the image above.

Thanks to those of you who have already submitted your new and recent Scottish screen dance works for our open call programme through our FilmFreeway platform.

Can’t make our early bird deadline? Our regular deadline is 9 August, followed by the late deadline 20 days later!

Another reminder? Our current Screen.dance open call is for Scottish works, which are no longer than 20 minutes, made in the last 7 years and conform to the genre of screen dance, also known as video dance or dance film – an expanding genre of artist’s moving image created by combining choreographic intention and compositional form, with the language of cinema. Screen.dance does not accept documentations of live performance or dance documentaries. Music videos may be considered if the balance between dance and music is even. Submit here or by clicking on the images above.

Missed our announcement about the other two festival programmes we are curating and touring this autumn while setting the scene in Aberdeen for Screen.dance festival in March 2022? Check our news here.

While we are looking forward to Screen.dance Festival in March 2022, we are delighted to announce that Screen.dance has been invited to curate three programmes as part of two festivals at home and away this autumn.

Firstly, away at the 19th annual Festival Quartiers Danses, Montreal 8-19 September 2021 in line with our ongoing partnership with this leading Quebec festival.

What are the three curated programmes for these two festivals? Here are the first two, to be presented in Montreal first, before their homecoming to Aberdeen:

A retrospective commemorating one of the Scottish pioneers of screen dance, also one of the founders of Screen.dance Festival Simon Fildes (1962-2021).

Movement – a collective moving image homage to the contemporary dance diva Margaret Morris (1891–1980) featuring works by Scottish and international contemporary visual artists and filmmakers.

Apart from these two programmes which we will tour to Montreal 8-19 September 2021, Screen.dance will curate and present a third, open call programme of Scottish screen dance works to be unveiled onsite in Aberdeen and worldwide online as part of the 17th annual DanceLive Festival 14–17 October 2021 and on demand until 31 October 2021.

We are now inviting submissions of new and recent Scottish screen dance works for our third open call programme through our FilmFreeway platform 29 June – 29 August 2021.

Submit here or by clicking on the image below!

Screen.dance 2021 Jury members Anna Clifford, Hayley Durward, Simon Fildes and lliyana Nedkova are pleased to announce all Screen.dance 2021 awards – four festival awards and four special mentions in our two main competitive categories – UK and International. This year our International category uniquely recognises not one but three additional contenders that follow suit from our three curated festival programmes Growing Up, Going Out and Staying In.

And the Screen.dance 2021 awards go to:

UK Jury Award Divided We Scroll 5 min UK Klaas Diersmann, Director WATCH ON DEMAND HERE

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UK Jury Special Mention Collective Stasis 9.58 min UK Jamiel Laurence, Director WATCH ON DEMAND HERE

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International Jury Award Growing Up Category The Last Children 10 min France Fu Le, Director WATCH ON DEMAND HERE

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International Jury Special Mention Growing Up Category Hungars Beach 3 min United States Kate Corby, Director WATCH ON DEMAND HERE

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International Jury Award Going Out Category Memory 9 min Colombia Andrea Pelaez, Director

International Jury Special Mention Going Out Category Black Stains 13.27 min United States Tiffany Rhynard, Director READ REVIEW HERE

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International Jury Award Staying In Category Born Like a Bullet 3.30 min Chile Jimmy Fernández, Director

International Jury Special Mention Staying In Category INTANGOUT 7.48 min Italy Vito Alfarano, Director WATCH ON DEMAND HERE

Let’s rewind to 8 June 2019 when Screen.dance own co-curator Iliyana Nedkova guest-curated a one-off live screening of the entire Migration percussive screen dance series of five films as part of Edinburgh’s mini-festival of percussive dance. A post-screening Q&A was held on the stage at Netherbow Theatre, Scottish Storytelling Centre with Migration’s filmmaker Marlene Millar and choreographer Sandy Silva, as well as the percussive dance guru Nic Gareiss. The live audience was even treated to a trailer of Navigation – the final in the series still in development then. All left the stage with the promise to come back soon for the full theatrical release of Navigation.

Keeping our promise amidst a global pandemic, we are navigating our way back to the same, albeit virtual, stage at the Scottish Storytelling Centre on 20 March 2021 when online audiences from near and far will be able to watch the now finalised and already award-winning Navigation as part of European Ceilidh – a relaxed evening of stories, songs, music, dance (and screen dance!) celebrating World Storytelling Day.

Grab this as an opportunity in a ceilidh line up of storytellers to hear about this stunning screen dance work in a post-screening Q&A with Iliyana Nedkova and Kate Daly – the Irish mezzo soprano who features in Navigation as a soloist with the Lismorahaun Singers, whom she also assists conducting off-screen.

Join in the European Ceilidh – an opportunity for art and ideas to travel without us needing to. Use Navigation to visit the spectacular Burren region of the west coast of Ireland which provided the setting of this screen dance featuring the performances of 10 dancers, singers (including Kate Daly) and a community choir of 40 participants.

Book your European Ceilidh ticket by clicking here or on the image above

Worth reminding oursleves that Navigation received its first of six laurels so far – Screen.dance 2020 International Jury Mention – following its world premiere at Scotland’s festival of dance on screen on 20 June 2020 when Kate Daly and Marlene Millar joined Iliyana Nedkova and others for a post-premiere Zoom chat or soon after when Marlene Millar sat down with the team of Motion Dance Collective for an interview released as part of their screen dance podcast series.

Now you can sample more screen dance by other Quebec artists like Marlene Millar as part of our Screen.dance 2021 exclusive programme With Love from Quebec streaming on demand until 31 March 2021 in our screening room here or find out how it all began in 2017 when Pilgrimage – one of the early works in the Migration screen dance series won the Screen.dance 2017 International Jury Award and led to Marlene Millar’s major solo exhibition.

Thanks to all of you for tuning in from across the world and spending the good part of 9 hours with us yesterday at the Screen.dance 2021 festival HQ in Aberdeen.

Thanks for sharing with us your personal favourites of the day – be it from any of our two our artists’ presentations, the writing masterclass with Cara Hagan or the Growing Up and Going Out programmes.

The highlights of Screen.dance 2021 Festival Day 3, Saturday, 13 March 2021? Just like in our second festival day, we have lined another 9 hours of livestream and live Q&A with 30 min breaks every 90 min. Just like the first two days, this last festival day will be brought to you wherever you are in the world from the heart of Aberdeen. Just like yesterday, we hope you can join us between 12:00 and 21:30 GMT.

We kick off at 12:00 GMT with Screen.dance 2021 Artists’ Presentations and Live Q&As as part of Let’s Hear It from the Artists. Part 3 and Part 4 hosted by Anna Clifford from the Motion Dance Collective. First we hear from Jennifer Tarrazi-Scully, Saebyeol Gwon aka Shine and Sumedha Bhattacharyya and then from Natasha Gilmore and Sofia Kondylia.

We continue in the afternoon with Let’s Chat about Screen Dance in Scotland at 16:00 GMT – an opportunity to check Scotland’s pulse, place and pace in the international screen dance landscape. See inspiring examples by the pioneers of Scotland’s screen dance Katrina McPherson and Simon Fildes, alongside screen dance works by Scottish and international artists commissioned by various institutions in Scotland. Let’s consider how Scotland could be a leader and innovator in screen dance in a changing post-COVID-19 world.

Let’s Chat about Screen Dance in Scotland

Our Screen.dance 2021 evening will be spent with two programmes followed by live Q&As with some of the exhibiting filmmakers and choreographers from across the world. We start with the last of our three curated programmes Staying In – Rediscovering the Incredible Indoors featuring works from the contenders of our International Jury Awards Finalists from 17:30 GMT. We then move on to our festival finale with our Screen.dance 2021 Exclusive With Love from Quebec and Festival Quartiers Danses curated by Marlene Millar and Iliyana Nedkova.

All you need to do in order to enjoy and engage with Screen.dance 2021 Day 3? Just book your ticket, either as a day pass here or bring your full festival pass along!

Thank you, one and all, for joining us in record numbers on the red carpet in Aberdeen last night for the Screen.dance 2021 Festival Launch where we revealed not only our world premiere of Deer OH by Natali McCleary but also our new Simony Award for Screen Dance. The very first award of its kind, recognising achievements in the field of screen dance went to… Simon Fildes, the daydreamer, artist, curator, educator and mentor who established Scotland’s Screen.dance Festival of dance on sreen – just one of his many achievements.

The highlights of Screen.dance 2021 Festival Day 2, Friday, 12 March 2021? We have just over 9 hours of livestream and live Q&A with 30 min breaks every 90 min. We will be bringing this programme to you wherever you are in the world from the heart of Aberdeen from 12:00 to 21:30 GMT!

We kick off at 12:00 GMT with Screen.dance 2021 Artists’ Presentations and Live Q&As as part of Let’s Hear It from the Artists. Part 1 and Part 2 hosted by Anna Clifford from the Motion Dance Collective. First we hear from Sofia Castro, Daniel Navarro Lorenzo and Marisa Cecchetti, and then from Fu Le and John & Susan Mann.

We continue in the afternoon with Let’s Chat about Screen Dance Writing with dance writer Cara Hagan at 16:00 GMT. It is a must for anyone interested in employing creative tactics to write artfully and with depth about screen dance and other art forms. We know that our strong group of 9 aspiring dance writers hailing from Mexico/Sweden, Portugal/France, Italy/London, and 3 from Aberdeenwill be there on the front row. They started their workshop Let’s Write About Screen Dance yesterday led by our resident Screen.dance 2021 writer Róisín O’Brien.

Our Screen.dance 2021 evening will be spent with two of our three programmes of the International Jury Awards Finalists from 17:30 GMT. We will be in the company of 18 films and hear from some of the exhibiting filmmakers and choreographers from across the world, including Russia for the first time as part of our festival.

Hungars Beach by Kate Corby is one of the nine films in the part 1 programme Growing Up – Rediscovering our Inner Child rediscovering the body language of children.

Black Stains by Tiffany Rhynard is one of the nine films in the Part 2: Going Out – Exploring the Great Outdoors programme charting new terrains in the Great Outdoors.

All you need to do in order to enjoy and engage with Screen.dance 2021 Day 2? Just book your ticket, either as a day pass or a full festival pass here!

How well do we know Scotland’s history of screen dance?

How can we build on the successes of commissioning, exhibiting and collecting screen dance in Scotland?

How can festivals like Screen.dance and DanceLive support Scottish and International screen dance artists?

These are just some of the questions which we will pose in our open Screen.dance 2021 discussion Let’s Chat About Screen Dance in Scotland facilitated by Hayley Durward and Iliyana Nedkova.

Join us for an opportunity to check Scotland’s pulse, place and pace in the international screen dance landscape. We will offer some inspiring examples including by the pioneers of Scotland’s screen dance Katrina McPherson and Simon Fildes, alongside screen dance works by Scottish and international artists commissioned by various institutions in Scotland.

Together, we will aim to consider how Scotland could be a leader and innovator in screen dance in a changing post-COVID-19 world.

BOOK YOUR TICKETS HERE

Meet the founding Artistic Director of Screen.dance Simon Fildes – a self-proclaimed ‘daydreamer’ and an international award-winning filmmaker, artist, curator and teacher based in Edinburgh, Scotland.

In advance to our Screen.dance 2021 four-part series Let’s Hear it from the Artists series featuring ten artists’ presentations, we would encourage you to hear it from the horse’s mouth – Simon, himself and what screen dance means to him!

Just tune into this interview with Simon recorded in September 2020 as a dedicated episode of The MDC Talks | A Screendance Podcast hosted by The Motion Dance Collective’s own Omari Carter and Anna Clifford – both of whom are hosting some of the Live Q&As at this year’s festival.

Hear Simon talk about the evolution of the screen dance terminology, his connection to music and a desire to make art that inspires feeling. He highlights the importance of making mistakes and giving yourself permission to fail in order to explore your own voice.

Listen to Simon speak about why watching other artists’ work is as important as allowing yourself to have an opinion. Simon also discusses some of the common trends and tropes in screen dance and the impact COVID-19 is currently having on the screen dance industry.

Intrigued? Still time to book your Screen.dance 2021 pass here to see for yourself what screen dance really means to Simon.

Are you a designer or a filmmaker?

Are you up for our Screen.dance 2021 open source challenge?

This year we commissioned a new, updated graphic identity by artist Andy McGregor. You would have seen this new logotype in all its colourways popping up throughout our communications with you, including at the beginning of our Screen.dance 2021 trailer created by artist Lewis Gourlay. The new identity builds on the previous logotype design but includes some important tweaks and modifications which will make for a more robust, balanced and adaptable exprience.

The primary logotype is based around the URL for screen.dance with the lettering arranged equally around the central dot from the web address. The dot is the core of the logo and everything emanates from or rotates around that point. Where possible the logo should be positioned to have equal space at either side maintaining the central dot position

In Andy’s own words:

We are keen that the Screen.dance logotype takes on a life of its own through motion and that it becomes animated in exciting and interesting ways that evoke a universe of dance and movement. To that end we are making files available that allow graphic animation and would encourage anyone to have a go. All we would ask is that the animation ‘resolves’ to the standard screen.dance logo at the end of the animation and holds on that frame for 5 seconds and that you respect our Screen.dance organisation and don’t do anything with it that might cause offence or infringe others copyright.

So, you are up for taking our Screen.dance dot for a spin by entering our Screen.dance 2021 open source challenge?

Please, get in touch with our festival partner Citymoves Dance Agency in Aberdeen by emailing Hayley Durward <hayley.durward@citymoves.org.uk> with ‘Screen.dance 2021 Open Source Challenge’ in the subject line.

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