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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For the first tme in our festival history, as part of Screen.dance 2021, we are offering – not one but two – opportunities related to screen dance writing.

Let’s Chat About Screen Dance Writing is our screen dance masterclass led by dance writer Cara Hagan aimed at anyone interested in employing creative tactics to write artfully and with depth about screen dance and other art forms. We know this might be you, so please book your festival pass now.

Let’s Write About Screen Dance is our screen dance writing programme for aspiring writers selected from our open call. Dance writer Róisín O’Brien will lead this introductory programme following on the success of a workshop organised by our festival partner Citymoves Dance Agency during DanceLive Festival 2020 resulting in a series of new reviews. Watch this space for the release of the new Screen.dance 2021 reviews.

We are very pleased to announce that Omari Carter and Anna Clifford of The Motion Dance Collective will be hosting the Live Q&As following our Festival Launch with the UK Jury Awards Finalists on 11 March and the Artists Presentations as part of Let’s Hear it from the Artists on 12 and 13 March 2021.

No stranger to Screen.dance, the founder and Creative Director of the collective, Omari was the winner of our inaugural Screen.dance 2016 UK Jury Award, a festival presenter, workshop leader and a participant in our festivals ever since.

Watch some of the Screen.dance awarded films since 2016, including Omari’s At the End of the Block (2016) here.

Book your free Screen.dance 2021 festival pass for our Festival Launch here, where you can also find our day passes or full festival pass for our two days packed with films, live Q&As and artists presentations.