Points of Orientation – 2022, 2’

This film is a short response inspired by the hour-long show created by Shivaangee Agrawal that I improvised the live sound score for and which you can hear in truncated form in this film. I wanted to capture the emotional and psychological trajectory that audience members go through in the piece and condense it to a few short scenes that distill some of these feelings of disorientation, inertia and joy. To this end I played with geometrical shapes and displacements inspired by the rigorous square pattern the dancers trace out, before allowing bodies to blend, bleed and overlap. As it was sort a short piece, I used more compositing techniques than I had previous that required intensive rendering.

In Shivaangee’s words: “Points of Orientation is a new folk dance that straddles the tensions of wanting to be alone and wanting to be together, and all the feelings of confusion, responsibility, boredom, intimacy and freedom in between. The dancers use a nine-beat rhythmic cycle to build a non-linear narrative of what it means to be in collectivity.“

Film and music: Tom Shennan
Choreographer: Shivaangee Agrawal
Collaborators / Performers: Jane Chan, Takeshi Matsumoto, Meera Patel and Shivaangee Agrawal
Producer: Nancy May Roberts

Supporting Partners: Kala Sangam, Streatham Space Project, Akademi, People Dancing, Arts Council England