Screendance

‘The Response’ (2024)

In a deep dark remote loch, what secrets lie beneath the surface? Someone is determined to find out. In this tartan-scandi-noir screendance, a lone investigator searches what remains, what passes with time, seeking to grasp the unknowable, feeling its pervading presence. Moving across time, one dancer seeks to understand a situation that may never have existed. 'The Response' asks how we understand what we know when feelings and fact collide, when both take over our minds.

Made in collaboration between Alan Paterson and Penny Chivas.

‘Out of Time’ (2021)

“June 2020. All our normal reference points are gone. Disorientation.
Thinking changes, patterns slip by, can any new possibilities emerge?

A dancer moves as if slipping between the past and the future.
Reflecting on expectations and loss, a moment for transition opens up.
Committing to the uncertainty, change is embraced.”

Made in collaboration with Alan Paterson and Great Snakes AV

Screened at: Screen.dance Scotland, FROSTBITE Indie Festival, Cuerpo Mediando Festival de Videodanza, Frame x Frame Film Fest, Ara Korean Film Festival, Honorable Mention - Athens International Monthly Art Films Festival, Videoskin III, and the Manifest (the Auro Apaar Dance-Film Festival) Festival in which Alan and Penny were awarded a tie for ‘Outstanding Editing’ and an Honourable Mention.

(see also Great Snakes)

‘Dissipate’ (2020)

Two people meet on a platform attempting to rewrite their pasts. Are they here now or have they been here before? Have we already danced these steps? As memory clouds they stumble and jump between movements forgetful of the details that once held everything together. Nothing left but a hazy memory dissipating in the breeze.

Screendance work made in collaboration with Paul Michael Henry and Alan Paterson

Screened at: Holm Sound, Screen.dance Scotland, Mexico City Videodance Festival V, Exchange Choreography Festival, London International Monthly Film Festival (Honourable Mention), IMARP - Mostra Internacional de dança - Imagens em Movimento - Video dança, Filmfest by Rogue Dancer, FROSTBITE International Indie Film Fest and Videoskin III (Honourable Mention).

There Not There - Still by Paul Michael HenryThere Not ThereCo-creation between Paul Michael Henry and Penny Chivas. Created with support from Dance Base, and screened at Screen.Dance Scotland UK Awards section 2019 and The Work Room 10th Anniversar… — Still by Paul Michael Henry.

‘There Not There’ (2018)

Co-creation between Paul Michael Henry and Penny Chivas. Created with support from Dance Base, and screened at Screen. Dance Scotland UK Awards section 2019 and The Work Room 10th Anniversary 2018.

Read a review here

‘The distance between the back of my head and my eyes’ (2017)

Co-created between Paul Michael Henry and Penny Chivas, a short dance-film exploring memory, location and time.

Part of the official selection of the Goethe Institut in Nairobi, Kenya, 2023; Screendance Scotland Awards, 2017 and also screened in Ayr and the CCA, Glasgow by The Work Room (both Scotland). Official selection for Seyr Festival, Tehran, Iran 2019.