I was fortunate to be able to take the time to watch the final rehearsal for Blue Eyed Soul’s TAKE: a dance in the park late on the first Saturday morning of the Shift Time Festival, Shrewsbury so I had a good idea of what to expect from the point of view of capturing this original performance on the a700. A film crew were also in attendance throughout and I was a little taken aback that, after the first performance later in the day, their cameraman commented to me that it was less aerial than expected so his filming hadn’t gone to plan…I mean he was in most of my rehearsal pictures facing the rig!
The rig itself is an English-made bespoke set-up allowing dance to be much more 3-dimensional using climbing harnesses and ropes, also enabling the performers to use the rig itself as vertical bars. The accompanying soundtrack was imaginative, sinuous, effective, a varied series of music woven with sound bytes of stage commentary and scene setting: would have enjoyed it more but spent much of the performance flat on the grass one way up or the other with a camera. I felt though that the heavy Edwardian clothing detracted from the gracefulness and strength of the dancers a bit too much and were a little incongruous rather than contrasting effectively with the rig, so enjoyed the latter stages much more from an artistic and photographer’s perspective. It was great to see the obvious enjoyment of the performers and I greatly look forward to future performances.
Carrog: Fast-flowing Stream 