INVENT

As a company, we combine choreography with science, technology and research to investigate how dance can bring thinking, ideas and people closer together. We see dance as a platform for expertise from different worlds to cohabit, and a place where we can connect creative ideas with the public in surprising and playful ways. For us, dance is about discovery; it brings colour, vibrancy and energy to the world, and we want to remain curious about that.

– 360° Immersive digital performance

As a part of our 2022 Tour of OPTO NANO we premiered a digital version of the work using immersive 360° cinema. Together with London based digital art and technology group; Uncharted Limbo Collective, we created a digital film inspired by our scientific starting point and designed visuals for the dome at CULTVR Lab; a cross-disciplinary arts space bringing together digital arts, live performance and immersive cinema. We recorded our live stage show using motion capture equipment which was then used to inspire and affect the digital world overhead. The reimagined iteration of our production involved one cast member performing live under the visual film which contained data from our other dancers, wrapped in an electronic score from critically acclaimed welsh composer; R.SEILIOG.

Funded by: Arts Council of Wales

– Variations through editing

Together with filmmaker Jonathan Dunn, we are exploring ways in which film can become more of an inclusive tool for deaf and visually imapried audiences to access performance, using dance as the subject. The process will involve collaboration with those communities to understand current lived experiences, whilst engaging them to shape variations of edits collected from the same library of footage. The process is designed to investigate and attend to audiences’ specific needs and we hope that by exploring composition and editing, and giving direct agency to those individuals to impact the research, that we will be able to better serve marginalised groups more authentically and effectively.

Funded by: Clwstwr

– scatter

Throughout 2020 Jack Philp Dance undertook a digital phase of research and development in support of their production; OPTO NANO. This period of virtual research came in response to the COVID 19 pandemic whilst in-person rehearsals were not possible. During the process, dancers Gaia Cicolani and Daisy Howell worked with motion capture technology, collaborating with the first digital artist in residence at Scottish Ballet; Zachary Eastwood-Bloom, and Welsh composer R.SEILIOG. Titled; ‘Scatter’, the digital sibling to the live R&D experimented with new ways of working, embracing the bounds of digital creation and choreography. This period of investigation formed the early digital fingerprints which went on to inform the company’s hybrid live + digital tour of OPTO NANO.

Funded by: Arts Council of Wales

– psychoacoustic

Psychoacoustic was a laboratory and studio based collaboration exploring the cognition of human emotion. Using movement and sound as the stimuli, the company worked together in partnership with the Cognitive Neuroscience Research Unit at City University London, to examine how the brain and body process particular sensations. The research feulled a series of short tests which were expanded upon to form the fuller work. Psychoacoustic featured as a part of the TEST | CAPTURE Tour in 2018 and 2019.

Funded by: Arts Council England & Arts Council of Wales