Students in their final year of the BA (Hons) degree at Northern School of Contemporary Dance are currently working on new screendance works with acclaimed choreographers (L-R) Fernanda Prata, Gary Clarke, and Anthony Missen.
The works will go live on NSCD's Facebook page between Tuesday 14, Wednesday 15 and Thursday 16 July as part of Future Now, a special event celebrating the achievements of this year's graduating cohort. Each digital commission will also be made available to watch on the NSCD website after their initial screening.
NSCD alumnus Gary Clarke is an acclaimed choreographer, dancer and artistic director. His works have toured nationally and internationally and have won him numerous awards including a UK Theatre Award for Achievement in Dance and a Critics’ Circle National Dance Award for Best Independent Company. Gary has created stage and site-specific work for organisations such as Opera North, Sky Arts, Hull City of Culture 2017 and the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. He has worked as a movement specialist on Hollywood feature films including World War Z, Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them and The Mummy.
Gary is working on a new piece for NSCD’s final-years with dramaturg Lou Cope, who has worked across the UK, Europe and the Middle East. As well as working with artist such as Jose Agudo, Hagit Yakira, Rhiannon Faith and companies such as English National Ballet and Birmingham Royal Ballet, Lou is founder of The Centre of Applied Dramaturgy (CoAD).
NSCD graduate Anthony Missen is a Clore Fellow, a Without Walls Board Director and a Dance Consortia North-West Executive Partner. He co-founded Company Chameleon in 2007, producing and choreographing critically-acclaimed dance theatre works for the stage and outdoor contexts. He has created touring works for La Mov (Spain), Norrdans (Sweden), Ballett-Theater Chemnitz (Germany) and has worked as Movement Director for Dundee Rep Theatre, HOME Manchester and the National Theatre.
Anthony is creating Power, a series of solos for NSCD’s final-year students exploring notions of power – explicit, subtle, personal, imagined and coercive. He is working closely through improvisation, guided tasks, collective and individual research to draw on personal responses to the theme.
Fernanda Prata is an interdisciplinary artist working across theatre and dance for over 20 years. Fernanda worked with Punchdrunk as Assistant Director and performer for 14 years, as well as performing for Luca Silvestrini’s Protein and Jasmin Vardimon Company. She worked as assistant choreographer for Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, Royal Opera house and National Theatre, and has been commissioned to create choreographic work for Karamel Club Theatre, Stavanger University, Horniman Museum and Gardens and The Place. Fernanda is a lecturer in creative and contextual studies at NSCD and leads the MA Dance & Creative Enterprise course.
Fernanda is creating Slot with the students, an online dance experience which invites the audience to ‘slot in’, explore and interact with a virtual house and its tenants.
