Staging the Screen

This special video series was produced by six of Mocean’s 2020-21 Season dance artists during the Staging the Screen Creation Intensive held between December 7-18, 2020. Led by Lisa Cochrane, an established filmmaker and former dance artist, the intensive gave company artists practical, hands-on experience in creating dance for the screen. Participating dance artists were: Jacinte Armstrong, Susanne Chui, Julie Robert, Kate Houston, Anastasia Wiebe and Lydia Zimmer.

Prior to the creation intensive, the six artists participated in the Staging the Screen workshop series hosted by Live Art Dance Productions and Mocean Dance, which was also open to the dance community. This four-session workshop series outlined basic skills for rendering dance to screen and laid the foundation for the next phase. During the creation intensive, artists worked in groups of three to conceive, direct, shoot, edit and produce their own dance film projects using their phones, putting their workshop knowledge into practice. Each dance artist had the opportunity to experience different production roles, including script supervision. Mentor Lisa Cochrane guided the artists throughout the process, and several artists also chose to work directly with a professional editor, learning valuable editing techniques.

These videos are intended as workshop pieces and are at various stages of Work-in-progress.