Projects
The Invisible Dance
The Invisible Dance
Hearing and feeling a dance that we cannot see.
Can we experience a dance without the dancers?
Dance is a very visual artform but how do I, as a severely visually impaired dance artist, challenge that idea? How can I translate dance to people who are blind and partially sighted? What if no one gets to see the dance?
By creating an immersive audio experience, can I instead, encourage an audience to sense, to hear, to feel, and to imagine what might be.
This project will continue to build on previous research of creating immersive dance performances and experiment with how immersive technologies can be utilised to really enhance this experience or feeling and sensing. To create an immersive sound experience in which an audience can hear and feel dancers move, travel, jump and breathe in the space but with no actual dancers physically in in the space.
This idea has emerged from a larger body of research I have been exploring for many years, that thinks about how people who are blind and partially sighted experience dance, and how I can creatively challenge how I present dance. This opportunity to use and experiment with immersive technologies will add another level of creative possibilities to this work.
Experiment
£20,000
Aims of the Project
This fund will really allow me to push how I explore the idea of creating immersive dance experiences.
The aim is to work with two dancers, to choreograph a dance based on ‘sounds’ rather than ‘vision’.
Then, working with sound designer Rory Friers, we will explore the possibilities of how this ‘dance’ is recorded (the floor, the breath, the room, the heartbeat etc), and them how we create a surround sound experience to reimagine this for an audience. An invited audience, including members of the blind and partially sighted community will get to experience what we create and give feedback.
While exploring this spatial sound capture and playback, the aim is also to experiment with other immersive technologies, such as exciters and haptic Touch, to begin to understand how they might feed into the immersive experience and be utilised in the next stage of development of the work.
Meet the artist
Helen Hall
Lead artist
she/her
Helen is a Belfast-based dance artist. As someone who is partially sighted, Helen is curious as to how her experience of interacting with the world around may differ from others. It is this curiosity of the margins and telling untold stories that intrigues her and often finds voice in her work.
Her choreographic work includes: ‘Touch, Hear, Feel’, for Belfast 2024; ‘Memory Box’, , showcased at the Belfast International Festival 2023; ‘Collecting Moments,’ created for the Bounce festival, 2021; ‘Inside The Speaker’, supported by an Unlimited and showcased in many festivals in Belfast.
Rory Fires
Composer
Rory is an immersive artist and composer based in Belfast best known for his film scoring, orchestral compositions and spatial sound installations. Over his career he has produced several critically acclaimed immersive works including Holonic Fields (2024) HOME (2023) All Together; All Alone (2022).
Maiden Voyage
Contributor
Maiden Voyage, a pioneering Belfast based dance company, will be supporting with project development and mentoring.
