The Practice Room, The Poles and The Paper

[Susan Elena]

It's been a busy time for FireBox recently with a few breakthroughs in terms of my degree project, the first draft of my masters due in and working on a dance film with some contemporary/pole dancers.

Isadora is starting to behave herself in the Practice Room at The Arches just in time for my Dance House creative lab at the UK theatre school next week. I've got nice LED lights to use as a trigger and the dancers have been working on some great sequences that will be used as the basis for their improvisations. I'd asked them to choreograph their own combos as I'd wanted something different from my usual style and they ended up creating 4 different combos that are very much my style - perhaps we've all been working together too long!

I still need to get all my extra dancers together one weekend to film the movie clips for the piece and, as always, I'm expecting that to be a logistical nightmare.

Two of my dancers, Gill Smith and Suzi Kelly, have been going to pole dancing classes recently and were keen to combine it with contemporary dance so we got together and made a film with them showing off their new skills. The first edit is done and as soon as they've signed off on it I'll be punting it around different events and getting it shown.

Finally, the dreaded paper. The first draft is in and I'm waiting on some feedback before I get stuck in to completing it. There are some things I already know need to be expanded upon and clarified but the basis is there so I just need to get my head down and get on with it.