What a marvellous 2 weeks we have just spent in the studio with choreographer Liam Riddick creating our new work for FFIN DANCE titled The Three Sections

The piece is a 15 minute dance work which is inspired by Steve Reich’s orchestral work (1987) titled The Four Sections. The musical score is an exceptional example of “interlocking of similar instruments to produce a contrapuntal web filled with resulting melodic patterns” Steve Reich

Liam has taken three sections of the music and woven together solos, duets and trios for the three company dancers, that interlock and produce a counterpoint in movement bearing a parity to that of the score. Here’s a short film of Liam speaking with me about the work.

You may ask how we did all this through lock down! Zoom of course.
Each day the dancers took class as we would in the studio, but in their own homes. We then began the enormous task of creating an online creative symbience across the miles. It was odd at first. The dancers needing to use screen vision instead of peripheral vision, allowing for a slight time delay in sound, dealing with poor wi fi connections on times but by the end of our studio time together, we actually felt as if we were in the same room as each other. It’s pretty amazing what you can achieve with the passion and hard work that dancers possess. I am incredibly proud of them.

The Three Sections is not a dance piece for film. It’s made online, but not a dance film. We have a very clear idea where we want to take this work and over the next few months we are going to be sharing more and more of this work with you.
In the meantime, here’s a little glimpse of a live stream that we made of Liam working with Catrin, Julian and Georgina

sue lewis