in 2017, an interest in the contrasting collective and intimate spaces of dance, provoked by ongoing work with dancers with Parkinson’s, led dance artist Danielle Jones to develop the practice as research project, Explorations in Collectivity & Intimacy, which would later evolve to become the nationally successful programme, Collective IDentity. The project began as a process led exploration considering the tools we use to develop dance with people with Parkinson’s and how we can value the shared energy of the collective, equally with the individual contributions of intimate movement exploration. The relationships between sound and body, rhythm and space, and the role of shared movement in relation to personal, physical, and perceptual experience were all been considered. Connecting through a shared interest in these themes with visual artist Sara Hibbert, the first phase of this exploratory process was captured in an installation film. The work-in-progress film Collective Field (2017), was exhibited at the RCA Dyson Gallery as part of a work in progress show by Altai Collective in 2017.

By cropping in on close up movement between hands and limbs, the images explore the idea of shared space, of presence becoming visible within the gaps, of collective timing and exchange.

Focusing on the change in space between the dance studio, online dance space, and the intimacy of the home environment during the pandemic lockdown from late 2020-2021, this series crops in on details of the hands, limbs, and spaces in between, in relation to the domestic interior space itself.

A layered space, the final part in a four part series ‘Collective Field (continued)’… the culmination of five years collaborative image-making and movement enquiry by movement director Danielle Jones and photographer Sara Hibbert. Collective improvised movement in near darkness was directed by Danielle Jones with live music accompaniment by Jaka Skapin.