Dancers Angie and Steve from the London based Dancing with Parkinson’s group led by Danielle Jones (Teale), were the first to take part in our special one-to-one filming workshops last Friday. They have kindly written some reflections to give the community an insight into the dancing and filmmaking process:
It’s just before 10.30am on a Friday morning. Jaka arrives at our house; soon followed by the film crew… oh and here comes Danielle with the cakes.
But we are going to dance first, cakes can wait until lunch! The initial uncertainties of what is expected from us disappear, we are with our friends Danielle and Jaka, all is well. We are being led but this is a collaborative, explorative process and soon we are all in the zone… responding, improvising, sweating and laughing and oh, taking short breaks before whoosh, we are back into stretching and searching out our creative selves.
“Shall we take a break, shall we keep going?” We decide to keep going as who knows when Angie’s mobility will slip away? And suddenly we stop… it’s been 2 hours. We have travelled from the uncertainties of dancing in our own home to sharing lunch with our friends and film crew, and feeling we have always done this and it’s just, well it’s just ‘normal’. After lunch we enter into a conversation with Danielle and Jaka which we are happy to have recorded. A simple feedback takes an unexpected emotional turn with both of us realising how much we have missed these friends, these teachers, these artists who treat us as artists too. Of course, this quality of relationship has been built up over the past few years but still it is a welling up of feeling that has our tears flowing.
Thank you to Danielle, Jaka, Effie and the team… for making this session so relaxed and yet so creatively satisfying… and, in the end, no cake was eaten in the making of this film!
Steve Harris and Angie Heathfield
Thank you so much to Anglie and Steve for this insight and for giving so willingly their time and creativity to the process. We look forward to collaborating with more of you as the month continues
Danielle Jones (Teale)