The role of discourse in the training of emerging dance artists and safe haven filming:opening boundaries through the movement of the narrative.

During 2014-15 I worked with five graduates who were commissioned to create independent new works as part of the 12 Degrees North Dance Company Programme, funded by Arts Council England. Our relationship was centred in a process of self-reflexivity and representation from an emerging artist perspective and illuminated my own positionality as a curator of conversations. As part of my research I created the film Disco(urse) (2015) which has been exhibited at The Lowry Theatre, Salford Quays; The Citadel, St Helens; and The University of Chester. Following their platform performances in the studio, I filmed the artists individually in a quiet landscape discussing their training as independent practitioners. By adopting fast tempo discursive systems within the filming I was able to nurture a driven awareness of self-affirmation and encourage an improvised dialogue about a range of recognised dance practices. This work examines the effectiveness of filmed discourse and the impact on the subjects as a historical record of ‘being’. The epiphany, on my part (Denzin, 1989) did not happen in the actual shooting but appeared in the editing (Henley, 1998) through the sequencing process. Methodologies to explore this included Foucault’s models of strategy, histories and knowing alongside Nichol’s documentary dialogue in relation to the quality of relationships between filmmaker and subjects in exploring expectation.