What if the dancers would be able to communicate their effort in dance, which is normally hidden on stage, to the audiences? With drawing explorations I explored how we could capture the dancers’ experience of the dance. I asked the dancers to remember a phrase of a performance and capture this in a drawing with a pencil of their choosing. The most inspiring part of this was to learn what the dancers tried to capture the different ways of drawing, capturing focus, muscle tention or emotion.

During the Y-Dance Destinations performance I was able to present this concept to the audiences with 3 iPads that showed the hands of the Youth Exchange performers drawing how they experienced this phrase of the piece. Audiences could swipe to see the specific phrase of the dance recored in the studio. Although experienced as a little too vague by the audiences of the Y-Dance Destinations performance. I do still believe this is an interesting pathway to connect audiences and dancers in an authentic and poetic way.

Many thanks to Jake, Robyn and John of the Scottish Ballet Youth Exchange Program, and Bethany and Marge dancers of the Scottish Ballet, for joining me in this exploration. Also a special thanks to Kirsty for allowing me to create a small intervention during the Destinations performance of Y-Dance.