SUMMARY OF SELECTED PROJECTS

Endangered Landscape Artist Residency

September 2021 - April 2022

I was recently awarded an Endangered Landscape Artist Residency. This Europe-wide project is coordinated by the Cambridge Conservation Initiative. The local partner is Cairngorms Connect who are coordinating an ambitious long-term programme of land restoration activity with values shared by several large landowners.

https://www.endangeredlandscapes.org/our-approach/celebrating-art-and-culture/landscape-residencies/

I am leading a multi-stranded research and community-focused project in collaboration with local artists and residents Amanda Thomson (visual artist/writer; GSA lecturer; “A Scots Dictionary of Nature”) and Elizabeth Reeder (creative writer; Glasgow University lecturer; “An Archive of Happiness“).

Working with local people of all backgrounds and ages, this responsive programme of research is inspired by Cairngorm Connect’s 200 year plan. It involves fieldwork with partner professionals on activities of land restoration and workshops that will consider the physical body in relation to place, now and in the future, and the durational possibilities of this art project. We are working with the partner resources around data and media gathering towards an exhibition that will show a number of outcomes of different media to be confirmed.

Family Portrait

“The quality of the filmed images, on four sides, is dazzling… magnificently filmed by co-director Robbie Synge and his team…” - The Scotsman ****

“The absolute highlight… It is as pure a picture of joy and love as they come.” - The Stage *****

Co-created/directed, filmed and edited in collaboration with Barrowland Ballet (Glasgow), Family Portrait is a four screen film installation for family audiences. Family Portrait captures a family at rest and play in the rural landscape of the Cairngorms National Park. A rhythmical multiscreen edit of visuals and sounds frames states of happiness and tension through candid footage and carefully staged actions, prompting consideration of people, histories and place.

Initiated in summer 2020, premiered at Take Me Somewhere Festival, May 2021 before Edinburgh International Children’s Festival, national touring and Edinburgh Fringe.

Forest Floor

Shot in Abernethy Forest, Cairngorms, close friends Julie and Robbie sit quietly together on the ground, a simple idea requiring a novel approach.

In collaboration with Julie Cleves (London) our work together playfully investigates cooperative, embodied solutions to access problems, often Involving simple DIY-made objects.

“...a short film of astonishing beauty that redefines “adventure”... first they solve the technical challenge that besets all good adventures — how to get there — and then, they dance."

- Keme Nzerem, Financial Times, May 2020.

Winner of the awards including the Changemaker Award Kendal Mountain Festival, UK (2019); Special Mention, Leeds International Film Festival, Leeds, UK (2020); Best of Fest, Dance Camera West, USA (2021); Best of International Shorts, Flickerfest, Australia (2021).

To Earth

In collaboration with Julie Cleves (London), To Earth is touring galleries in UK including BALTIC, Turner Contemporary and Bluecoat in 2021/22 and through the CONTINUOUS Network. https://www.continuousdance.com/works/to-earth-robbie-synge-julie-cleves

To Earth creates an open and warm atmosphere for performance and discussion with a small audience. It combines performance, projected video, discussion and a complementary participatory workshop. Julie and Robbie chart the evolution of their practice over the past ten years, initiated in a floor-based studio practice to their ongoing pursuit of challenging physical access through simple solutions, particularly in natural environments and landscapes.

Supported by Siobhan Davies Dance, Creative Scotland, Dance North and METAL.

Forest Village (working title)

Forest Village (a working title) was interrupted by Coronavirus in March 2020. Work of this nature will form part of the Endangered Landscape Artist Residency with Cairngorms Connect.

An ambitious participatory movement and film project that asks people of Nethy Bridge and surrounds to engage in a series of workshops and meet-ups to work physically in relation to the surrounding forest through playful movement scores and the ideas of participants. Culminating in a production week of filming and sound recording with audio-visual collaborators and a village hall ceilidh and film premiere.

Supported through a seed-funding scheme to test new models audience engagement funded by Creative Scotland and Arts Council England.

Skitchin’

Skitchin’ was an intervention in an area of Hasselt, Belgium, where tensions around territory and use of space between of young people and older generations had been a factor for several years. Recruited through direct approach to people using the area frequently, an elderly woman pulled a young skateboarder at various times over the course of a week.

Supported by PUSH, an EU partnership project involving arts organisations promoting experimentation in performance-making for and with young people.

Douglas

A 50 minute solo stage performance involving a selection of objects that would be found in any theatre space. Douglas was initiated as a choreographic research with the ambition of handing over as much physical agency as possible to objects of varying mass and material nature in order that the human body could be pulled, pushed or otherwise affected by objects’ mass. Delicate and brutal moments of suspension and falling were enacted through a series of still and dynamic arrangements.

Part of the British Council Edinburgh Showcase 2015, Aerowaves European Network 2015 and touring internationally and performed over 50 times.

“Douglas is a heightened, exaggerated exploration of the body in contact with the material world, and it’s deeply moving.”

- Ruth Little, dramaturg, writing for Dance Umbrella

https://www.danceumbrella.co.uk/2017/06/12/fall-again-fall-better/

Ensemble

Ensemble is a dance performance for stage set on a sparse white landscape, highlighting five performers aged between 35 – 75. The performance is a series of interactions between combinations of performers that aims to challenges expectations of age in physical performance and inspire us to consider the potentials in working together.

Toured nationally/internationally in 2018/19 as part of the Aerowaves 2019 selection.

Edinburgh Made In Scotland Showcase and Total Theatre Award shortlisted, 2019.

Supported by Creative Scotland.