Coffee Meeting

After sending my poster out to the Dance Studio Leeds, my project has gained interest from a student at Leeds Beckett university. She viewed my Linkedin profile, which prompted me to send a message to her to see if she has any interest in my project; it turns out she did, so we decided to meet up in person to talk about the work we could potentially be doing together.

Once in the coffee shop, she told me about a 20 minute piece that she's just about to start making. Her schedule lines up with mine quite nicely; her uni requires her to have 3 minutes of footage ready for the 18th February, which she is happy to let me use. This is earlier than I had expected, so if all goes well I'll have all the reference I need by then, instead of in March.

We discussed what kind of movements I would want to see in the routine, if there should be big motions or little details - since she's allowing me to use part of her 20 minute routine (which she's collaborating on with two other dancers) I'll allow her to develop the concept with the dance partners she works with.

In terms of music, I will consider getting in touch with music students to compose a piece of music to suit the dance, unless Rachel plans to use a specific piece which she'd allow me to use too. I suggested a ballad piece would be better for the animation I want to make.

We have arranged to book a studio space on February 22nd, so that I can see the routine in action and record the reference for myself. From now until then, I'll keep researching and practicing drawing, while she creates the routine and sends me short video updates whenever she can; she's open to suggestions or ideas I might have concerning the routine - for example if I decide to create a background I could see if she can incorporate that into the routine, interacting with objects or props.

It turns out Linkedin is actually a good place to get in touch with specific people; it notifies you when someone views your profile, which is how I found out that Rachel was interested in my project. As well as having a direct messaging system, I could also have published my poster advertising my project, which could have been spread around by anyone who saw it. This would have reached a wider audience, however for now I don't think I need it.

I'm looking forward to seeing how this collaboration progresses, and seeing if her final routine will be something I want to animate.