Back in the roof studio, Marina Collard has powerfully transformed the space; we see a single performer framed through simple sidelight and a wall of dreamy projected visuals. Tom Paine’s camera wades forward through an inverted forested wilderness; these explorations of an exterior landscape provide a backdrop of soft disorientation for the performer to move within her own sensorial enquiry. Collard’s movements are articulate and undertaken with great skill; reflecting an enduring and close consideration of movement and the body. She pauses, catches herself, accelerates into something more intense: I find myself leaning forward and nodding. As the piece persisted though, I craved for her to look out, to speak; to do something to trouble the framework she has established. Collard’s work remains within a private psychic space; an earnest performance of exploration and doubt that settles quickly into comfortable rhythms. Uncertainty begins to have a very certain look.

The theme of disorientation running through all these performance might be understood to echo a wider disorientation felt within the UK dance scene. Around this evening of work in progress/in process, we can ask: what are we actually working towards? Where do we want (or expect) to show our work? And to who? Is there any market for this stuff? However, Siobhan Davies Dance’s commitment to making itself more porous to the independent scene is very welcome, and Harrington, The Uncollective and Collard made use of the evening in different ways - presenting excerpts, an open studio practice, and a full work in its own right. But further: the cracks between these performances provided a fertile context for the recent wave of conversations taking place between artists around self-organising and collective ambitions for the future. I look forward to seeing how artists will continue to experiment with nights like these: as a space to test ideas with an intended future elsewhere, or a new kind of platform in itself for which we might be producing and presenting our work.

Paul for DRAFF