Moment (1998)

Moment explores the subjectivity of the perception of time. Moments slip past us unnoticed, or assume huge significance, are repeated, looped and replayed in a rhythm of slippage, pausing, breathe, decisive action and intimate gestures. A celebration of the creative potential of dance and the moving image, this experimental short has been screened widely at festivals, on broadcast television and distributed on DVD and the internet.

Award Winner – Best Screen Choreography at the Dance Screen Festival in Monaco in December 2000.

Moment is a seminal work in my practice, and a dance film made in memory of Michele Fox, whose MA thesis work explored what Michele referred to as ‘Cine-dance’. Sadly, Michele died 1997, cancer at the age of thirty, just when her own dance filmmaking was getting going.

Although I had only met her a few times, I had seen what a vibrant and visionary young artist Michele was and was honoured and delighted when her family asked me to make a screendance in her memory – not a film about her, but rather an exploration – and indeed celebration – of the creative possibilities of dance and the moving image.

Moment was that work and, although very much an independent, go-it alone project, it soon came to the attention of the wider international screendance community.

In the 25+ years since, Moment has had had very many screenings: on television, in festivals, through DVD, then Internet distribution, and in galleries. It has been written about, taught about and talked about… all things that were unimaginable to me when I set off on the process the of making it.

We can never begin to imagine who will see it and what its impact will be; where it might go and how it might be received, but if we make the work with integrity and care, then the work can always surprise us and can bring pleasure and enrichment to everyone it touches.