Sense 8 (2001)

This line of enquiry developed from an earlier work directed by Katrina - Moment (1999). In that film, the entire soundtrack was constructed from “actuality” sounds recorded during the shoot - dancers’ feet on the floor, the sound of their breath, and noises from the street outside the location filtering through the windows. During the edit and sound dub, these real-life sounds were explored in relation to the visual images, drawing on an understanding that the impact of video dance is as much aural as it is visual.

After viewing the final edit of Moment, Katrina began to consider whether it might be possible to create a video dance work that communicates as powerfully through sound as through image. If a viewer were unable to see the visuals, could they still have a meaningful experience of the work?

At the time, Katrina was working at the BBC in London, researching a pilot for a flagship dance series. As part of this, Katrina investigated contact improvisation in the UK and encountered Touchdown Dance, a company of visually impaired and sighted dancers, drawing on the Contact Improvisation form.

Originally developed by Steve Paxton in the USA in the 1960s, contact improvisation is a form in which dancers maintain continuous physical contact as they move. This makes it particularly accessible for visually impaired dancers, as partnering with sighted dancers helps them orient themselves while improvising and travelling through space.

Katrina recognised that her question - about creating a dance film that could be “heard as much as it could be seen” - might be explored through contact improvisation, in collaboration with dancers with varying degrees of sight. Their perspectives would be both relevant and illuminating. Katrina contacted Katy Dymoke, Artistic Director of Touchdown, and together they began to develop these ideas with the company.

The result was Sense-8 (2001), commissioned by Arts Council England as part of the Capture scheme. In this work, everything heard in the soundtrack originates from the shoot, creating a layered sonic experience. It combines the sounds of the dancers moving through space with their spoken descriptions of what they are experiencing as they perform for the camera.