We Record Ourselves (2016)
In the late 1990s, Katrina McPherson tried to get a film made about the largely overlooked work and life of dancer and choreographer Margaret Morris (1891-1980). That film was never made. Nearly twenty years later, McPherson was commissioned to respond to the Margaret Morris archive and invited movement/ screen artists Natalia Barua, Owa Barua, Simon Ellis to join her.
“we record ourselves’ is the film that they made.
‘we record ourselves’ offers multi-perspective and mixed-format materials, screens, bodies, texts and soundtrack to create a compelling collection of moving images – part documentation, part archive, and part screendance. Together, they reveal ideas and experiences to do with memory and disappearance, the performance and recording of human lives, and the ghosts of our influences.
With the aim of reflecting on and shifting her own practice forward, McPherson also brought to the project digitised material from her video dance archive and proposed a manifesto as the starting point for the creative process, to which the artists responded collaboratively. It was:
No repetition of images.
No mute dancers.
The onscreen performers also film and edit the work.
The ‘we record ourselves’ film premiered at Perth Concert Hall, Scotland in May 2016, where it was also presented as a 22-monitor installation. It was created with support from Threshold arts, Perth University of Edinburgh, Margaret Morris Archive, Creative Scotland and University of Coventry.
The material was re-worked for the 10-meter high MediaWall at Bath Spa University as part of the Journal of Media Practice and MeCCSA Practice Network Annual Symposium.
International Screenings →
Jumping Frames Hong Kong International Movement-image Festival, November 2025
Opine Dance Film Festival, Philadelphia, USA, March 2020
Centre for Contemporary Art, Glasgow, Scotland, May 2019
Le Festival de Cinema de la Ville de Quebec, September 2018
Light Moves Festival of Screen Dance; Ireland, November 2017
