Watch the trailer for Becoming Bodies: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zv8auvMvb5c

Expert Group Feedback

Some of the Expert Group Comments from a Preview Screening of Becoming Bodies, 7^th February 2013: 

An extremely interesting and very well put together film…Interwoven…with paths that took us on visual and audio journeys…your woven patchwork of sound and image were both beautiful and engaging.

Allan Edwards, National Theatre

I liked the juxtaposing of the questioning dancers and the affirmative scientific voices… I personally liked the fact that you were able to address the idea of scientific ‘truth’. I also liked your treatment of what constitutes a body – where does it begin and end. And, I appreciated the broader questioning of certainty -sex/ gender etc. Becoming Bodies, I believe will provoke discussions on many levels and along many different lines.

Claire Neesham, Science-Art Writer and Editor

Moved beyond words.

Marina Rova, Dancer, Choreographer, Dance Movement Psychotherapist

It’s a different way for me of working as often I’m going in to learn steps or I’ve gone in where someone has an idea and I’ve improvised, in an embodied but different way. My emotional body isn’t connected in the same sense. On this level for me, it was a bringing together of lots of different bodies and so my historical…the historical body that is behind me and with me was very present in the process.

Jason Keenan-Smith, Dancer (in the film), Choreographer

An interesting and moving piece. An interesting exploration of the illusion of the self.

Dr Keon West, Psychologist

For me the entering in point in the film, starting with death and starting with death inside a cell, inside a molecular level was such a beautiful entering in point and so expansive and so ‘big picture’ and right up close. While I was watching; sensations kicking off around my body and I could feel the floor under my toes and I could smell metal, lots and lots of body sensations whilst watching the film.

Gill Lyon, Dancer, Dramatherapist

I think that everybody is so willing to accept truth from scientists...but I like the way that you’ve played with that.

Jon Silas Cognitive Neuroscience

…It raises a lot of intertextual questions …these are aesthetic questions and they are also political questions….it was very stimulating!

Dr Anna Seymour, Dramatherapist

…There’s a kind of cinematic beauty but also an underlying philosophical point about how we’re all sort of broken and I really like that. It’s kind of bleak, but I like bleak. Brilliant.

Dr Lewis Goodings, Social Psychologist

For me, the content is rich and to get it on one hit is almost not enough! You almost need to go back and revisit quite a few times and pick out some of the themes that you kind of want to indulge in and just kind of think about it a bit more. Just go back and pour over it, like a good book.

Neil Max Emmanuel, Illustrator, Motion Graphics Designer

I’m just really struck by all the layers. It’s really going on a journey of layers where I’m being kind of asked…it’s sort of all the different levels of engagement that are called upon in the watching of it. It’s incredible… very stimulating.

Henri Seebhom, Dramatherapist

I was impressed at how text, dance and music are integrated into one. Also, it travelled past, present and future.

Takehsi Matsumoto, Dancer (in the film), Dance Movement Psychotherapist

Very Real and raw. Amazed at what could be captured and contained in 35 mins.

Kriss Marr, Human Rights worker

This groundbreaking new dance film asks questions about how we have evolved as humans, how we live in our bodies now in the twenty first century and what we imagine the meanings, possibilities and consequences of human growth to be, for our future.

Release date 7^th February 2013, London. 

Thursday 7th February is the premier private screening of Becoming Bodies. Those attending the private screening will include an expert hybrid group of dancers, choreographers, theatre practitioners, social psychologists, anthropologists, cognitive neuroscientists and writers. More news and a review to follow! 

Photo: Jackie King 

Photo: Nick Du Plessis

Photo: Nick Du Plessis

Release date 7^th February 2013, London.

Collaboration & Production Details

Becoming Bodies (35'')

Collaboration and Production Details

Beatrice Allegranti (artistic director, film maker and choreographer) is Reader in Dance Movement Psychotherapy and Director of the pioneering Centre for Arts Therapies Research (CATR) at the University of Roehampton. For the past 20 years she has developed a hybrid and path breaking approach that integrates her work as a clinician, choreographer, dancer and filmmaker in the UK and internationally. Her engagement within the feminist tradition stems from a desire to challenge taken-for-granted ideas about women, men and the politics of moving bodies in science and culture. www.embodiedpractice.co.uk

Jill Halstead (composer) is an Associate Professor at the Grieg Academy, University of Bergen Norway. She is currently the Director of the Grieg Research School of Interdisciplinary Music Studies, which aims to encourage dialogue across the fields of music performance, musicology, music therapy and music education. Jill’s work is anchored in the feminist tradition and intertwines traditional research, educational innovation and creative practice. She has worked as a practitioner specialising in collaborative, interdisciplinary projects often exploring issues of identity and empowerment through music. She has worked with vulnerable young people, the long term unemployed, and offenders in prisons alongside creative projects with professional groups of musicians and dancers.

Movement devised in collaboration with dancers: Beatrice Allegranti, Jinji Garland, Layla Smith, Geoffery Unkovich, Elizabeth Harris, Takeshi Matsumoto, Silja Ilmonen, Jason Keenan-Smith, Meg Stewart.

Photo: Nick Du Plessis

Narrative Extracts: Dr Murray Unkovich (Soil Scientist, University of Adelaide, Australia), Dr Ann McNeill (Soil Scientist, University of Adelaide, Australia), Professor Alexandre Quintanilha (Biologist and Physicist, Director, Institute for Molecular and Cell Biology, Porto), Dr Nuno Ferrand (Evolutionary Biologist, Research Centre in Biodiversity and Genetic Resources, Porto), Professor Sarah Franklin (Medical Anthropologist, Cambridge University), Professor John Dupré (Director, ESRC Centre for Genomics in Society, Exeter University), Dr Christine Hauskeller (Deputy Director, ESRC Centre for Genomics in Society, Exeter University).

Science Communication: Sonia Martins (IBMC INEB Porto)

Photography for exhibition: Jackie King (British Photographer of the Year) & Nick Du Plessis.
Motion graphics, Graphic design and publicity: Neil Max Emmanuel (Channel 4, Time Team, BBC, Fulcrum, Feelgood Fiction, History Channel, National Geographic).

Production Team: TVR Roehampton.

Screening/Installation Requirements: an exhibition space large enough for mounting photography and text (approx 20 images) and a screening space.

Duration: Two weeks maximum.

Partners: Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT), hybrid Conversations between science and art: Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology (IBMC) with the National Museum of Porto, University of Roehampton (Department of Psychology), Grieg Academy of Music (University of Bergen). 

Contact

email: embodiedpractices@gmail.com

Website: www.embodiedpractice.co.uk

Background Information

Photo: Nick Du Plessis

Becoming Bodies is a new (35 minute) dance-science film by Beatrice Allegranti

The film emerged as a result of an artistic collaboration with the Institute for Cell and molecular Biology in Porto and the Grieg Academy of Music (University of Bergen) from 2009-2011. During this time Beatrice Allegranti conducted filmed interviews with leading UK, German and Portuguese scientists and philosophers in the fields of evolutionary biology and genomics. These interviews reveal individuals who ‘birth’ ideas and unveil the frameworks in which they operate. As such, the interviews influenced the development of the film and form a direct part of the film sound score by Jill Halstead. 

Becoming Bodies aims to generate public curiosity about the revolutionary alliance between biology and body politics in a culturally accessible way. In particular, the film highlights how bodies are sexed and gendered through a mutually influencing and at times, pernicious process of biological and social construction. 

Keep an eye out for updates and forthcoming screenings. 
See: www.embodiedpractice.co.uk for more details