I’ve been working with Lila Dance again over the last few months on a new immersive dance performance called The Hotel Experience. Here are some shots from my photoshoot with them in the Creation Space at The Point. I love dance photography and when it is always interesting to try to capture the themes of the show in photoshoot. One of my key aims was to use flash photography to freeze moments in time or motion, illustrating how the hotel is a place of transition. The show has a magical element to it, that the hotel itself feels somehow alive, and i’ve tried to show this through the surreal look of bodies floating above the bed. Let me know what you think in the comments below.
Depicted through a David Lynch-esque filmic style, The Enormous Room portrays a relationship between a father and a daughter who are trying to deal with grief.
The soundtrack for The Enormous Room is a complex mix of dreamy nostalgic music and household sound FX. When I first met Stopgap’s Artistic Director, Lucy Bennett, to discuss her creative ideas I knew instantly that it would be a production in which i could really flex my sound design muscles. So in order to write my tracks for the show I divided the sound design into two aspects:
An internal soundtrack which creates a realistic, nostalgic and at times claustrophobic environment for the characters.
An external Soundtrack which is more musical, cinematic and heard “from above”.
(Continues after photo gallery)
Enormous Room- Stopgap Dance
Music
I loved composing the music for the show. It’s a mix of synths and guitar quite unlike any other i have written for contemporary dance or theatre. It has almost a twin peaks feel to the reverb drenched guitar loops and distant vintage synth sounds.
For the more surreal moments such as Nadenh Poan’s utterly enthralling solo and the beautiful Rooftop Duet between Hannah and Christian, the percussive elements of the music are made from recordings of me drumming on kitchen utensils, pots and pans. In the second half of the show some of these rhythms return for Christian Brinklow’s solo, this time played on a wooden door to give a deeper more dream-like texture to the music.
Sound FX
Under the whole show is a track called the enormous room tone. This is an infinity looping, almost inaudible track of kitchen sounds, opening and closing doors/cupboards, fridge/freezer buzzes, kettles boiling and outside traffic. This track is to make sure that there is never true silence during the performance, keeping the audience immersed in the bizarre melancholy of the show.
The show is touring in 2017, please visit Stopgap Dance Company’s website for more details. http://stopgapdance.com
Its great to be back in the studio with Lîla Dance, working on our new immersive physical theatre piece. If you want to stay up-to-date on our process then follow our blog.
