Lou Brodie reflects on her time as Associate Artist (Participation) between September 2023 and March 2025 and her collaborative project with Geraldine Heaney, These Bodies Dancing.
My role with IAP as Associate Artist (Participation) has offered me an opportunity to come back to several projects and dig deeper into them through connecting with people.
As a participatory or socially engaged artist I have had many conversations over the years particularly with younger or more emerging practitioners about the balance between holding space for your participants’ creative experiences and not invisibilising your own artistic expertise and politics. It is precisely because of my belief that the personal is political that I have gravitated towards artistic processes which allow me to collaborate with people from different walks of life. To be a socially engaged artist means to have skin in the game.
These Bodies Dancing is one such project. Created together with artist and filmmaker Geraldine Heaney, These Bodies Dancing grew from a mutual love of moving our bodies and dancing together but a history of always being the bigger body in the room.
The fat dancer,
the dancer whose arms didn’t straighten the same as everyone else’s,
the dancer whose boobs and belly don’t conform to the leotard-clad or slip dress aesthetic
These Bodies Dancing comes from a simple invitation to celebrate the joy of dancing without the idea of perfectionism. It soothes and celebrates our inner teenage selves. Claiming dances from pop culture and remaking them in our own image. For me, the politics that underpin These Bodies Dancing are that of body liberation. I want to offer a joyful and frank experience for the many bodies othered by our capitalist patriarchal systems.
Through the extended programme fund Geraldine and I have created two new films. Our first film was co-created with young parent J in collaboration with Philippa Clark, resident artist at the Smithycroft Secondary School young parent support base and choreographer Dorine Mugisha. Over the course of 6 sessions we developed a film that both told J’s story and used dance as a celebration of their strength and resilience. The process allowed us to create a day of dancing for other young parents and invited guests.
It was during the first development period that we chose to change our moniker to These Bodies Dancing from Women Dancing. We felt that this better represented what we wanted to do with the process of making dance films. We originally called ourselves Women Dancing as a simple descriptor of ourselves. Our change of name reflects the desire to dance with many other people regardless of identity markers. Creating short term temporary dance troupes with each new collaboration. Many of the people that Geraldine and I dance with are folks whose bodies are often heavily surveilled, criticised or othered. This was also the first time we have ever collaborated with a choreographer. Dorine dove straight in with us, embracing the co creation process and bringing new layers and depth to our approach. You can check out her work here.
For this reason we don’t always choose to share the work publicly. This choice is an ongoing conversation with the people we work with and their desires and needs. Sometimes our films are part of public sharings, sometimes they are private creations and sometimes we share them publicly online. The watching of the film is a punctuation mark within the process but not necessarily the ultimate focus of the project. Our use of the camera allows us to curate the gaze as we wish to see it, without a focus on the consumption by an audience.
As part of our second development we worked with We Present, a theatre company produced by Glass Performance in HMP YOI Polmont. Over the course of the 4 weeks we worked every Friday with the group to co-create the film Freefeet, inspired by the opening credits of the film Footloose.
Freefeet was a pure joy to make. We Present are the warmest, most open and loving group of humans I have had the pleasure of spending time with. Each week they embraced us with open arms and jumped whole heartedly into the vulnerable space of dancing. For many people, the sensation of their body moving, flesh wobbling, steps going in a different direction from those around you is a hugely confronting space. From the start We Present engaged in these vulnerable conversations, sharing with us their fears and joys and allowing us to share our own with them. The film we created together is an homage to the aesthetic of the eighties and the simple joy of tapping your toes, shaking your feet and throwing some shapes. I was really delighted to be invited along to the group’s curation of Glasgow Short Film festival works during which they premiered Freefeet.
Geraldine and I are always on the lookout for new people to dance with so if you ever fancy making a joyful, DIY dance film please get in touch.
See more about Lou Brodie and her work at LouBrodie.com.