Over the last few weeks I have been working as the Visuals Assistant for Landance under designer Ella Huhne, an associate event of the Inside Out Festival Dorset. Last night was the final show and after an incredibly busy show week I finally have time to write about it!
In the Valley of Stones, which is in the triangle between Bridport, Dorchester and Abbotsbury, there is a circle of stones, and in a promenade performance that took the audience down the valley to the circle Landance, a company made up of 5 professional dancers (Impermanence Theatre, Bristol) and two community dancers, took us into a world of their own devising, through contemporary dance in the landscape based on their reactions to the site. Thankfully the main panic issue that plagues all outdoor performances - namely the weather - was in no way a problem for us as aside from some very atmospheric fog the weather was sunny with a cool breeze to stop it from being too hot.
Primarily I was there to assist Ella in whatever needed doing, but in terms of the visuals aspect from what I was involved in was mainly assisting Ella with anything that needed doing, and helping with the biggest visual aspect - and I do mean in terms of size as it was a 16x16m circle of organza shot through with metal threads! This was created using over 100m of the fabric in lengths, sewn together by the costumer and her assistant. The fabric itself is incredible, it looks like water on the ground but is translucent so when lifted or when the performers interacted with it, you could see them through it and it created a spectacular effect.
In the two days of performances my main role was to set the fabric before the shows and assist with any issues that arose, including but not limited to helping the stewards, patching the fabric, assisting people with mobility issues, assisting building a tent and packing it down again and minding sound equipment. It was an incredibly busy couple of days but was a roaring success. 
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