Mistakes

'From realizing that I can make mistakes, I have come to realise there is an order to what I do' – Ornette Coleman, The Shape of Jazz to Come, Atlantic Records, USA 1959.

A violent repetition of a dance phrase, Mistakes starts on black with distressed sound. There's no titles. It was inspired by the Ornette Coleman quote above, the betrayal of Szrebreniska by the United Nations and a repeated, video still sequence, of Fred Astaire falling over in a TV studio.

A companion project brief, was delivered at Camberwell College of Arts, Central Saint Martins and London Contemporary Dance School:

'Mistakes

  1. Select a medium that you don’t like, or/and are no good at;

  2. push that medium outside the boundaries of what you can do,
    outside of what you already know;

  3. produce a language or a system from the wreckage;

  4. show everybody what you now know.'

Shortlisted in competition at ‘Dance On Screen’, London and at the Brighton Festival. Internationally exhibited, including TTV Riccione, Italy and Dance for Camera, New York.

6’, DV, UK 2000
Dir., conceived & prod. by Alex Reuben

Performed by
Vicky Udall
Camera, Iain McGill
Edit, Jane Hodge
Choreography,
Alex Reuben, with
Mita Banerjee
Soundtrack,
Alex Reuben.