“The actor Vincent Ebrahim, who had worked on the earlier [Through The Fire] R&D projects, played a leading role and contributed an enormous amount to the process. The plot of the film had already crystallised into an archetypal story about a small, dilapidated Chaplinesque character challenging a corporate culture – in our story represented by a huge pharmaceutical company who wouldn’t allow their employees to engage in any ‘alternative’ activities – especially dance. Our protagonist, called Vaslav, after the great Nijinsky, loves to dance, but is prevented from doing so by his employers until he rebels…
My own motivation to investigate these early works came from a desire to understand them better. They were, after all, produced in an extraordinarily innovative period when different art forms and artists were working together as part of a modernist cultural zeitgeist.”
Quotes from Choreographies: Tracing the Materials of an Ephemeral Art Form by Jacky Lansley, published by Intellect Books (2017).
