Within This Dust

I’ve just finished work on a piece of animation for Dundee based dance company Smallpetitklein and their dance piece ‘Within This Dust’.

Within This Dust is a dance theatre piece which explores Richard Drew’s iconic photographs of a man falling from the World Trade Centre during the 9/11 attacks. The animation will be screened in between two of the dance pieces.

I took some pretty direct inspiration from the famous photo, but decided to focus on the patterns and structure of the buildings rather than the falling figures, mainly because I was too scared to tackle such a delicate subject head on like that (especially given the relatively short time I had to make it). I was quite happy to concentrate on creating and experimenting with more abstract imagery, and the crumpled paper (an idea taken directly from the design of the dance piece) provided a great visual metaphor that neatly allowed me to avoid having to tackle a more literal interpretation.

Within This Dust will be performed at this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe from the 7th to the 19th of August at Dance Base (Venue 22) 14-16 Grassmarket, Edinburgh. More details here.