Dance x Digital Creative Workshops: Navigating the Digital Divide

Workshop Description:

This workshop invites young dancers aged 12-18 to explore what happens when live performance meets digital technology. Led by choreographer Ella Watson-Heath, participants will look at the line between our "online selves" and our "real-life selves" - something many young people navigate every day through social media and screens - and discover how dance and digital tools can be used together to play with what an audience believes is real.
 

Case Study: STILL FALL

Participants will take a close look at Watson-Heath's work STILL FALL, which explores the gap between the curated, "highlight reel" version of ourselves we post online and who we really are day to day. We'll unpack how the piece was built, including movement created with Ashleigh Veitch and video design with AV designer Aron Murray, so dancers can see, step by step, how choreography and technology come together to tell a story.

Techniques and Methods

Dancers will be introduced to some of the creative techniques behind STILL FALL, in an age-appropriate and hands-on way, including:

• Green Screen Basics: A friendly introduction to chroma-key (green screen) technology, and how video can feel more like a painting than a photograph - suggestive and imaginative, rather than a literal picture of reality.
• Creative Prompts: Using simple improvisation games and movement prompts to help dancers generate their own movement, ideas, and short scenes.
• Telling a Story Your Own Way: Exploring how movement and layering can create mystery and multiple meanings, encouraging dancers to think critically about what's "true" versus what's constructed, on stage and online.

Hands-On Exploration
Much of the workshop is dedicated to safe, guided, hands-on play. Under the supervision of Ella Watson-Heath and Ashleigh Veitch, young dancers will have the chance to:

• Try out their own ideas using a real green-screen setup.
• Use simple movement prompts to see how their dancing looks and changes through digital filters.
• Practice staying calm and curious with uncertainty, building confidence and healthy critical thinking about digital spaces, where not everything on a screen is exactly as it seems.

By the end of the workshop, young dancers will walk away with new technical skills, creative confidence, and a thoughtful perspective on the relationship between our digital and physical worlds, tools they can carry into their own developing choreographic voice.