19th March.

Spent today on the frozen water between the islands of Lulea. There are pathways marked out through the snow and the ice is like a park - people use the paths to skate, ski, jog, walk their dogs. Earlier today there was bright sunshine and the light was bouncing off the white ice. This evening, the sky is grey, and the ice has lost it’s sheen. I wrapped the camera in bubblewrap plastic, set it down on the ice and slid it around. Camera skating. Spinning the camera around and seeing where the frame settles. As the path emptied this evening, Scott and I tried spinning the camera and then walking into frame once the camera had come to a halt. Just walking and standing.

Which is probably a tricky thing to understand, when we are here under the banner of ‘dance on screen’ or ‘video dance’ or whatever it is that people call it. I don’t know if I am making screen dance or not, and it doesn’t seem important to me to define what I do. I do know that I am interested in the composition of movement and that seems like choreography to me. Or editing. Or both.

So I have been asking Scott to stand still in frame in various locations - in the same place in the frame - and letting the locations change around his still body. Standing man. Cold makes everything so still.

Tomorrow we go further north and I am not sure what the internet access will be like in the places we are going to. So I will keep writing and when I get online, I will post it.

22nd March.

We have moved up to Abisko, close to the border of Norway. It is much colder here, and more still, as all movement and sound is muted by the cold. It is utterly spectacular. I have never seen anything like this Arctic landscape. The scale of it is immense.

Two days ago we travelled from Lulea to Kiruna - a mining town within the Arctic Circle. The whole town is going to be moved to another location over the next decade because of subsidence caused by the mining industry. Whilst there we drove out towards the mountains, and shot some material in scrub land there. The snow is deep and there is an aspect to being in it that is utterly exhausting. Sometimes I wish for much smaller equipment, as hauling camera and tripod through snowdrifts can be hard going. There is a whole rigmarole about going outside - get the equipment ready, climb into cold weather romper suits, get boots on - hats, gloves, by which time I realise that the keys are in my jeans which are under the romper suit and I have to take half of it off and start again.

Then I will be walking along what seems like fairly tightly-packed snow and suddenly I will sink down to my knees and I am left flailing around, with a large camera bag, trying to dig myself out. Which probably has a comedic value to onlookers.

Then, as in Argentina, there is the prospect of being faced with astounding landscape and feeling that anything additional that I might my place into it would be utterly superfluous. Why would you film dance out here? It would just get in the way of a perfectly good view. So, as in Argentina, I struggle with placing a dancer out here, and I look for the movement that already exists. Or if I do place a dancer there, he is standing still. Standing man.

Up here in Abisko, it is even more astounding. Looking at it all I am overwhelmed and the marks that I make on tape seem somehow completely inadequate. But I keep making them - that’s what I am here for. I am reminded of Jonathan Burrows who said that when he feels self-conscious whilst performing, he deals with it by letting himself feel more self-conscious. So if I am feeling inadequate, I will make this a study into inadequacy. I don’t know what else to do about it.

I am so hoping to see the Northern Lights.

23rd March

The Northern Lights danced for us last night. Brief but very satisfying.

What is it that i am trying to express by using a camera on this? I know that it has to be more than showing or composing scenery in frame. Am i trying to comment on it, or to convey how it feels for me to be here? Am I trying to oppose it is some way, in order to make the nature of it more visible? Or do something that would support it?

The questions arise around the screen as a site for choreography. What is it that I am choreographing? The body? The space around the body? The movement that already exists in the space? Or the frame around the space? I am trying to work my way through all of those options.

When does the choreography take place? Before I shoot? As I shoot? After I’ve shot?

Today we took the chair lift up to the top of the mountain - Nuolja. I’ve never been that keen on chair lifts - I’m not good with heights, and chair lifts always seem like a slightly rickety form of transportation. They make great tracking devices through, so I filmed on the way up and on the way down. It was so much colder up on top of the mountain. There was a cafe though, with very good cake. Incredible views. Just phenomenal. We did some filming up at the top, but the camera started to behave slightly oddly - it seemed very show to respond to anything, which was a bit alarming. Seemed to be working fine once I had got it down the mountain and let it warm up a bit.

Paid £11 for a pint of beer and a glass of wine in the bar. Wow!

24th March.

For the first time, I felt that the cold and the environment got the better of me today. Scott and I set out across the lake, with the aim of getting close to the centre of it, and of trying to spin the camera on the ice. The camera was all bundled up in its bubblewrap outfit, but the nature of the ice was so different to the man-made ice paths in Lulea, and no matter how we tried to smooth it over, we could not make the camera spin in a way that was satisfying. It was windy and absolutely freezing out in the middle of this huge lake of ice. Suddenly I felt utterly defeated. I had used so much energy getting out onto the lake, and I was a long way from the shore (and the warm and dry accommodation), my plan had fallen apart and I was at a loss. We set off towards a small island in the ice, in the hope of finding a rock that we could sit down on. It is hard to judge distances out on the ice. You set off towards something that looks to be 5 minutes away, and after 5 minutes it suddenly looks to be 10 minutes away. Finally we sat on the ice near the island and ate some sandwiches. Then headed back to the warmth of our room. The whole thing completely exhausted me, physically and mentally. I couldn’t make any choices at all, except for the choice to get warm.