In June myself (Jen Paterson, Artistic Director – All or Nothing) and choreographer Tess Letham were awarded a residency at The Work Room, in Glasgow.
The Work Room (TWR) is an artist-led membership organisation for artists working in dance, movement and choreography, based at the Tramway in the south side of Glasgow.
The aim of the residency was to explore partnering connections in which one partner is on the floor and the other is suspended in an aerial dance harness.
The inspiration and desire for this came from our recent piece, Spectral, which was commissioned by and presented at, the Hidden Door Festival, Edinburgh, in June 2025. The concept and dance choreography was developed by Tess, with aerial choreography by myself in collaboration with sound artist Dave House and lighting designer Sam Jones.
We took the Spectral choreography as a starting point and began developing it, using what we found in the residency to extend and deepen the work. It was also a chance to get to know each other better and really find out how we work together. Our creation time for Hidden Door in 2025 was very short, and this residency gave us an opportunity to play and experiment together.
The residency was split into 2 halves. In the first haldf, we spent 3 days at The Work Room in the Tramway. Mornings began with an extended open class where we looked at how Flying Low dance techniques could work together with parntering and harness work.
The physicality of Flying Low and moving between floor work and being on your feet, worked well and complimented the off balance moments and transitions between the floor and the air well. One of the big surprises of the residency was how exciting it was to play in the front pick up harness. Spectral was created with side pick up harness, and we found a lot of new possibilities in using front pick up. Another highlight was exploring the shifts between the dancers and aerialists, interchanging who was in the air and who was on the floor, which opened an interesting new creative journey for the performers.
The second half of the residency was held at National Theatre Scotland’s rehearsal rooms, providing us with more height and enabling us to introduce counterweight lines to the harnesses. We really appreciated the support from The Work Room in booking the space for this to happen. There is a huge benefit to organisations facilitating remote residencies and for us, this opened up for all kinds of movement work that we couldn’t explore previously.
It was great being at National Theatre Scotland. We played a lot with how we could bring the floor choreography into the air with the side pick up harness. We also delved deeping into our explorations from The Work Room studio in the front pick up harness and how this could be explored in longer lines and being counterweighted.
The aim is now to develop Spectral further with Sam Jones and Dave House and develop all 4 art forms together. Spectral would be a full length work, with the long term aim of it touring to different venues and festivals.
Thank you so much to The Work Room for the residency, it was invaluable to the work, and watch this space about future developments of Spectral!
Tess Letham is the creative lead on Spectral and we are currently awaiting funding decisions for further development.