KATRINA
McPHERSON
About Katrina
Having originally trained as a dancer and choreographer at Laban, London, an early career fascination with the collaborative possibilities of dance and the moving image led Katrina to complete a post-graduate in Electronic Imaging (video art) at Dundee University, laying the foundations of what would become a life-long, multi-faceted and influential engagement with screen dance.
As one of the first generation of hybrid screen dance artists, Katrina has made many single single, multi-screen and on-line works in collaboration with numerous international artists, and these works have been presented at venues and festivals world-wide.
Since the early 1990’s, Katrina has often been awarded funding from public and private organisations, institutions and arts councils, including being a recipient of the prestigious Creative Scotland Award of £25,000 for an individual artist in 2002.
Over a period of 15-years, Katrina was a director of arts programmes for UK television making films for the BBC, Scottish Television and Channel Four. She was co-director of Goat Media Productions from 2001-2015. A number of works directed by Katrina are held in collections including Lux Artists’ Moving Image UK, and the British Council.
Katrina lives in Scotland and is an Associate Artist at Dance Base In Edinburgh and a Dance North Associate Artist.
For more information about Katrina’s current projects, please check out the Blog on this website and visit www.makingvideodance.com
Research Statement
I am an award-winning artist, performer, scholar, curator, and educationalist who has been researching and contributing to the evolution of screen dance for the past 28 years. Over this time, there has been an explosion of artistic, scholarly, pedagogical and research activity in screen dance, and I have been a key player in all areas.
Through the work that I have done, I have a developed a deep understanding and knowledge of screen dance, and of dance and media arts, and have a strong track record of research and professional contribution within the field.
Since 1990, I have been regularly awarded commissions and received public and private funding to make work, including single screen film and video, installation, live dance performance and interactive on-line productions.
My artistic and written output is widely cited in publications and academic research. Over many years, I have established a network of fellow artists, academic peers and partner organisations, particularly in the UK, USA, Australia, Canada, Ireland and Germany.
The core themes of my current theory and practice-based research are:
Perceptions of memory, explored through screen-based and live somatic
expression; the exploration of archival practices; the screen dance artist as
performer/camera-operator/editor; text in screen dance; the relationship
between sound and image; the presence and role of screens in dance and in
life; issues around the documentary/documentation/screen-art continuum; the
use of scores, improvisation and manifestos in screen dance and live
performance-making; issues of co-authorship, copyright and creative
commons; the development of a pedagogy of screen dance, and wider
considerations of experiential education.
Teaching
A much sought-after lecturer, workshop facilitator and mentor, Katrina has taught screen dance and related subjects, both practical and academic in the UK, Australia, Germany, USA, Canada and China.
Katrina is currently a Visiting Lecturer of Screendance at Bath Spa University and regularly teaches on the BA and MA dance courses at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, University of Limerick. From January 2019, Katrina has been
Associate Professor at the University of Utah, USA where she teaches the Graduate Screendance courses.
The development of a screen dance pedagogy is central to Katrina’s work and she is the author of Making Video Dance - a step-by-step guide to creating dance for the screen, which was first published by Routledge in 2006, with a 2nd edition being released in 2018.
Katrina also initiated and led, with Professor Douglas Rosenberg (University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA), the first Symposium of Teachers of Screen Dance hosted by the American Dance Festival in 2015 and at the Dance for Camera Festival in New York in February 2016.
Katrina was co-investigator on a successful Arts and Humanities Research Council funding bid, which led to the establishment of the Screendance Research Network and was instrumental in bringing about the International Journal of Screen Dance, for which Katrina has written and the editorial board of which she is now on. Most recently, she hosted a reconvention of the Screendance Research Network at Findhorn in Scotland.
For details of workshops and mentoring opportunities with Katrina, please visit https://www.makingvideodance.com/workshops