Douglas stems from physical actions imagined by the artist while working on various daily tasks at home, and uses an intuitive approach that involves objects or materials as a point of attention.

This year as part of Next Choreography Festival, curated by young artists and choreographers from our Next Choreography programme, choreographer and dance artist Robbie Synge performs his work Douglas.

Structures warmly invite and focus physical action through tactile exploration or amateur physics experimentation. The mind becomes occupied by haptic feedback, and proprioceptive adventures unpick locks towards playful immersion and reflection, through which many hours pass. A questioning of point and purpose tussles with an intrinsic embodied appreciation of fulfilment through physical action. Objects are functional tools, or devices as an extension of body or, perhaps more importantly, as elements that acquire some independent agency upon the body, regardless of typical function. Amid inanimate objects, a live-ness and ecology of connection and feedback is pursued. Douglas is this. This is Douglas. Somewhere, through these considerations, a choreographic practice emerges.

The work was developed throughout 2014, outdoors and in Evanton Village Hall, Ross-shire.