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The project outline was
presented to Swansea City Football Club, who eventually
agreed sponsorship in kind. They permitted full use of the
North Bank section of the ground as a rehearsal and
performance venue and also agreed to assist in the promotion
of the project.
With support from the
football club and partner organisation,
Gorseinon College, an application was made to the
Arts
Council of Wales for a ‘Children, Young People and the
Arts’ bursary to financially assist with the development of
the performance and creation of the film.
Rehearsals with students
from Gorseinon College were spread over a period of six
weeks. Dance ideas were explored and devised through a
series of workshops, lead by the choreographers. The
students contributed to the bank of ideas, many of which
were developed and used in the final piece. The dance piece
was broken down into manageable sections, mass movement,
aggression, tribal and humorous. Motifs were developed
through intensive workshop sessions and integrated at
crucial stages.
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The filming took
place in the Vetch Field on 26 February 2003.
Performing on the terraces, within the environment
that they had studied injected enthusiasm into the
team. Performing in-situ allowed the students to
create the appropriate atmosphere and behave as
required within a controlled and professional
environment.
The editing
process was extremely time-consuming. The footage
amounted to six hours in total, made up of sequences
shot at the Vetch Field and CCTV footage from recent
games.
The use of CCTV
footage was permitted under strict guidelines. To
avoid issues relating to the infringement of human
rights, the features of individuals needed to be
obliterated so that the crowds were not
recognisable. This was achieved by inverting the
colour at the editing stage. The result was
interesting in several respects; once the colour had
been inverted, the fan’s faces appeared black and
almost mask-like. Mask-work was also explored at the
filming stage as the notion of loss of identity was
considered. In addition to this, the nature of the
colour inversion also made visual references to
previous prints. |
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