Sometimes, not often, I have the pleasure of receiving a fully formed idea in a cascade of inspiration. This was one of these cases.

I was listening to a youtube reading of a poem written by a UK poet named James McInerney and my body started moving to the lyrics. ‘Why don’t we (the lyrical hip hop community) dance to poetry?’ I found myself wondering. No sooner did this thought enter my mind then a whole idea – a visual concept – unceremoniously knock its steel-tipped boot in the door and barrel its way through after it. It is rare, a gift, I believe to receive such an idea already fully formed. I knew that I had to, had to had to had to, see it through.

So I gathered all the players who were to help me in this quest (all those who passed *The Bounce Test’) and we set off on this creative journey together that took 6 weeks in total, over 8 hours of filming over three days, and countless hours of labouring and tweaking during the video editing process.

*The Bounce Test: my personal method of selecting who I work with. If someone is so excited about the project that they are literally bouncing out of their chair, they pass. I also picked out my cover artist and everyone who worked with me on the Angelfire book trailer using this method – look how well those projects turned out!

But wait? I hear you say. You’re a writer. What does that have to do with creating the short film, nay, the dance concept piece you briefly describe?

It has everything to do with it. Whether we produce creative pieces through words, through poetry, through visual media or through dance… it is all based around the Art of the Story.

and now… for (something different) a little dance…

Dedicated to my writing mentor, Bryce RIP 22.11.2012