Profile: Janice Parker

Artist's Statement by Janice Parker - Creative Scotland Award recipient 2005

'I describe myself as a choreographer and dance producer, the latter because I like to work with possibility – the place beyond that which we already know, and the former because I like to create new work.

From a background of teaching and community dance I have “specialised” in the “non-dancer”. I am constantly inspired by the possibilities of the untrained body and the natural spontaneous qualities of ordinary people moving and dancing.

Recently I have become interested in the potential that exists within the movement qualities of people with learning disabilities, not only the potential within people themselves but also the potential this movement has for resourcing contemporary dance and live art practice.

Bringing these two worlds together is one of my primary aims. As a current and happy recipient of a Creative Scotland Award from the Scottish Arts Council I will, for the next year, be able to work at depth with this idea and create a new performance/installation informed by this process.

I am passionate about art and art making and get very despondent when work involving people with disabilities gets marginalised as social inclusion or as a unique expression of disability consciousness. Not to deny that art can, of course be of great value to the social and personal condition, but it is the art itself, in product and in process, that is the inspiration to me. 

Over the years I have been fortunate to work with a number of truly engaging people and organisations who have helped shape and support my vision and understanding, not least Wolfgang Stange and Amici Dance Theatre Company with their roots in German Expressionism, Gabrielle Roth who re-connected me with my original Laban Movement Analysis Training, Royston Maldoom and his full scale choreographic works and the inspiring and in-depth New Territories work curated by Nikki Milican. Artlink in Edinburgh is a constant and challenging support. They have pushed me to consider the practice of collaborative art and the status of work involving people with disabilities. I now define collaboration simply as a practice that is informed by more than one person, remove one person and a different work exists. 50/50 is neither a relevant nor necessary concept!

The spectrum and scope of my work can be wide and diverse and most often focusing around the individual.

Projects include performance with Baryshnikov’s White Oak Dance Project, a still to be shown film installation created within The Royal Museum in Edinburgh, a postcard portrait of a woman moving into new accommodation and a recent dance film with Katrina McPherson involving people with complex learning disabilities. I am also about to start a project with X Factor Dance Company working in collaboration with my organisation traveller dance. 

My desire as an artist is to push people beyond that which they already know. I seem to need to ask what else, what now….?!'

Janice Parker
May 2005

Funded by National Lottery through Scottish Arts Council