CREATIVE PLACES | Fenland Elegy, Dan Canham
Our Creative Places work supports artists to develop projects with communities across the region. Residencies offer artists time and space to expand their practice and explore ideas for projects they might then develop with us. Supported by Norfolk & Norwich Festival, dancer and choreographer Dan Canham is spending time in the Fenlands meeting young people.
In 2023, re-discovering the landscape of his childhood, Dan embarked on a series of meetings and workshops which opened up an unexpected encounter. When Babylon Arts introduced Dan to Katie Boag and Ash Goosey - two krump dancers from the Ely area - they collaborated on a short film that resonates profoundly with many of the themes he went into the residency with; young people, landscape, climate grief and ritual. The film, Fenland Elegy, premiered at Norfolk & Norwich Festival in 2024 and has been submitted to international film festivals.
We will continue to support Dan’s work through an ongoing residency. He is seeking to explore these themes and issues through four in-depth film portraits of the young people who live in the Fenlands which will also act as research for Dan to develop and propose a performance in 2026.
A valuable opportunity for artists, residencies like this offer a chance to get under the skin of a place before embarking on a larger project.
‘To have the time and space to build relationships, to learn what is already in place in the area and to trial experiments has been of immense value and has ultimately allowed for the conditions for richer work to occur’ Dan Canham