THE DANCE

(2020)
Cel animation/ Storytelling/
Compositing/ Character Design

This film is a tribute to Paula Rego. With her dictation, I illustrates her inspiration and intention of drawing creatures. Following the instinct, all characters drawn by her start to dance.

MA Animation at London College of Communication, UAL are pleased to present a screening of a series of short animated films made in collaboration with TATE. MA Animation students from London College of Communication (LCC) had the opportunity to collaborate with Tate’s digital department as part of their course.

Tate’s mission is to champion art and artists. Tate’s digital strategy also includes reaching broad and diverse audiences. There are hundreds of artists in Tate’s collection. Tate selected a number of audio clips from recordings of artists talking about their creative processes to offer the filmmakers studying at LCC a springboard for creating a 30 to 90 second short film. The filmmakers were inspired by the artist’s world, and have brought to life their own responses through the language of animation.

(Full video)

(Director/Animator) Ikea Xie
(Sound/Music) Yung Haung
(Voice) Paula Rego
(Special thanks) Kim Noce; Lizzy Hobbs; Matt Abbiss

I adore Paula Rego because she is not only a visual artist, but also a person who is good at telling stories. The characters in her painting are no longer just works of art. They are like real people. Her paintings show a unique dramatic psychological description through the relationship between men, women and children. Her painting language has a clear naive style and is full of the sense of form of contemporary art. It has become the psychological state of people in today's life.

In this animation, I used black and white video to show that I wanted to focus on the role performance, but also echoed the famous Etching style of paula rego. As for music, the elegant and brisk piano performances run through the character dance.