Ciara Lee

The project Balter is about club culture and dance spaces, concentrating on how people act and interact in those spaces. The aim of the project Balter is to capture the catharsis of the dancers whom are being released from the emotional tension of everyday life. It explores dance as an involuntary, thoughtless reaction to music. I want to capture the real moments in the dance where people let go of all their inhibitions and let their body do what it wants to do, the moment when the body starts moving to the rhythm of the music without a thought from the head stepping in and stalling it. It is a primitive moment full of passion and longing to move a certain way that I try to capture. To balter is to dance artlessly without particular skill or grace but usually with great enjoyment. To balter in itself involves a certain degree of letting go. Balter aims to capture the boisterous grittiness of what it is to be a part of the dancefloor. The feelings one experiences and the sights one sees. Removing the beer goggles and the drug infused state, one experiences the dancefloor differently now that it is laid out in front of them. The sense of nostalgia or déjà vu plays a big role in my work. You start to think of all the people you’ve interacted with on the dancefloor. People you’ve danced with. The feeling of sweat rolling down your face and of clothes clinging to your back. As we look at the photographs we swap places with the camera and become another person in the dance space. Dance. It is what inspires. It’s what I admire. I will never tire from its constant attraction to me. It is a distraction to me, With its strong interaction and flows between the Jim Crows and John Does. Dance, it is what I constantly crave. People can be so fucking brave, Challenging epilepsy at a rave. The beauty enslaves me. Behind the lens I am in a trance. All I want to do is dance but the circumstance ain’t right. I want to dance with these fools To be in that spotlight That ankle popping, finger clicking, fat jiggling feeling Of losing yourself to the music You know what I’m talking about You felt that feeling before Coulda swore that was you I saw on the dancefloor. Dance is something I’d pay for if it were not free I swear I would climb a mountain of trees, if only I could see The dancing you do behind closed doors. Dancing like a dinosaur with your labrador. The dancefloor is a primitive place where your suddenly remember how to move to the bass It’s fast pace, state of grace, stone-like face Slipping, Dripping, To reveal, that long forgotten sex appeal.

I became interested in space during the early stages of the project Balter. Dance helped me look at space in a new way. I became particularly interested in the space between dancers. How far away could dancers be from one another and still be considered to be dancing with each other?

The shutting down of clubs and dance spaces this year made this question all the more urgent in my work. I never thought touching was necessary for two people dancing with one another but how far could this distance be pushed? Could they be on the other side of the room? Could they be on the other side of the road? Could they be on the other side of the window? Could they be on the other side of a wall? Could there be a person in between them, a person separate to the dancers? Could they be on the other side of the world? Could they be separated by time? Dancers need some form of contact with each other if they are not touching and it became obvious to me that what connects dancers together most of all is the eyes. There needs to be some form of seeing one another. If the dancers cannot see or touch one another then the link becomes broken and they can no longer dance with one another.