Shelly Love  

Shelly Love in Focus

Shelly Love a Retrospective by Oto The Wolf

Shelly Love grew up on the misty West Coast and Highlands of Scotland. It is perhaps here that her imagination captured the fantastical worlds that have become the backdrops to her work.

Inspired by Kate Bush and Pina Bausch, she began her dance training at The Dance School of Scotland in Glasgow before studying BAHONS in Dance Theatre at The Laban Centre in London.  She then had a career as a professional dancer, choreographer and lecturer in contemporary dance theatre before she made her move into filmmaking. 

It was under the umbrella of Dance Film, when the genre was blooming but still underground, that she began making films.
Naive and unconscious of film convention, she favored an experimental approach, where why not replaced why and the outlandish triumphed over convention.
It is such a free approach and her way in to filmmaking that have made Shelly such an interesting artist.

As her very first workshop film was picked up and broadcast on CH4, her successive films followed suit. ‘Little White Bird’ and ‘Scratch’ were both broadcast on CH4 and ‘Scratch’ won the IMZ Best Choreography on Screen Award.

Then, in 2002 Shelly became Associate Artist at The Place, the UK’s premier Centre for Contemporary Dance.
It was during her residency that she created her ‘Backwards Series’, which include the films ‘Delia and George’,‘POD’ and ‘Film’.
The films explore the creative potential of every day products such as newspaper, bin bags and cling film and run entirely backwards.
Choreographic in form, they are absurd poetic stories of love and fear told through cling film brides, paper hats and latex sculptures.

All films in the series have been broadcast on CH4 and ‘Film’ is included in ‘Forward Motion’, the British Councils collection of ‘Outstanding British Dance Films’.

It is at this juncture that her playful experiments in household products grabbed the attention of the promo world and she began directing music videos.  Then, with a substantial bundle of promos in her pocket along with a ‘Best Music Video Award’, she joined the Circus.

In 2008 Shelly became Artist in Residence at Circus Space, the prestigious Circus Arts School in London. She was then commissioned to devise and direct a film with their students.
‘The Forgotten Circus’ is the result, an apocalyptic tale of a dying ringmaster and his forgotten circus.
A highly evocative film, The Forgotten Circus resonates in notions of war, hysteria and humanity in sumptuous, painterly colours reminiscent of a bygone era.  Playing out to a wonderfully fitting soundtrack by the band ‘The Irrepressibles’, the film marks the beginning of future collaborations with the band and Circus Space and is the pilot film for a future Forgotten Trilogy.

As a storyteller who traverses the lines between film, art and choreography Shelly brings the world of movement and music into the world of fiction and fiction into the world of movement and music.  As can be seen in her exhibition piece, ‘Betwixt and Between’ a portrait of two seemingly upright and proper twins whose controlled gestures and powerful glances gradually reveal them to be downright sinister. In the story, their movements tell us all we need to know.

Then, there is her throw away fiction,‘Strange Gold Shoes’ made for the NIKE78 Exhibition and written by Shelly in ten minutes as a stream of consciousness, It is a tall tale in which a dead-pan narrator tells the story of Bella and Bob who live on a slippery slope. Bob suffers from flatulence and a fear of slopes, while Bella the local shoemaker, suffers from Wooden Block!
It is an absurd tale but also utterly human and one can’t help but empathize with their predicament. 

In 2010 a retrospective entitled ‘The Imaginings of Shelly Love’ toured Australia as part of the Reeldance Festival and was reviewed by the Sydney Herald as, ‘The highlight of the festival’.

With so much exposure so early on in her film career, it would appear through retrospect that we have been witnessing this self taught film director develop her filmic language very publicly while still in her infancy.

With a body of work behind her, her gaze is fixed on the future, I personally look forward to seeing what she creates, as I am in no doubt that, such an artist with her commanding versatility in genre, narrative and technique will bring something truly unique to the world of cinema.

 

OTO THE WOLF

 

 

 

 

 
   

     
     

 

Shelly Love Independent Artist & Director
Biography