Entasi: Rage against the Machine.

When you take a little stroll through my website portfolio and my social media channels, you’ll notice that I film a lot of dance. A lot of dance! And while I hope people know that it’s not all I do – not by a long shot – it’s still something I’m really proud to come back to time and time again.

My roots are in live performance, through my own work with live music and live theatre, and then going on to learn about the technical requirements behind producing shows and events like that. It’s always a joy to come back to live performance and see the passion that still exists for the Arts and creative expression, especially in the next generation (god, I don’t feel old enough to be talking like this yet!).

Well, working with Entasi Dance Company back in November 2025 was just that. Back shooting dance, and back around people with the bug for creativity!

Fan-Girl-ing:

What really appealed to me about this project was getting the chance to work with Founder and Choreographer-extraordinaire, Maria Kypreos, again. Not to mention getting to work with some of the dancers again, having collaborated with Maria and the company previously on a piece for the Brighton Fringe called Host. What really enticed me with Entasi (see what I did there?) was coming back to work with such an inspirational Creative. I won’t pull my punches; I absolutely love Maria’s style of choreography. And what really struck me, having shot for Host before (Article coming for that… on the To-Do list), is the way she creates a beautiful and emotive contrast between chaos and something that evokes timeless beauty, leaving the audience bowled over with this… raw and powerful performance (I feel like I’m struggling to find the words, but then… I think it’s no surprise that words just can’t capture what dance and performance does! It’s part of what makes it so important as an art form.)

The way Maria weaves all the dynamic and emotive strands together, to create this beautiful chaos that unfolds before us, like an organic organism, and somehow turns raw energy into visual spectacle.

But it’s not just Maria that sold the project to me; it’s getting to work with a youth company like this. They always bring energy and a want to push boundaries (and not in the way we often think of ‘youth’ like ‘the youth of today’ pushing boundaries!) – these young performers want to push and keep creating and performing in ways that haven’t been seen before. So there’s always something fresh and something new that I get from working with youth companies like this. And, as it so happens, this ended up being the heart of the shoot for me. But more on that in a minute…

Get your head in the game:

When it came to the actual shoot day, my brain was struggling to catch up with the notion of doing a dance shoot because of all the hats I’d already donned that day: I’d been editing for another client on a completely different project, and I’m a dad so I’d had to stop the presses to get the kids ready for school and out the house – basically, I had other energies buzzing around my head that day! And on days like that, I find it so important to try and get to the venue a little earlier than needed, just to allow myself some time to decompress, recentre, and focus on the project I’m about to walk into – especially on a movement based shoot, where you as the videographer have to be just as quick on your toes and just as alert and focused as any of the dancers! - it’s the time to remember all the pre-production chats I’ve had with this particular client, re-cap any versions of the choreography I have been sent, what the plan of attack is going to be, what narrative we’re going to be working, and run through a bit of a mental checklist to get us back in the here and now.

Smoke and mirrors:

One of the key considerations before we even got into the day’s venue, was that we were shooting in a school and in a rehearsal/classroom space. Even before any other technical considerations, I had to allow for the fact that this wasn’t a theatre – there would be no stage, and no professional lighting. We were going to have to get creative with taking the focus off the backdrop, which were literally walls covered in photos of students working on various projects over the years. Definitely not something we could or wanted to make a feature of! As the videographer, it’s down to me to think outside the box and move away from the classroom aesthetic. At the end of the day, this shoot was about promoting Entasi’s upcoming show and was about getting bums on seats for them. It was important to add a bit of ‘smoke and mirrors’ magic so that the viewing audience would focus more on the dancers’ performative attitude than their surroundings. It’s my job, in the way I film, the frames I choose or compose (removing or using bodies to block the OHP! YES. AN O.H.P), and the way I edit, to make sure the audience is immersed in the ‘product’ and the focus has been pulled from the filming environment. ‘Videographers – the original magic erasers!’

Filming high energy dance and working with young people is such a different energy from working in a corporate or business environment. Where those environments are stable, usually ones of routine, and paced energy, working on a dance shoot, in contrast, usually offers all the opposites! – much like myself, where I had been donning different hats and needed the gear shift to get my head in the game, the performers themselves were coming into this shoot after a day at school or college or their day-jobs. They ran the risk of being mentally overstimulated and yet physically exhausted. And there was no chance of ‘pacing’ their energy here – they were needed to put all that behind them, to dig deep into their reserves, and give, body and soul, to the camera.

As the videographer (but also as an adult), I needed to make allowances for the fact that this shoot could easily feel like herding cats if we weren’t all prepared to get focused! At the end of the day, many of these young dancers were doing this as a passion project and an extra-curricular activity. Entasi Dance is something they do for fun and simply because they love it. It’s a chance to be expressive but also to be social. It required a gear shift from all of us to walk into a room that wasn’t designed to be a performance space, and force ourselves to bring our energy up to one of performance: there were no lights, there was no glitz, but we all needed to bring our A-game, put aside the socialising, step away from the rest of our days, and act the performance.

Big kids:

When I mentioned that reflections on ‘working with youth companies’ was going to be the heart of the project, for me, I mean that some of the most hilarious and creative and unique experiences on this shoot came from the heart of who these performers are and what they’re doing – not to mention, being reminded why I love doing the work that I do.

A ‘pinch me’ moment like that – where I remembered all over again why I love my job – was feeling like I was helping to inspire confidence and creativity and pride in their craft in the next generation of Creatives. It’s one of the most positive moments I get with any client, but especially with young people who aren't often shown how wonderful they can be – it’s showing them the camera and the scene we've just captured. So often, students and professionals alike will try and capture the essence of what they're doing with their phones or maybe they'll ask a friend to help them, and, while this can be better than nothing, it just doesn't quite do the subject justice as it deserves, or the movement, and the whole thing can feel like it falls slightly flat of its potential. This is never more true than when you're working with young dancers who are so talented and so wonderful when they move together. And of course they can never see it from the audience’s perspective because they're very much involved in the movement – they are the subject – and maybe they can see it in a rehearsal studio mirror, but they don’t get to see what an audience can see, or shift their focus across the group in the way an audience can. So that first showing, that first revealing of ‘you just did this’… it’s so wonderful to see the energy change and the conversations that come afterwards and the immediate surge of energy, and pride and enthusiasm and motivation.

That’s certainly the warm fuzzy memory I took away from the day… The more hilarious one was something far more stupid!

Again – perhaps it was because I was working with young performers, or perhaps it was simply because the project was movement based, and Maria’s choreography was so raw and evocative… either way, it created the perfect storm!

In one of their choreographed arrangements, there’s a group of people posed as though in a family portrait, where you had a front row who were kneeling down, a middle row who were slightly higher, and then a back row who were stood (anyone else having school photo day flashbacks? I was tall so I was always banished to the back row!). And so they were posing for a family portrait and the juxtaposition that Maria had come up with was that they would all break out of this character of uniformity and sensible behaviour into this rage and chaos. And in that, they were thrashing and lashing and shouting and screaming and tearing and ripping to show the height of emotion – again, beautifully clashing with the music and the elegant behaviour of the other dance that we would put alongside it, indicating repression and release. Now, in that moment of rage, Maria had put on ‘Rage Against the Machine’ or other angry, highly emotive metal music. And the dancers responded by throwing their bodies around and whipping their hair and, for lack of a better word, moshing in situ. And in that moment – and it’s in the final footage! - whilst capturing the front couple of rows, who were shouting and screaming and creating angry faces, you might notice that some of the back row are missing. And that wasn’t because they had walked off. That was because I believe someone had elbowed someone else in the head. And, in fact, they were on the floor laughing and crying - very much in pain but finding it hilarious at the same time! So if you were to go through the video and stop at those sections of rage and really look for it you would probably notice moments where people in the background were not there and that's because they were lying on the floor! Now obviously this happens quite quickly so I'm not sure people see it but I thought the energy and the shot that I was getting in the foreground was so important that actually it made the edit so enjoy finding that easter egg. Sorry for the lasting legacy of that time you got elbowed in the head, girls!

This shoot kind of had it all. Head-scratching creative decisions, all of us mustering the energy to do a high energy shoot, heart-warming reflective moments, hilarity, pain – it’s had the works! It also, somehow, still managed to send me home with fresh understanding of the role I was playing.

Story-telling:

Some shoots and edits can be very cleanly cut – there’s a clear specification, there’s a check-list to tick off, there are key players to feature, it’s a tight two minute video – signed and sealed and it’s done. Some clients already have a solid creative vision that I’m brought in to execute. Some clients rely on me to find the creative vision. Both of these are absolutely fine, and it’s all part of why I love my job!

On this shoot, I was reminded of how instrumental a videographer and, perhaps more specifically, an editor can be in terms of selling a product and creating a narrative. Dance tells a story by itself, of course, but with this latest project by Entasi, the narrative wasn’t linear – here, the choreography was modular, more like chapters. Chapters from comparable but contrasting stories, sometimes! And when you’re creating a one minute video of the entire thing… where do you start? What’s the beginning, and what’s the end? You need to create your own narrative. (It’s worth noting, this was mainly due to the stage in the choreographic process I was stepping in at, as you can see this shoot was in rehearsal attire rather than finished costume design.) In order to do my job, I have to put it into a linear framework, even if only for the purposes of the promo video! And in order to make that happen and to make it make sense, I often put pieces of movement and pieces of choreography together that perhaps wouldn't have been together in their rehearsal period or in their creative ‘research and development’ period. So I always find it surprising how my involvement as a videographer - as a person who deals with movement and placing an audience - can influence that creative decision process of a choreographer.

The final chapter:

At the end of the editing process, I sent the email off quite late because that's when I finished cutting it all. I had decided to work an evening to get this over to Maria in good time, because obviously I knew she had a show to promote in January. I wanted us to have the maximum amount of time to go through an amendment process and really tighten and polish what it was she needed. So, sending it off quite late at night meant that I could start the next day with a conversation about it and hit the ground running. Not expecting any response, I finished my day and went to bed… unaware that Maria had got back to me only half an hour later saying three words – “OBSESSED”,all in capital letters, just like that. Which - when I woke up - was a lovely thing to read because it was such a raw emotional response. She’d clearly written from the heart with her gut reaction, and it meant that I had connected with her vision and with the choreography. After a conversation with Maria, talking more professionally about any amendment ideas and opportunities that she might want to capitalize on, and also discussing the screen time that each of the dancers would have received, we landed on a version we were happy with and the whole thing was signed, sealed and delivered!

My kind of people:

As I’ve already mentioned, this kind of work reminds to me why I love doing what I do - connecting with people and making a real difference to their journeys, not just in their business but in their lives too. Quite often I’m working with people who are part of a bigger beast – a member of a company, or an employee within a business family, but you cannot recreate the energy that you get from working with a Founder who is the soul of their company and their business and their ethos. I love working in dance and with athletes and I love showcasing these incredible individuals’ talents. To be there for when they push themselves, to witness their personal best, to see them strive again and again, and pour themselves into their craft. There’s nothing quite like people who are passionate and enthusiastic about the work that they do, it just makes that whole process so much more special. And I get to witness it. In many cases, I’m the one who gets to share it with the wider world! I get to help put people on the map, and that’s such an amazing feeling. The show that this video was promoting, was well received and handsomely attended, which is such a rewarding return on any investment.

This project from Entasi Dance Company draws on an inner repression, an inner rage, an inner creativity that's bursting to come out. The opening scene (what I decided was the opening scene!) was one of uniformity and monotony, showing a series of moves stylised like that of a production line in a factory – uniform and in unison – evoking images of being a cog in the machine of society, doing our part again and again and again. Then the shot was juxtaposed against this inner rage and a want to party and break free and this creativity that couldn’t be contained any longer. And I think that is such an important message – especially for those of us in the Arts, or those of us who use the Arts (spoiler alert, that’s every single one of us. Your Netflix movies, your spotify playlists – we need the Arts, and we need artists): that we are more than just cogs, and it’s okay to rage against the machine.