Citymoves In Conversation: Katie Armstrong

It has been a summer full of creative spark, experimental dance, and innovative Dance Health research, and we realised it has been a wee while since we sat down and just chatted about dance with a friend. 

This most recent ‘Citymoves in Conversation’ Article with Katie Armstrong sprouted out of an email chain planning a residency in Aberdeen and resulted in Michelle and Katie chatting about how Citymoves has supported her through the years, and what the organisation means to her as a professional dancer and choreographer from Aberdeen. 

Meet Katie

Katie Armstrong is a professional dancer and Choreographer who grew up in Aberdeen and now creates work around the country. In recent years, her work has explored the connection to place and movement.  Her work with Citymoves has included a Community Cast Commission in Torry for Festival of the Sea 2024, Sketches, a collection of short films that showcase the built, emotional, and natural environments which featured in DanceLive Festival in 2023, and Glisk, the 2022 Citymoves DanceLive Commission, which took inspiration from a series of field recordings in landscapes around Aberdeen.

Still from SKETCHES, in Aberdeen Art Gallery

We were delighted to sit down with her in August to talk about her work, Citymoves, and what it means to be a part of our community.

Here are a few excerpts from that chat, beginning with Katie walking me through the role Citymoves plays in her career as a dancer.

 Katie [KA]: Whoo… I think over the years, I have been supported by Citymoves in lots of different ways, like when I think all the way back to when I lived in Aberdeen… I was aware of Citymoves when I was growing up, even though I was mainly training at Danscentre, I would occasionally go to classes at Citymoves, and then when I graduated, it was really nice, because I feel like in those days, a lot of dance felt really London-centric. We were maybe not specifically, but it seemed like, we were sort of encouraged to stay in London, and that was kind of the only option.

But I remember when I graduated. I can't remember who it was, but there was an audition in Aberdeen through Citymoves. And I was like, ‘What? Like, that's so cool?!’

So then I think, I'm going back very far to when I graduated, but throughout my professional career, I feel like Citymoves has supported me in lots of different ways. Like, when I used to work with Aya, a lot of the time we ended up doing weekly rehearsals in Aberdeen, and it was just really nice to have that support. It almost felt like a little base almost, that we could go to and create work.

And, unless there was a performance that we had to do, it didn't feel like there was loads of expectation, like you must do a sharing on this day. It just felt really organic. We just felt, within that setting, it felt very supported to just share with no sort of stress. […]

 It wasn't like, ‘Oh, here's a bit of support’. And then, like, ‘off you go, do your thing,’ and then also, the support and trust that they put in me to do a commission for DanceLive felt really important in my development as a choreographer. When I made Glisk, which I made in 2022 for DanceLive, that was a completely new project for me. And I feel like other things that I'd done had been developed over a very long time, and quite slowly, whereas Glisk felt like a new idea that I kind of came up with, and Citymoves supported a residency, and supported me going forward for funding and things, and then supported the development of that as a commission for DanceLive, and it was just like that sort of full circle feeling of seeing something through to the end and feeling really supported and safe to explore something like that was a bit new to me.

 It was clear from the moment we sat down to talk that Katie valued the support of our community, which is one of her favourite parts of collaborating with Citymoves.

[KA] I was just speaking about seeing a project through to the end, that sort of full circle

feeling that feels really prominent with Citymoves.  I feel like that seems to be how I've experienced working with them on projects; everything feels really supported. I think as well, there's a really lovely community there.

Like within the team of Citymoves, I feel like everybody's super friendly, which I think crosses over the team, but also the professional pool of dancers and artists up in Aberdeen is so nice and just really friendly and supportive.

 I think as well, I when I did the commission for Festival of the Sea, I realised that the connection between Citymoves and other organisations in Aberdeen is really nice, and helpful. Especially, I think if you're making work, or I guess if you're situated there as well. Like working with Open Road for that commission for Festival of the Sea was really lovely, and understanding it all or getting to know all of the things that they were doing as part of Festival of the Sea, and how that linked into the people who I was working with.

All of it sort of felt intertwined, and not like ‘Citymoves is here, and this organisation is here and that organisation is there, and we don't like overlap at all’  instead felt very intertwined.

Which just kind of makes it a bit of a hotbed for creativity.

I think [Citymoves also] has a really strong engagement with the community. It feels very integrated in Aberdeen, and in a really nice sort of way I think.

 It feels like, almost like a nucleus [from which] dance can sort of spread outwards, which feels really nice.

It feels like a lot of Citymoves really, supports work that is regionally situated as well as further away. 

But I think it's really nice that for me, being an artist from Aberdeen, I feel really supported through Citymoves to explore work that's regionally situated in Aberdeen.

I also feel supported to explore work that is about my experiences of being from that place.

And of course, the conversation turned to Michael Clark’s Residency at Citymoves over the Summer and the new work he is creating with Scottish Dancers. Katie expressed not only her excitement for the project, but also how she encouraged her pupils to attend the auditions, and what work like this means for Aberdeen.

[KA] I know you've got, Michael Clark up there at the moment. That feels really exciting for Aberdeen, but also Scotland, and then also, just like the dance scene in general. I thought that was, a really exciting thing to be happening.

 I'm so excited to see what your work with Michael Clark will bring and where it will go. It just feels really, really exciting for Scotland and, I feel like there's so many young dancers coming onto the scene who are doing graduate work at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland right now. and I was doing a workshop with this graduating year [at RCS] when I saw that audition coming out, I was like, ‘all of you should be going for this. Like, that's amazing!’ So, yeah, I just think it's exciting when there's so many amazing dancers and folks in Scotland.

It's really exciting and it is going to be good. I'm excited. I'm excited for where dance is going to go in the next five years or so. I think it's really moving in Scotland right now.

Before we closed out our chat, I made sure to ask the one question I ask in every In Conversation piece, what one piece of advice would Katie share with our young dancers at Citymoves if she were given the chance.

Her answer?

Collaborate.

 [KA] One piece of advice… I would say,

If you are interested in movement and dance, keep your mind open to other things, I've learned that collaboration, maybe that's collaboration across art forms, or maybe it's collaboration with other people, or, just that word, collaboration, is really helpful.

And sometimes when I think back to when I was training, it felt very like sort of, this is the thing that I'm doing, and this is where I want to get, whereas I feel like during my career, and I think as soon as I moved back to Scotland, I realised that actually collaboration and working with people and other art forms and other organisations and just exploring what's possible, kind of just, it goes from being like this [makes a small box with her hands] to like this [opens arms wide].

Festival of The Sea Community Cast 2024 at Greyhope Bay School and Community Hub.

If you would like to learn more about Katie's work you can find her on Social Media at Katie Armstrong Projects or on her website: https://www.katiearmstrong.co.uk/