ISABEL ROCAMORA BIOGRAPHY
Isabel Rocamora is an artist filmmaker with a strong background in performance and choreography who makes screen-based work for installation, cinema and art broadcast. Her work focuses on phenomenological relationships between human states of consciousness, gesture, place and identity, and often situates itself in the margins between fictional and testimonial registers.
Originally from Spain, with a British background, Isabel arrived in the U.K in 1986. Graduating from Bristol University (drama/ film and french literature) she then trained in physical theatre (Jacques Lecoq, Paris), butoh dance (Daisuke Yoshimoto) and aerial skills (Circus Space, London). In recent years she has studied digital cinematography at Maine Workshops, U.S.
As co-founder of Momentary Fusion with Sophy Griffiths (1993- 00) she collaboratively developed the genre of “aerial dance-theatre”, a meeting point between physical performance and the aerial body, which served as a basis for her investigations into “anti-gravity performance”; using the suspended body and its ‘subversion’ of gravity as metaphor for human states of consciousness beyond the rational. Her pioneering aerial performance productions under Momentary Fusion have toured extensively both in the U.K and worldwide (Asia, U.S, South America, South Africa, Eastern/ Central Europe), often under the portfolio of the British Council. Rocamora’s body of site-specific work (more than 13 productions) comprises commissions for museums (Victoria & Albert, Bluecoat Arts Centre), festivals (Greenwich & Docklands, Mayor of London, Grec Festival – Barcelona) and science projects (Retroscreen Virology) using a range of architectural contexts such as a 17th century cloister, a disused crane and a medical library. Her productions have received prestigious awards such as English National Opera 'Most Innovative Production'.
Since 2000, under Infinito Productions, her practice has focused on moving image, at times incorporating technology and resulting in both live and screen-based work. Pieces include interactions between performance and video (Passage, 2 Bodies, Degree Zero), wearable technology works (Fluctuation and Memory Release) and films (Insomnia, Horizon of exile, Promise of fallen time). From 2004 onwards Rocamora is fully focused on filmmaking for installation, cinema and art broadcast. Commissioners include Watershed Media Centre, Arte Tv, TV3 Catalonia and Channel 4.
Isabel has also extensively collaborated in film and television productions including work for directors Tessa Sheridan, Jonathan Glazer and Charles Sturridge. She has been invited to give lectures and workshops on her practice worldwide. Some examples are: Rhode Island School of Design, Brown and Ohio Universities - U.S; Banff New Media Centre - Canada; Bristol University, U.K; National Theatres U.K, Taiwan, Malaysia, Venezuela, New Mexico; Architect’s Association and Whitechapel Gallery - London. She currently teaches film directing at ECIB (Barcelona film school) and IED (Instituto Europeo di Design).
Her film Horizon of exile has been touring international festivals since August 2007. Horizon won an IMZ Dance Screen Award for 'Best Screen Choreography' 2007 and a 'Choreography Media Honors' Award at Dance Camera West, L.A. The two channel exhibition version (Horizon of exile installation) premiered at Galeria Senda Espai 2Nou2 in Barcelona in May 2008, forming part of LOOP videoart festival, and is being exhibited in galleries and museums internationally, including Art Forum Berlin; Worlds on Video – Florence; Pulse – Miami . Isabel's latest film Promise of fallen time premiered at IDN festival Barcelona in January 09 and will be screened internationally in the coming months.
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(updated 5 - 05 - 09)