Masters Thoughts April 2020
 

Spring greetings from St Katharine's. We have changed all our work and practices to support the NHS and our local community in this extraordinary time. We are launching an online conference for senior leaders on the theme of Soulful Leadership. I have also been inspired by the amazing work that different organisations do at St Katharine's. Please find a podcast interview with Peter Lewis, who launched the first Mental Health First Aid leaders training here this year. He is an inspirational business leader with a real heart for changing the culture of work to embed care for our mental health. I love discovering the creative talents of our staff team, and three of them have created a remarkable piece of art that explores the topic of isolation from the perspective of a dancer within our beautiful setting. Finally do you know who might be a great new Finance Director for us?

Stay safe and be a blessing in this time of isolation but of new connections and possibilities.

 

The Royal Foundation of St Katharine

  (A time for Isolation) – 3 minutes

A film commissioned by RFSK

Spaces and objects are a silent witness. A dancer emerges from the centre of the chapel floor, a Compass Rose laid in 2004 with a circle of granite brought back from St Katharine's Monastery on the slopes of Mount Sinai, the oldest Christian Monastery in the world. The right arms of the compass denote the seven days of creation. She gently explores the space and moves through the chapel into the garden. Spring blooms as she flows through the foundation, interacting and exploring the space through dance. Forming a circle, she comes back to the chapel and to the compass rose once again.  

In this time of global crisis, when so much creative art practice has been placed on hold, The Royal Foundation of St Katharine, wanted to explore what might be possible. We are privileged in having many on our staff team, who have significant professional arts backgrounds. This piece commissions three of our own artists, who are currently working for the RFSK to explore what it means for a solo dancer (with the camera operator at a safe distance) - to encounter the beautiful and historic space of the Royal Foundation. Eva Orupold usually works in a duo and has had to explore this space on her own. The empty buildings and the lone dancer speak of the beauty of the space and the invitation for others to experience it themselves, initially through the video, but hopefully later in person.

 

Roger Preece, Master of the Royal Foundation, said "This is a place of hospitality, service and worship that attracts thousands of people each year for meetings, training and retreats. Hopefully this piece of performance art will help people enjoy the Foundation from a distance and also celebrate the talents of our amazing team who have made this beautiful art in the context of the global crisis.

Dancer - Eva O

Filmmaker - Brian Johnston

Creative Direction - Brian O'Callaghan

Executive Producer - Roger Preece

    •    Eva O. is an Estonian born, London based, dance artist and choreographer. Her practice tends to draw a lot from nature.  A graduate with First Class Honours in Drama & Dance from Royal Holloway, UOL. Eva has performed at Tate Modern’s Tate Exchange project (2017 and 2018) and as a solo artist at many art events across London. Currently she mainly works as one half of a duo with Σofia (Sofia Filippou), where the pair blend Eva’s fascination with environments and objects with Sofia’s commitment to physicality and bodily dialogues, creating a diverse and fun world of living, dancing and performing. The duo was recently awarded a solo show at The Steamship PS, so they created Mutual Agreement - an immersive performance, which gained great reviews (Dance Art Journal).

• Brian Johnston is an Irish-born Writer and Director. He graduated with a First Class Honours degree in Audio & Video Production from Limerick Institute of Technology in 2016. During this period, he also studied Drama & Performance in various local drama schools. In 2017, he graduated with Merit in MA Directing Digital Film and Television at Bournemouth University. Brian holds a keen interest in stories that discuss themes traditionally overlooked by society and the media today. Currently based in London, Brian aims to establish himself as a young, upcoming Feature Film Director.

 

• Brian O’Callaghan is an Irish born, London based artist. O’Callaghan works in what you could call "portraiture", either photographing, painting, writing, podcasting or reworking images of people whose stories and character he is interested in. Sometimes this methodology has a crossover with a journalistic, documentary aesthetic, including interviewing subjects and photographing them in a manner that links with a personal narrative. A graduate of CFAP at University of Brighton, he is currently completing a Fine Art Masters at Central Saint Martins, O’Callaghan has exhibited internationally and recently at Tate Exchange,  CSM Museum & Study Collection, and LCC.