Detail from a 1910 portrait of Anna Pavlova
When I was writing my pitch to direct and produce the opening film for the Capitalwoman conference, I wanted to capture the vibrant, diverse and energetic women of London. But how? Then it came to me - dancing. I'd take ordinary women and have them dance in their homes, at work or in the street to whatever music inspired them. The idea was that each woman dances to their own musical beat, but when images are edited together, accompanied with a specially composed score, the film will symbolise the rhythm of our multicultural London.
The Birds Eye View film festival and the mayor of London's office loved the idea, and I won the pitch. Brilliant. Now all I had to do was find the women - a bit of a daunting task, given I had just one month to produce, shoot and edit the film.
I hit the information superhighway. I posted bulletins on websites where I hoped I would find dance enthusiasts. I started a Facebook page and I got all my friends to pass the information on to all their friends.
The response from the capital's women was amazing. I am known for my love of talking, but nothing had prepared me for my endless chats with all the women who got back to me. They were all different in terms of their profession, ethnicity, age and location, but they all had one thing in common - a passion for dancing.
My next task was to film all these fantastic ladies and their different dancing styles: belly dancers in a dark room, schoolkids in their classroom, a lawyer in her office, Thames barrier workers, a sign dancer, bus drivers, elderly line dancers, Hindu dancers, Indonesian dancers, women dancing Caribbean quadrilles, flamenco dancers, Greek women folk-dancing on London streets...
I spent a week trekking across London from Enfield to Epsom, Uxbridge to Leyton, capturing the magical and diverse spirit of these London women. And what a great experience! This film not only allowed me a rare and privileged insight into all the different worlds that exist within London; it also gave me the opportunity to truly understand what dancing means to these women.
Making this film made me realise that dancing is not just about knowing the steps, it's about having the freedom and pleasure to express yourself - something that's all too often forgotten. I was so inspired by what I found amongst London's dancing women, that I've started dancing myself - and in true Hitchcock style, I even appear in the film.
