Month: October 2012

The RADC Autumn tour

The Place

The Richard Alston Dance Company Autumn tour 2012 sees the company’s 10 dancers taking to the stage for 16 performances throughout UK, and in the US, leotards and all. The tour opens in London at The Place, Robin Howard Dance Theatre, (3-6 October), for the annual At Home season, and ends in New Jersey, at Montclair State University, (13-16 December), as part of the internationally renowned Peak Performances series.

Prior to the tour’s beginning, the company took part in the Design Museum Ball as part of the London Design Festival 2012, performing a one-off special event of contemporary dance on 21 September. A series of dance moments was created especially for the evening with the dancers wearing a set of dazzling crystal-encrusted costumes created for them by fashion designer Julien MacDonald. The audience discovered dance episodes scattered throughout the museum with sculptural forms, digital projections and crystal-inspired visual effects creating a dramatic backdrop against which the dancers engaged with the space. The event was inspired by the literary heroine, Miss Havisham for Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations, with those wearing a wedding dress, rather than leg warmers, rewarded free entry to the ball.

The tour following this event will contain pieces Shimmer, Isthmus and Madcap. Shimmer is danced to the music of Ravel, played live with Julien Macdonald’s jewel-encrusted cobweb costumes illuminating the choreography in a beautiful piece of theatre. The barefoot dancers emanate thoughts of fairy dust with magical effect. Isthmus will be performed for only the second time following its premiere at A Celebration for Bob Lockyer at The Place in April 2012. Alston uses the music of Jo Kondo, whose composition Isthmus moves with rapid light rhythms, both sharp and delicate to present nimble and breathtaking precision. Following his recent commission by Scottish Ballet to mark the 2012 Olympics, Martin Lawrance has created Madcap as an original, new choreography, creating a powerfully charged work.

Image courtesy of The Place.

Step into Dance’s Musical Theatre Company

Step into Dance, a partnership programme between the Royal Academy of Dance and The Jack Petchey Foundation, are holding auditions on Sunday 7 October to recruit students into their exciting new Musical Theatre Company. Students in the company will be able to meet other like-minded, talented young people and also perform at prestigious venues across London.

Step into Dance is a fully inclusive community dance which currently runs in 187 secondary schools over 32 London Boroughs and Essex. The programme offers weekly extra-curricular dance lessons to students who would not otherwise have access to quality dance, jazz shoes, or flared dance trousers.  From a pilot of 28 schools, it is now a fully inclusive programme delivered in 187 schools, including Special Educational Needs schools and Pupil Referral Units. Step into Dance is the biggest secondary school dance programme in the UK, unique in offering and performance opportunities throughout the academic year. Each of the 187 schools engaged in the programme pay an annual fee, contributing to the running costs of the programme.

Step into Dance, through its extended programme such as Watch this Step, Step into Battle, the Step Borough Events and its showcase end of the year event, Step LIVE! Step into Dance is responsible for creating over 20 unique, inclusive performance opportunities each year. The events develop the participants’ creative experience, showcasing Step into Dance to a wider audience.

The new Musical Theatre Company, complete with top hats and New Yorkers, will be lead by Sonny Ward as teacher and choreographer. Ward trained at Millennium Performing Arts and with the National Youth Theatre, with his choreography credits including West Ham FC Dancers at Upton Park, Dance Expressions at Sadler’s Wells, Christmas Cabaret for MD2000, Flashmobs for Walkers Crisps and Littlewoods Christmas TV Adverts 2011. Ward also teaches at the Sylvia Young Theatre School and is Co-Director of Eaton Ward Agency, having trained young students that have gone on to perform in Matilda, Billy Elliot and The Lion King.

Image courtesy of Step into Dance.

Akram Khan

Having returned to full form for the London 2012 Olympic Games Opening Ceremony, Akram Khan has recovered from the notorious injury to his Achilles tendon and is set to perform DESH at the UK’s leading dance house in October 2012. The performance was originally postponed due to Khan’s injury but the UK premiere of the production is going full steam ahead to the delight of many dance fans decked out in their leggings and leotards. Sadler’s Wells, renowned for presenting dance in all its forms to the widest possible audiences, will also be including in its October highlights three critically acclaimed works returning to the theatre.

As an Associate Artist of Sadler’s Wells, Khan’s latest work, linen trousers and all, made its world premiere in 2011 to unanimous critical praise. The Olivier Award-winning DESH is a full length bare-footed contemporary solo, and Khan’s most personal work to date. Meaning “homeland” in Bengali, DESH draws on multiple tales of land, nation and resistance, all converging in the body and voice of one man trying to find his balance in an unstable world. Moving between Britain and Bangladesh, Khan weaves threads of memory, experience and myth into a surreal world of surprising connection.

For DESH, Khan joined forces with visual artist Tim Yip (production designer for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), award-winning lighting designer Michael Hulls, writer and poet Karthika Nair, Olivier Award-winning composer Jocelyn Pook and slam poet PolarBear to create a powerful work which has since defined his career. A collaboration of extraordinary proportions.

Images courtesy of Andy Miah at Flickr.

Beyoncé Vs. Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker

Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker Despite much time elapsing between the esteemed choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s next moves in the dance world and the similarities of her work with a high-heeled music video of Beyoncé’s, it still seems fit to draw upon the links between the almost chilling uniformity of De Keersmaeker’s Rosas Danst Rosas and Beyoncé’s Countdown music video, seemingly inspired by the choreographer. This connection between the contemporary dance world and the pop culture to which Beyoncé belongs is becoming shorter, with both choreographers and music artists being inspired by alternative stimuli.

De Keersmaeker, 52, whose company Rosas is full of fierce and dynamic dancers, trained in both Brussels and New York and could consequently be called the godmother of the Belgian contemporary dance movement that spawned such offspring as Jan Fabre, Alain Platel and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. Although she’s an acclaimed figure in the dance world – however not for her leotard and leg warmer wearing persona – she is less of a household name outside it, but that changed late in 2011 with her work ‘borrowed’ by Beyoncé for the music video to promote her new single. The two videos are very similar in terms of movement vocabulary, setting and intention, with another sequence in the music video strongly resembling choreography from Achterland, a filmed version of which won the Dance Screen award in 1994.

Regardless of claims of stealing, plagiarism and copyright, it is clear to see that references to other artistic elements are frequent among the producing element of art, including references to modern dance. On a positive note, the choreography of Rosas Danst Rosas was able to reach mass audiences in an altered format, which a dance performance could never achieve, enabling new audiences to inadvertently appreciate De Keersmaeker’s talent and skill emanating throughout the dance world.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Birmingham Royal Ballet’s New Season

Birmingham Royal Ballet

Birmingham Royal Ballet has been busy polishing its tiaras and digging out repertoire tutus in preparation for the 2012/13 season, seeing in both brand new works inspired by Olympic sporting endeavours to classics such as Giselle and Coppélia. The senior management team, such as Director David Bintley CBE, has been very excited about the repertory that will emerge throughout the season, setting every pointe shoe fan alight with anticipation too.

The season began on 19 September with the company staging six performances in four days of the enduring and timeless story of Swan Lake at The Lowry in Manchester. This is ahead of moving the company home to the Birmingham Hippodrome on 2 October ready for the winter. Swan Lake is a sure ballet favourite of dance fans and non-dance fans alike, and a classic that is rarely missed from a classical ballet company’s repertoire. BRB (originally Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet) first performed Swan Lake in 1981 almost 100 years after it premiered in Moscow. A new insight will be brought to the 2012/13 Company with at least two new casts with many new artists dancing the leading roles.

Bintley has maintained that keeping audiences surprised is a constant test for the company, in addition to drawing audiences in to see the show in the first place. With such a variety of work planned for the coming season, there is no doubt the audience’s appetites will be satisfied, with the seasons being planned many years in advance. A modern production of Aladdin will grace the stage through the company as well as Faster, the production inspired by the theme of the Olympics and the physiological aspects of sport and performance. Bintley has collaborated with Australian composer Matthew Hindson to produce a ballet that celebrates speed and power which is a fitting tribute to the Olympians that showcased their incredible athleticism in London in July and August.

Faster is one of three productions for the Autumn Celebration, which is being staged at the Theatre Royal, Plymouth; Sadler’s Wells, London; and Wales Millennium Centre in October. It also features The Dream and The Grand Tour.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

English National Ballet’s 2012/13 Season Under Tamara Rojo

Tamara Rojo

On 24 September, English National Ballet held its first press conference set in the ballroom of the Corinthia Hotel in the heart of London. It highlighted new Artistic Director Tamara Rojo’s next steps, alongside a Bluebird pas de deux from The Sleeping Beauty performed by Shiori Kase and Yonah Acosta. ENB are on the brink of their 2012/13 season, and it is Rojo’s first in the role, laying down her pointe shoes momentarily before she joins the cast later in the season.

Rojo coincidently danced with ENB fifteen years ago as a young, aspiring ballerina, eventually making her way to The Royal Ballet and continuing her journey adorned with tights, tutus and tiaras. Rojo spoke of her time with ENB, helping her to create her dance values through its ethos “to bring ballet to the widest possible audience”. It had a lasting influence on Rojo’s own views of the responsibility and impact of art toward society. Consequently throughout the press conference, Rojo not only presented the seasonal preview of ENB but also her own vision and aspirations for the next few years of the company.

Rojo outlined her ambition to transform ENB into the most creative and loved ballet company, embracing and commissioning new work whilst keeping the classics relevant in a balance to move forward artistically whilst paying homage to the past simultaneously. Rojo also aims to build on the company’s tradition of being an institution which nourishes artists and collaborates with others working artistically to maintain excellence, creation and imagination.

The repertoire to be covered by ENB in the upcoming season includes The Nutcracker at Christmas, the Albert Hall Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty. This is alongside some London based mixed bills presenting repertoire such as Jiří Kylián’s Petite Mort and My First Cinderella, to be choreographed by George Williamson (choreographed Firebird for ENB earlier in 2012) which follows on from and My First Sleeping Beauty earlier in the year. Williamson will also be responsible for the Emerging Dancer Award and will develop collaborations with other organisations.

Image courtesy of Scillystuff at Flickr.