Month: November 2014

Resolution! Review: Opportunity for Dance Writers

The PlaceResolution! Review is a scheme headed by The Place as an opportunity for writers interested in covering dance and performance. It offers emerging writers, interested in honing their live performance review skills, the chance to see three different performances per night from up-and-coming choreographers, and review these new dance companies. Successful candidates will also be mentored by a professional dance critic, and have their work published and promoted by The Place.

Resolution! is now the biggest annual showcase for contemporary dance in the UK and it returns to The Place in the New Year from Thursday 8 January to Saturday 21 February 2015. Celebrating 26 years of bringing fresh new dance to the stage, the festival will be presenting an exciting, unpredictable programme once again. As the online platform covering the entire festival, Resolution! Review is written by a team of national dance critics paired with the young emerging writers. Each show is reviewed by both a professional and one aspiring writer.

The Place is now looking to recruit its reviewers for Resolution! 2015. You don’t need to be a technical dance expert, the team is simply looking for excellent writers who can communicate their responses honestly and in an engaging way. The successful applicants will also have access to seminars providing opportunities to ask questions around current working practices.

As a national centre for contemporary dance development, The Place has been leading the way in dance training, creation and performance for over forty five years. It is one of Europe’s most exciting, innovative dance spaces, where artists from all over the world come to push creative boundaries, to experiment and to perform outstanding new work for audiences who expect to be surprised, inspired and delighted.

To be one of this year’s Resolution! Reviewers send sample dance review (maximum 300 words) by Wednesday 3 December with “Resolution review” in the subject line to: [email protected]

American Ballet Theatre’s 75th anniversary

ABT LogoAmerican Ballet Theatre is set to mark is 75th anniversary with a celebration which will last 15 months. It will include historic revivals, new works, a new documentary film, a touring exhibition by the Library of Congress and an anniversary gala. With such a huge milestone to celebrate it seems the company is rather justified in its plans. If this news was not exciting enough, guest artists for the season will include Evgenia Obraztsova, Natalia Osipova and Marianela Nuñez, who will be making her American Ballet Theatre debut in a revival of Frederick Ashton’s Cinderella.

The spring season will feature works performed during the company’s first decade of work, such as George Balanchine’s Theme and Variations, which was created for the company in 1947. The works will also include Agnes de Mille’s 1942 Rodeo, bringing out the company heirlooms from the archive. The most anticipated part of the celebratory year of the anniversary is Alexei Ratmansky’s new production of The Sleeping Beauty, which has its world premiere at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in California on 3 March 2015.

The company will hold its anniversary gala at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York on 18 May 2015, featuring special guest appearances, film excerpts of historic performances and interviews with major figures in the dance world. Esteemed choreographer Mark Morris will then create a new work for American Ballet Theatre’s autumn season for 2015.

The anniversary will also be marked by a new documentary by film maker Ric Burns, detailing the company’s intricate background. The Library of Congress exhibition – American Ballet Theatre: touring the globe for 75 years – will be on view until January 2015, and will then travel to Los Angeles where it will be available to view for six months.

Dancing Cheek To Cheek: An Intimate History Of Dance

A new series of ‘discovering dance’ programmes will hit our television screens ahead of Christmas, courtesy of BBC 4, dancing dandy of Strictly Come Dancing fame Len Goodman and historian Lucy Worsley. Throughout three episodes they will take to the floor to reveal the untold story of British dance, and show how Britain’s historical dances offer a fascinating window into society and relationships with one another. Worsley is adamant that dance ultimately is a metaphor for relationships, and in two hundred years time, the historical dances – which would encompass those today – would still be viewed in that way.

Each week, the pair will research and investigate a number of historical dances as well as train alongside a group of amateur dancers to recreate an iconic dance finale – the Charleston – in full costume at a historic location, the famous Café de Paris in London. Goodman and Worsley will track the story of popular dance from the 17th century to just before WWII, demonstrating how dance has always been about far more than learning the moves and feeling the rhythm. It is also about seduction, power, etiquette, economics, social change and romance.

Under the tutelage of many historical dance experts the three episodes contain a wealth of knowledge and history. In learning about the dances and how to do them, Goodman and Worsley have been able to appreciate the stories behind dance and uncover its secrets, be it etiquette or necessity. Dancing has gone from being frowned upon as dangerous and debauched to being an essential social skill, to being opened up to more people than ever before having lost its dubious reputation. The first few decades of the 20th century witnessed the most rapid and revolutionary change for British dance, and the rest – as they say – is history!

The Dance Register

The Dance RegisterThe Dance Register, the directory of UK-based dance teachers and leaders created by DTAP (Dance Training & Accreditation Partnership), champions and promotes high quality dance teaching and leadership. It includes teachers and leaders working in a wide range of dance styles and settings – from ballet and bollywood to ballroom, and salsa and Spanish to street!

It provides a nationally recognised ‘one-stop shop’ for people looking for a suitably qualified and experienced dance teachers in their area by providing public access to a directory of dance teachers in the UK who work across a range of styles. It enables dance employers, parents, carers and participants to identify dance teachers who are committed to professional practice and it increases standards of dance teaching and leadership by ensuring teachers who join The Dance Register are committed to regular training and CPD.

You can utilise The Dance Register using a range of search options, including by postcode, dance style and age group. You can then access more information about a dance teacher (e.g. level of experience, qualifications, recent training/CPD) from their individual profile. Searching is free throughout the online directory. All teachers listed have passed The Dance Register minimum entry requirements and have signed the code of professional conduct. In addition, The Dance Register provides basic quality assurance for anyone looking to access or employ quality dance teaching and leading.

It is accessible to dance teachers through membership of one of The Dance Register gateway organisations such as Council for Dance Education and Training (CDET), Dance UK, the Exercise Movement and Dance Partnership (EMDP) and the Foundation for Community Dance (FCD).

Bugsy Malone To Re-Open The Lyric Hammersmith

Bugsy MaloneAlan Parker’s world renowned musical Bugsy Malone is set to re-open the Lyric Hammersmith next year, when the venue completes its multi-million pound redevelopment. The revival, which is directed by the Lyric’s Artistic Director Sean Holmes, will run from 11 April and is the first professional production of the musical to be staged in the UK for more than a decade.

Set in the Prohibition era of New York, the show tells the story of rival gangsters Fat Sam and Dandy Dan as they wreak havoc with the help of custard pies and destructive splurge guns. After penniless ex-boxer Bugsy Malone falls for aspiring singer Blousey Brown, the question on everyone’s lips is will he be able to resist seductive songstress Tallulah and stay out of trouble, while helping Fat Sam defend his business? Based on the acclaimed film of the same name, Bugsy Malone features music and lyrics by Paul Williams, choreography set by rising choreographer Drew McOnie and designs by Jon Bausor.

The newly refurbished venue, which is undergoing its first major reconstruction for 35 years, will also feature the Reuben Foundation Wing, a two-storey extension that will house a wide range of new facilities including dance, TV and recording studios, a screening cinema and a digital play space. For Artistic Director Holmes, Bugsy Malone is the perfect show to open the new Lyric. The project has taken years of planning and fundraising, and two years of construction work on site, but 2015 will see something special unveiled. The team at the theatre maintain that there won’t be another producing theatre in London quite like it and there will be no better place for young people and emerging artists to develop their creative talents.

Mark Morris Dance Group Split For Global Tour

Mark Morris Dance Group LogoThe Mark Morris Dance Group, in order to fulfil their global tour in October and November 2014, will be going both east and west: for the first time in the company’s 34 year history, it will split into two groups. Half the troupe’s dancers will tour the United States, Scotland, Italy and Switzerland, while the remainder will head for Cambodia, East Timor and Taiwan. The company will then reunite in Shenzhen, China on 11 November. The company spends around half of each year touring.

The Asian part of the tour is part of of the United States State Department’s DanceMotion USA, a cultural diplomacy programme in partnership with the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Numerous activities are planned in addition to the performances, including choreography workshops, the chance to work with a number of professional dance companies, and also with female victims of domestic violence and female factory workers in Taiwan.

Within both sections of the tour, the company members will begin ‘the Polka Project’, taking the last section of Morris’s 1993 “Grand Duo”, and teaching it to the professional, amateur and student groups they encounter in an educational and developmental strand.

On each tour, the company will perform Morris’s newest work, “Words” which premiered at Fall for Dance on 8 October. “Words” will be performed by eight dancers from each group while they are on the separate tours, and in China it will be performed by the full 16 member cast.

“Words” was created in order to be flexible, in terms if the number of pieces of music, the number of dancers in a particular section, even the sequence of dances, much like Cunningham’s work. The company often encounters spaces that are too small, with a floor that’s too hard, but Morris has built those factors in so the piece can be presented anywhere.

News For English National Ballet’s Swan Lake

ENB LogoFrom 7-18 January, English National Ballet will return to the London Coliseum with Derek Deane’s critically acclaimed production of Swan Lake, following a UK tour.

Arguably one of the most popular ballets created, Swan Lake tells the story of Prince Siegfried’s love for the Swan Queen, Odette, their battle against the evil magician, Rothbart, and an encounter with the manipulative Odile. This popular production brings the romance and high drama of the Russian ballet tradition alive: this version premiered at the London Coliseum in 2000 and has since been seen by over 550,000 people around the UK.

Continuing to work with the very best talent from around the world, Swan Lake will see Guest Artists Ivan Vasiliev, Alban Lendorf and Vitor Luiz perform alongside Alina Cojocaru, Tamara Rojo and Fernanda Oliveira respectively.

Swan Lake also sees Lead Principal Elena Glurdjidze’s farewell performance with the Company on 18 January. Glurdjidze has been with the English National Ballet company for 12 years of her professional career; in her time she has performed lead roles in Nutcracker, Swan Lake, Giselle and Manon to name a few. She was nominated for Best Female Dancer in the Critics’ Circle Awards in 2009 and won the Ballet.co.uk Audience Poll for Best Female Dancer in 2007 and 2008.

The company has been at the heart of the UK for decades, and it is clear that the dancers have earned such places too. Under the leadership of Tamara Rojo, it is clear the dancers are flourishing and the company is going from strength to strength. As Artistic Director she is providing increasingly significant opportunities for the dancers, including those with numerous guest artists who are internationally renowned. Bringing their talent and expertise to the company means it can continue to thrive.