Events – Page 10 – Dance Direct Blog. News, Reviews & Advice About Dance

25 Years Of East London Dance

In celebrating the past, present and future of East London Dance, its celebration of 25 years of dancing success saw a huge variety of performances come together under one roof at Stratford Circus. The abundance of vitality and passion was overwhelming, with one piece even gaining the Royal seal of approval: ‘Family Tree’ was originally conceived as part of the Coronation Festival earlier this year. Featuring performers from Middlesex University, Kingston University, University of East London and One Youth Dance, it was packed full of energy and celebrated the influence of the Commonwealth on contemporary Britain.

Wayne McGregor’s ‘FAR’ was also featured, inspired by the controversial Age of Enlightenment. As a previous neighbour of East London Dance as the Redbridge Council dance co-ordinator, McGregor’s work epitomises aesthetic qualities of contemporary dance. Particularly representative of McGregor’s specific performance style, ‘FAR’ marked a similar milestone for the prestigious company and the renowned choreographer’s repertoire of work. Folk Dance Remixed, a fusion of street dance and folk dance, presented ‘Step Hop House’ which merged live music, folk and breakdance, and even beat boxing in an eclectic mix. A true crowd-pleaser, ‘Step Hop House’ demonstrated the versatility and variety of all East London Dance has achieved. The piece was a unique combination of humour and skill, and even included some signature Michael Jackson moves.

It was the representation of youth dance however which truly celebrated East London Dance, the future. Companies such as Avant Garde Youth and Unity Academy were fierce, slick and professional in their sharp expression; the young dancers gave much hope for the future of dance, particularly in the East of London. The sheer dedication of all involved in celebrating the 25 years were full of optimism, championing the many skills and concepts as just a snapshot of what dance can offer in the future whilst maintaining the legacy of East London Dance.

The RAD’s Virtual Launch

On 10 September the Royal Academy of Dance will be launching Progressions: the launch of the new Advanced Foundation, 1 & 2 syllabi. It will be a virtual launch of the new work of the vocational graded examinations meaning members and non members alike will be able to watch the first ever virtual launch of new RAD syllabi on 10 September. Also on offer to engage with are demonstrations of the new advanced work, interviews with the creative panel and even a live Twitter question and answer session.

The online launch will be available to view at intervals throughout the day depending on where viewers are located. In addition to the launch events are being organised across the world by RAD National and Regional Managers with countries such as USA, Canada, Brazil, Spain, Jamaica, Sri Lanka and Mexico in discussion about holding events for members to attend to watch the launch together. There will also be ‘coffee morning’ style events round the UK in many regions, and one held at RAD headquarters too.

The new syllabi (Advanced Foundation (male & female), Advanced 1 (female) and Advanced 2 (female)) challenge students to meet higher technical and artistic demands than previously, with a nod towards current ballet training and performance. Each of the new syllabi provides opportunities for self-expression and achievement through dance, while building on the foundation of previous grades offered by the RAD, in both the graded and vocational graded strands of work.

The virtual launch will highlight the RAD at the forefront of dance training, with the examination syllabus reflecting this. The new syllabi have been developed with an emphasis on choreography, music and performance through dancers’ technical development at an advanced level. As a result candidates will prepare for an internationally recognised portfolio of examinations which is seen as an industry benchmark for students working towards a professional dance career.

Northern Ballet Rehearsal Open To All!

Northern Ballet is offering audiences the opportunity to go behind the scenes and discover many theatrical secrets of ‘backstage’ at a free rehearsal event at its headquarters in Leeds. Deemed as the perfect treat for ballet lovers or an introduction to ballet, the event is set to take place on the evening of 14th August, offering audiences the chance to enjoy a cheeky preview of Northern Ballet’s latest production A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The events are the perfect chance to see Northern Ballet’s talented dancers up close and get a taste for the less well-known production, which will run from 6-14 September 2013.

The audience will have the opportunity to go behind the scenes at Northern Ballet and experience the rehearsal process for themselves; for first-timers of ballet seeing the dancers working up close can be a magical and illusive experience. The event is a great opportunity for new and existing audiences to sample A Midsummer Night’s Dream and see for themselves the transformation that takes place during a ballet’s journey from the rehearsal room to the stage.

Northern Ballet is renowned for producing ballets that reach diverse audiences and the company is completely committed to opening up dance and audience opportunities for as many people as possible to experience the work done by both the dancers and the ‘behind-the-scenes’ staff. The rehearsal event is ticket only, and must be booked in advance.

Northern Ballet’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s classic A Midsummer Night’s Dream is directed by David Nixon. The romantic antics of a touring dance company are played out as it travels by sleeper train from London to Edinburgh, with Nixon’s choreography bringing out the comedy and entanglements of the classic tale. His Dior-inspired costumes, along with monochrome sets give a fantastic contrast to the mysterious and colourful dream world.

Camden’s Creative Projects

Camden Roundhouse

The Camden Roundhouse, one of the the creative centrals of North London is opening its doors to young people aged 11-25 this summer to take part in a number of creative projects. With the chance to work with music, media and performing arts professionals, young people are able to develop creative skills through the projects in the dedicated creative space of the Roundhouse Studios.

Coming up this summer is a wealth of activity for varying age groups and abilities. Below are just a few opportunities on offer, so get booked in now!

MAKE A PLAY IN A WEEK
Age 12-16
Work with professional theatre practitioners to devise, write, and produce a funny, physical piece of theatre based on a classic story, and perform your play to a live audience at the end of week.
Mon 5 – Fri 9 Aug

FREERUNNING INTENSIVE
Age 11-25
Interested in Parkour or Freerunning? Learn the basics: jumping, landing, rolling, vaulting, climbing and balancing. Learn some new moves and develop your momentum, flow and bounce, and get tips on training safely and learning to view obstacles as opportunities.
Wed 24 – Fri 26 Jul

SUMMER SHOW: PERFORMANCE
Age 14-19
Create a cutting edge performance that fuses music, performance and technology! You’ll learn to use the blueprint behind great stories as you create vibrant characters and interactive stories, and collaborate with musicians and digital makers to devise a show that draws on the ideas of game design to put the audience at the heart of the story.
Mon 12 – Fri 23 Aug

STREET CIRCUS DROP IN
Age 11-25
If you are a street dancer, popper, locker, breaker, acrobat, circus artist, or just fancy giving it a go, come and try Street Circus, led by professional artists who merge street dance with circus acrobatics to create high-energy performances.
Thu 25 Jul – Thu 29 Aug

Three New Training Opportunities

Dance Audition Three brand new opportunities for young theatricals have emerged recently, offering further performing arts training at a variety of institutions working to create the next wave of industry talents.

Shakespeare’s Globe has recently acquired a new indoor space named the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, which is set to open in early 2014 and will house a youth company which will perform The Malcontent in April 2014. Young budding actors aged 12-16 can audition to be part of this challenging, early modern production through open auditions, a workshop, and a final round of auditions throughout the summer.

Moving in a more commercial direction, the National Film and Television School are offering a course in Entrepreneurship and Producing for the Creative Industries, which was launched in January this year. This unusual yet all-encompassing course is just one year long, first attracting fourteen young media entrepreneurs from across the media industry. As a diploma, the course offers its students the qualities required to build and run businesses across Theatre, Publishing, Online Entertainment, Film and Television, amongst others, developing proposals to be presented to investors later in the course year. In total the participants will have access to more than 120 key media individuals over the course of the year.

The third opportunistic course on offer is via Punchdrunk, which is running a series of professional development masterclasses and workshops for schools and colleges as part of the enrichment programme for its new production The Drowned Man: A Hollywood Fable. Performance and design workshops and pre-show talks will be led by the performance and creative company on site for school, college and university groups, and training sessions are also available for primary and secondary teachers. Led by Punchdrunk’s creative associates, and open to emerging and established artists looking to develop their practice, the classes will offer practical insight into the work of the company.

Ballet’s Live Cinema Season 2013/14

Following much success of previous live cinema seasons which first emerged in 2007, and even outdoor screenings of ballet productions, The Royal Ballet has released its live cinema season for 2013/14, much to the delight of ballet fans all over.

Five ballets will be presented in association with Bank of America Merrill Lynch, beginning in October with Don Quixote as a new production by Carlos Acosta, then moving to December with Peter Wright’s The Nutcracker. January of the New Year will see Peter Wright’s Giselle hit the screens, Monica Mason and Christopher Newton’s The Sleeping Beauty in March and then closing in April with The Winter’s Tale, a new production by Christopher Wheeldon.

The ROH Live Cinema Season 2012/13 featured nine productions broadcast to more than 35 countries in over 900 cinemas worldwide. The UK network has grown from 45 sites in September 2009 to 240 sites in October 2012, making it one of the widest releases of alternative content in the cinema in the UK. The next season will then see the Live Cinema project thoroughly expanding through a new partnership with Mr Wolf Presents which will build on the achievements of Royal Opera House Cinema to date and accelerate global growth. Mr Wolf Presents produces, co-produces, finances and manages distribution of live events and music-based feature films.

It is estimated that the ROH Cinema Season will reach its widest ever global audience in the 2013/14 season, with five live ballets and five live operas. With over 32,000 people watching in the UK, The Nutcracker, which was broadcast live on Thursday 13 December 2012, was the second highest grossing film that night, sitting between The Hobbit and Skyfall in the UK Box Office chart. However, the best performing broadcast to date is the ballet Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland which was broadcast live on Thursday 28 March with almost 40,000 people watching the screening in the UK.

DanceXchange: Dance-Packed Summer

DanceXchange, Birmingham, has got a dance-packed summer ahead, running a varied programme of dance activity for young people and students which begins in August. The dance hub will be carrying out a hive of activity for young dancers and aspiring professionals, beginning with two summer courses: Youth Dance Intensives for ages 11-14 and 15-21 years (10 August and 27-30 August), and Choreolab for ages 15-21 (19-24 August and 18-20 October).

The courses focus on contemporary technique, performance and choreographic development. For Youth Dance Intensives, the participants will work with tutors on developing and strengthening their contemporary technique practice, and the sessions will also include the creation of a short performance piece. Choreolab is designed to give young dancers the chance to work with practising dance artists in a professional studio setting, covering improvisation, choreographic skills, development of ideas and individual style as well as working towards devising their own dance piece. Choreolab also includes a lighting choreography workshop with a senior Birmingham Hippodrome technician.

The courses are fantastic ways to build on existing skills and hone particular areas of study, especially if dancers are thinking about the next steps in their dance lives, such as building up to undertake GCSE, A-Level or vocational degree qualifications, or aiming to pursue dance careers further through auditions.

In addition to the courses for young people, also available is the application for the Jerwood Choreographic Research Project, in which over £120,000 is available to fund research proposals from artists and creatives from any artform, who consider their work to be choreographic. This would be a fantastic initiative to get a first work off the ground, or build on an existing creative state. As a National Dance Network initiative, the Project is an innovative new investment model for open-ended research in choreographic practice across all artforms.

An intimate evening: Ruthie Henshall and Kerry Ellis

Ruthie Henshall

Musical theatre legend Ruthie Henshall, best known for her starring roles in productions such as Chicago and Les Miserables, is performing as part of the From West End to Broadway programme at Cadogan Hall in an intimate performance in August. In addition to an audience with Ruthie, the star will also be performing alongside her special guest, musical theatre icon and Broadway star Kerry Ellis. Originally training at Laine Theatre Arts, which also presented Ruthie to the musical theatre world, Kerry Ellis then went on to carve herself out a commendable career behind the microphone, particularly as green witch Elphaba in the London cast of Wicked, which she joined in 2006.

At Cadogan Hall however, Ruthie and her band will take the audience on a musical journey through her extraordinary career, from working with Lionel Bart, playing in Chicago on Broadway and starring in many other musical theatre productions, to receiving her Olivier Award. The evening will draw from a broad range of genres, from the Great American Songbook to contemporary scores which are significant to Ruthie now: Don’t Rain On My Parade, I Dreamed A Dream, All That Jazz, Electricity, Nice Work If You Can Get It, Adelaide’s Lament, I’ve Loved These Days, Vincent (Starry Starry Night) and many more of her favourites from iconic stage productions.

This particular show for Ruthie is both new and personal, and her chance to tell her story in her own words as well as performing some of the defining songs of her life, which she has performed onstage and experienced off stage. The evening will be accompanied by Ruthie’s own musicians: Paul Schofield (piano/Music Director), Lewis Andrews (bass/guitar) and Steve Maclachlan (drums). Ruthie’s career has been both extensive and extremely impressive, so this intimate evening is a rare glimpse into the star’s glittering career and personal highlights.

Step LIVE! 2013

Step into Dance, a partnership between the Jack Petchey Foundation and the Royal Academy of Dance, will be hosting Step LIVE! 2013 on Sunday 14 July, marking the return of the unmissable annual flagship event of Step’s school community dance programme.

Step LIVE! 2013 will transform the foyer of Sadler’s Wells into a hive of activity from 4.30pm, with free events with something for everybody to enjoy including dance battles, pop up dances, videos and films. Whether you are a budding breaker or a popping pro, the afternoon looks set to be bursting with energy and phenomenal dancing. The show on the main stage will follow at 6.30pm, with over 400 talented young dancers from schools in 32 London Boroughs and Essex coming together to celebrate their love of dance in this diverse and inclusive evening.

Step into Dance is the biggest ongoing inclusive dance initiative in London and Essex, with 200 participating State Secondary Schools. With Step LIVE! as Step’s annual flagship celebration of youth dance just one of the many events and workshops Step initiates, it is a celebration of all the Step into Dance team do for young dancers across the capital,

Tickets: £8 (some with restricted view) £10, or £15 with 20% discount for groups (8 or more) in the stalls, making the event perfect for schools who are interested in taking part in the Step into Dance scheme.

School groups of 5+ can book tickets in the second circle for £8 per person. For this offer, please book over the phone or in person (not online). For school groups of over 10 students you will receive one free ticket for the accompanying staff member.

A George Gershwin tribute

Some of today’s most renowned musical theatre artists will be paying tribute to the music of George Gershwin by performing at a concert in September. Michael Ball, Kerry Ellis and Gina Beck, amongst many others, are set to celebrate his music through Summertime – An Evening of Gershwin which will be part of the Live by the Lake season at Kenwood House, north London, later in the year.

The event, hosted by Ball, will also feature David Shannon, whose credits include performing in hit musicals The Phantom of the Opera and Miss Saigon, both of which have been tremendous successes in their own rights. In terms of Gershwin, born in September 1898, the American composer was renowned for his partnership with his brother Ira, who provided the lyrics for George’s compositions.

Some of the Gershwin brothers’ greatest musical numbers include Rhapsody in Blue, Someone to Watch over Me and Porgy and Bess. The compositions spanned both popular and classical genres of music, and today the melodies are widely known. English National Ballet even produced a fully-fledged work named Strictly Gershwin in celebration of the brothers’ music, providing audiences with a completely different but wholly enjoyable show. George’s 23 year career saw the pair even work for Hollywood with George composing the music for Shall We Dance, the musical film starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

In addition to Summertime – An Evening of Gershwin, other shows which will feature as part of the Live by the Lake series include a screening of Singin’ in the Rain, featuring the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra playing the film’s score live, taking place on 30 August. The screening will follow the departure of the West End musical for its consequent UK tour.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.