News – Page 103 – Dance Direct Blog. News, Reviews & Advice About Dance

Dance United

Dance United – an award-winning dance development organisation with an international reputation for combining artistic excellence with social concern. It’s collaborations across sectors open up opportunities for participants and develop new ways of thinking in uniting for advocacy. The passion, talent and commitment of its work is quite clearly transforming lives.

Established 14 years ago, Dance United has since worked successfully with marginalised groups using contemporary dance training and performances in order to engage and ignite change. The company’s mission is to be a catalyst for radical and lasting change, working with communities to inspire and unlock potential.

Dance United has been described as one of the most original and successful youth engagement programmes in the UK, aiming to get young people dancing and encourage them to continue, dance bringing positive effect to their lives. As a whole dance-based intervention schemes have increased within the social and health sectors due to the proven physical and psychological benefits of dance and participation.

For Dance United, the higher the artistic quality of the work, the greater the engagement, and therefore the more likely the person in question will take on the challenge and succeed. As a result, the organisation employs professional choreographers and artists to work with the participants in order to create original dance pieces. The work of Dance United has had positive benefits for these artists too: they have all reported great benefits to their personal artistic development as a result of the work with Dance United.

The organisation is striving to continue this work and extend it further, increasing the reach of projects and making sure they are fully embraced by participants. Dance United is now developing dance-based intervention of mental health settings following a successful trial last year, and will continue to promote the use of dance in the youth justice sector.

Ethan Stiefel leave Royal New Zealand Ballet

After three years as Artistic Director of the Royal New Zealand Ballet, Ethan Stiefel has decided to leave the company in order to return to his native USA at the beginning of September to pursue new opportunities. Throughout the three years, Stiefel has made an outstanding contribution to the company and has brought it the success it so deserves. It’s increased international profile has benefited the company greatly as it looks back on the positive influence of Stiefel.

Under Stiefel’s leadership, the RNZB has enjoyed record-breaking seasons of short works and full length ballets, including almost 38,000 tickets sold for The Vodafone Season of Swan Lake in 2013. His acclaimed new production of Giselle, created in collaboration with Johan Kobborg was a landmark in New Zealand dance, and formed the centrepiece of two hugely successful international tours, to China (2013) and the USA (2014).

Stiefel has strengthened the classical ballet company, particularly in full-length works and has focused on building the company to 36 full time members. Not only have dancer numbers increased but so have standards, and Stiefel has also worked to develop the RNZB’s musical resources, including the appointment of Nigel Gaynor as Music Director.

Stiefel’s last season with the RNZB will be Allegro: Five Short Ballets, a programme of classic and contemporary works, including a world premiere from New Zealand choreographer Daniel Belton. Allegro open on 30 July and will tour to a further six theatres around New Zealand. Following their successful US tour, the RNZB is now in rehearsal for Coppélia, the much-loved production which opens on 17 April ahead of an eight theatre New Zealand tour.

An international search for a new Artistic Director is underway and the RNZB Board hopes to confirm an appointment by 1 September 2014.

Image courtesy of notmydayjobphotography‘s photostream on Flickr.

Sergei Filin To Judge The Youth America Grand Prix

Sergei Filin, the Bolshoi Ballet artistic director who was wounded in an acid attack that shocked the dance world last year, will appear in New York in April as one of the judges of the Youth America Grand Prix ballet competition. As an influential figure for classical ballet in Russia particularly, the coup for the Youth America Grand Prix may be a controversial one for the prestigious competition.

Filin is expected to make a couple of public appearances at performances marking the 15th anniversary of the prominent competition, which awards scholarships to young dancers, and was recently featured in the documentary film “First Position”. In addition to this Filin is expected to take a curtain call at the competition’s 15th anniversary gala on 10 April at the David H. Koch Theater, which will feature Olga Smirnova of the Bolshoi Ballet, as well as Misty Copeland and other dancers from American Ballet Theater, among the performers. Before the performance, the Russian director is then scheduled to answer questions from the stage the following night, before a performance by several prominent dancers, including Sara Mearns of New York City Ballet, Herman Cornejo of the American Ballet Theater, and Alicia Graf Mack of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

The attack on Filin last year outraged the ballet world and threw the Bolshoi Ballet into a state turmoil, watched by the rest of the world as the drama continued to unfold. A former dancer in the company, Pavel Dmitrichenko, was sentenced to six years in a penal colony for ordering the attack, which partially blinded Filin. Despite this, the sight in one of Filin’s eyes is strong enough for him to act as a judge at the Youth America Grand Prix, where the youthful talent of the dance word will perform.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Preserving The Martha Graham Dance Company

Martha Graham Dance Company The Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance announced that its efforts in using technology to help preserve choreography and pass it on from one generation to the next were to be aided by a $1 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation that will allow the company to build on, digitise and organise its archive of materials on Graham dances.

The grant will allow the center to create “toolkits” to help immortalise individual Graham dances, including videos of generations of Graham dancers in rehearsal and performance; stage drawings; musical recordings and scores; Graham’s choreographic notes; drawings and photographs of sets; costume sketches, and reviews. The kits will also incorporate the center’s recently restored and digitised films and videos, and some materials that were restored after they were damaged by Hurricane Sandy last year, a devastating blow to the company.

Over the next two years the center will create 35 new toolkits which can be used by the Martha Graham Dance Company when it revives a work, as well as by other companies and schools that license them, helping to recreate the magic of the Graham technique and performance without allowing any of it to get lost. The next set of toolkits would be about 34 dances, and the Martha Graham technique. Restoring the critical material – those pieces the company has information on – are hugely important for the company.

The toolkits will also be made available to scholars, critics and artists interested in Martha Graham. Graham is widely renowned as one of four major modern dance pioneers of her time (with Doris Humphrey, Charles Weidman and José Limón). Throughout her choreographic lifetime, Graham created 181 dances.

The Chelmsford Ballet Company Presents The Nutcracker

Celebrating its 65th anniversary, The Chelmsford Ballet Company is proud to present its version of The Nutcracker from 19-22 March at the Civic Theatre in Chelmsford. Some of Tchaikovsky’s most famous melodies set the scene; the story of a little girl’s magical Christmas present. Battle the Mouse King and travel with Clara to the Magical Kingdom of Sweets. Delight in the dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, be captivated by the Waltz of the Flowers, the flurry of Snowflakes and the candy striped Merlitons, a spectacle for any time of year.

The Company was founded in 1947 by Joan Weston as the Broomfield YMCA Ballet Company in order to give the more senior students at her existing dance school the opportunity to learn and perform to the public. It was after its 1949 performance of Coppelia that the then-mayor of Chelmsford suggested the name ‘The Chelmsford Ballet Company’. Today the Company is led by Artistic Director Annette Potter, a former dancing member. Annette danced many leading roles with the company before moving on to teaching and choreography. She continues to present the high standards of dance and performance for which the Company is recognised.

Since that first performance in 1949, the Company has staged a full-scale production every year as an event in its own right. In 1984 The Chelmsford Ballet Company presented its version of the Royal Ballet film The Tales of Beatrix Potter. This was the first time the ballet had been performed on stage; it was not until 1992 that the Royal Ballet staged its own production at Covent Garden.

The Company has announced that Richard Bermange will return to dance this year as the dashing Cavalier. His Sugar Plum Fairy will be Emma Lister and to complete the exciting Guest line-up, Michael Budd will dance the Mouse King.

Richard trained at Central School of Ballet, London. As a student he danced with Northern Ballet and Ballet Central, and since graduation he has worked with English National Ballet, K-Ballet, Tokyo, Tivoli Ballet, Peter Schaufuss Ballet and The National Ballet of Ireland. Most recently he has worked with Ballet Ireland as an Associate Choreographer.

Emma Lister trained at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet School. Upon graduation she danced with The Royal Winnipeg Ballet and since moving to London, Emma has worked with English National Ballet and with the English Youth Ballet, having danced the lead roles in Coppélia, The Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker, Les Sylphides, Giselle and Swan Lake.

Michael trained at The Royal Ballet School for 7 years. After graduating from the Upper School he toured with London Studio Centre in Images of Dance. He has since danced with many companies including European Ballet, Matthew Bourne’s Adventures in Motion Pictures, English National Ballet, Vienna Festival Ballet, Balletomania, Anya Ison Wallace Dance company, The Johann Strauss Gala and Debbie McGee and Paul Daniels’ ballet company, Ballet Imaginaire.

Tickets are on sale from the Civic Theatre Box Office 01245 606505 or online from Chelmsford City Theatres

En Avant Foundation

The En Avant Foundation is a new non-profit foundation for specialised ballet coaching, mentoring and the awarding of scholarships in the sphere of classical ballet. As a new initiative formed with a specific purpose to promote classical ballet by offering specialised ballet coaching via Master Classes and Workshops, En Avant Foundation is able to offer dancers the means by which to propel their careers.

The En Avant Foundation utilises eminent artists from the ballet world who are known for their brilliant careers and qualifications; their wealth of knowledge is immeasurable and they are willing to pass it on in order to aid the next generation of artists. It is the Foundation’s goal to contribute to the existing potential of young dancers by providing them with unique opportunities through mentoring and scholarships.

En Avant Foundation, whose artistic director is the renowned Cynthia Harvey, has the support of a number of prestigious artists who have agreed to become the Advisory Committee: Darcey Bussell CBE, Ángel Corella, Isabelle Guérin, Dr Linda Hamilton, Steven Heathcote, Desmond Kelly OBE, Violette Verdy, and Edward Villella.

The Foundation will consequently present masterclasses and workshops for pre-professional and professional dancers. The artists of the Advisory Committee will present some of the masterclasses and workshops, with some taken by those who have expertise in related fields. These will take place in a number of cities worldwide in future years.

The Foundation’s first event will be held in New York City on 7 and 8 June, with Edward Villella, Isabelle Guérin and Cynthia Harvey as teachers and coaches, including Dr Linda Hamilton, Advice Columnist for Dance Magazine, presenting a lecture on “Overcoming the Stresses of Performance”.

English National Ballet My First Ballet: Coppélia

Following the My First Ballet series, English National Ballet and English National Ballet School are presenting Coppélia from April to the delight of young children everywhere. From 5 April–25 May 2014 the Peacock Theatre in London and a national tour will see Coppélia visit Shrewsbury, Manchester, Tunbridge Wells, Woking, Aylesbury and Bromley.

My First Coppélia is the third in the My First Ballet series, the comic tale of an eccentric toymaker and his mechanical doll, based on Ronald Hynd’s original production. The dancers will wear the beautiful costumes from the professional company’s full production, giving audiences the look, feel and quality of a classic ballet, but understandable for all. The adapted story and choreography will make the ballet more approachable and fun for younger audiences.

Last year’s creative team of Gavin Sutherland and ENB’s Associate Artist George Williamson, a graduate of ENBS, will be collaborating again to bring young audiences their first taste of ballet, with captivating music and beautiful choreography performed by the students. George’s first major commission was Firebird for English National Ballet. He returns to the My First Ballet series after choreographing last year’s My First Cinderella.

Children aged 3 and over can get their first taste of classical ballet with this magical production. The simplified version builds on the great success of My First Sleeping Beauty and My First Cinderella, developing the audience of tomorrow and establishing long term relationships with the arts.

English National Ballet was awarded a £114,520 grant from the Leverhulme Trust in 2013. The grant was awarded to support two years of the series and English National Ballet are delighted that the funding will also support My First Ballet: Coppélia, helping to develop the dancers of the future and enable students with outstanding potential to gain vital skills by working with a professional company.

The Dancing Plague

The Dancing Plague Almost 500 years ago a whole town was overcome with a “Dancing Plague” that saw people dropping dead from dancing, exhausted. This phenomenon has parallels with Romantic classical ballet Giselle, with Hilarion forced to dance to his death by the Wilis. Protagonist Albrecht, meanwhile, is saved by Giselle, her love for him just as strong in death.

The summer of 1518 saw a Strasbourg woman named Frau Troffea begin dancing intensely in the street, and refused to stop even after many hours and days. Within a week, one hundred people had been overcome by the same compulsion to dance and after a month, 400 people found themselves obsessively dancing into exhaustion without no explanation for their actions.

The authorities in Strasbourg even encouraged the dancers by hiring musicians to accompany them in the belief that they would recover by continuing to dance. It wasn’t long before dancers collapsed and died from heart attacks and exhaustion, and the dancing plague subsided after a few weeks. Some explanations for the epidemic include drugging (by psychotropic mould growing on stalks of rye that people accidentally ingested), cult involvement and mass hysteria.

1518 was not the first dancing plague of its kind: in that part of Europe cases stretched back to the late 1300s. Some suggest that the dancers were in a trance-like state, which allowed them to continue dancing despite their exhaustion due to the contemporary belief in St. Vitus (the patron saint of epileptics) who was believed to take over people’s minds and inflict compulsive dance. Already under psychological strain from the famine and disease that was common in Europe, it could be that people’s fear of the curse caused them to believe they had been possessed and induce themselves into a dancing trance.

These instances of dancing mania eventually died out in Europe, having claimed many lives.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Smart Move For Dutch National Ballet

The Dutch National Ballet and game studio Game Oven are developing Bounden, the first two-player dance game for smart phones giving mobile users a first in this form of dancing technology. Similar to that of Merce Cunningham’s use of technology to choreograph, most notably for one of his last works, Biped, Bounden lets people dance with each other.

In a mix of ballet and the well-known party game Twister, phones are used as a guide to dance or get entangled with someone else. In addition to using your thumbs to move in synchronisation to dance together, Bounden brings together programmers, choreographers, music composers, filmmakers, and visual artists. Each choreography is accompanied by classical music specifically composed for the game.

Ernst Meisner, the artistic coordinator of Dutch National Ballet’s Junior Company, will be one of the choreographers from the company creating choreographies exclusively for the game. This will open up both mobile users and dance lovers to a whole new level of dance and the use of technology. Whilst Bounden is just a game there is a clear possible progression route from the game, using modern technology to greater avail within dance and performance.

Game Oven, the game studio in association with Dutch National Ballet, makes games that makes users sweat, previously such as Fingle, Bam fu, and Friendstrap. The company is based in Utrecht, the Netherlands, and consists of just four people that make games with new, weird and unique ways for people to interact with each other. For Bounden, dance is at the centre of their work.

Bounden is supported by the Dutch grant program Game Fund and will be available in May 2014 on iOS and Android.

Steven McRae Named Young Australian Achiever of the Year

Steven McRae and Miyako Yoshida Performing in The Nutcracker The Royal Ballet’s Principal dancer Steven McRae has been awarded Young Australian Achiever of the Year in the UK by the Australia Day Foundation. Marking Australia Day abroad has taken in a whole new meaning for him being named with this prestigious title, as he continues to aim inspire children to chase their dreams too.

Just 28, McRae has a dream dance career. He began with jazz and tap classes as a child following an impromptu dance class aged seven. He went on to tap at the Sydney Olympics, and later become the Royal Ballet’s youngest Principal dancer. He has performed as a guest Principal with many renowned international ballet companies and still has a notable number of years to achieve even more.

The Australia Day Foundation accolade is especially significant for McRae in 2014, as he will be performing his favourite role of Romeo in Romeo and Juliet with the Queensland Ballet in July. For someone of McRae’s age to have achieved so much and to have represented Australia on the world stage is truly remarkable and an inspiration to young people everywhere, prompting the award from the Australia Day Foundation. Steven’s long list of dance achievements include the top prize at the Prix de Lausanne in Switzerland. The Royal Ballet School offered him a full scholarship in 2003 and he graduated and joined the Royal Ballet Company the following year.

The Young Australian Achiever of the Year in the UK has been awarded annually since 2005, recognising the achievements of a young Australian in the UK. Australia Day marks the day in 1788 of the first Governor of the colony of New South Wales. Australians across the country and overseas celebrate Australia, reflect on achievements and what they are proud of. In the UK, it is also a day to celebrate British heritage and the close links between the nations.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.