Category: News

American Ballet Theatre principal ballerina Misty Copeland has recently launched a girls’ scholarship programme in Rwanda, with the humanitarian non-profit organisation MindLeaps which aids some of the city’s poorest children. Copeland is no stranger to child poverty so becoming an advocate for disadvantaged youth has been a way for her to give back.

Many of the children Copeland has been working with in Rwanda are homeless and lack access to school. MindLeaps uses dance classes to improve the children’s cognitive development and prepare them for more structured learning environments, and it then adds classes in English and IT to prepare them for either boarding school or the workplace. Copeland has introduced a girls’ programme as until now it has only been available to boys.

Copeland officially launched the MindLeaps Girls Programme, and additionally awarded a dance student the Misty Copeland Scholarship in order to go to boarding school. MindLeaps is currently raising more funds for the Misty Copeland Scholarship and the girls’ programme through the International Artists Fund. Dance can be a great escape from every day life and at MindLeaps in Rwanda it is offering children the chance to prepare their lives in a different way. Dance is able to give them hope and goals, used to apply to life in the wider context.

It is clear Copeland’s experience at MindLeaps in Rwanda was eye-opening, in meeting the girls and especially leading them through a basic ballet class. Also during her visit a young boy showed her the concrete tunnel under the street where he sleeps, the boy Copeland later decided to offer to sponsor in order for him to attend boarding school. Through dance, the children have been offered an escape whilst learning to connect their body and mind, develop their physical coordination and use words to describe what they’re creating.

One Dance UK – the result of the merger of the Association of Dance of the African Diaspora, Dance UK, National Dance Teachers Association and Youth Dance England – was launched earlier in December at an event attended by 450 dance professionals. The event was also live streamed, drawing together more than 130 years of experience between the separate organisations, creating a new force for dance for the whole of the UK.

The merger will complete in April, and One Dance UK will eventually be moving out of London, possibly to Birmingham or Leeds. The name One Dance UK was selected following extensive stakeholder, industry and staff consultation, reflecting the UK-wide reach of the new organisation, the unity of its voices, and celebrating the combined experience of the organisations to create a new future for dance in the UK.

The formation of the new industry body for the dance sector has been funded by Arts Council England, the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and the Paul Hamlyn Foundation. It will provide services for young people dancing, teachers and training institutions, as well as for professional dancers, choreographers, companies and producers. The aim is to create a single, more powerful voice for dance, a central knowledge hub, professional development opportunities and performance platforms to nurture talent, and strategic initiatives that will benefit the sector.

The body has secured £145,000 to invest in leadership development for both dancers and teachers, and will also run new performance platforms for artists working in dance of the African diaspora. A national conference for choreographers in 2016 is another of the programmes to be run in its first three years, which will also see the creation of a new exhibition and a digital platform celebrating the last 70 years of British dance launched in 2018. The national youth dance festival – U.Dance – will be also expanded and presented at The Lowry, Salford in July 2016.

The dance discipline of tap has been around since the late nineteenth century, acting as the dance of jazz music. While most of the commercial dance seen in the media is mostly competitive, modern or balletic, tap still holds a firm place in the interests of dancers, and cannot fail to be impressive.

Tap can be described as both movement and music, as while it is usually performed to music, it also makes its own music, as does other foot-stamping dance forms such as flamenco, Irish dancing and Indian classical dance. The sight of the steps and movements of the feet combined with the sounds being made means the audience is treated to double the performance.

Tap dance as we know it today emerged in dance halls, with its special technique and, as it grew alongside jazz, its special rhythmic qualities. From the 1920s through to the 1950s, tap was everywhere and could be seen in films, musicals, vaudeville, and in clubs. The death of Bill “Bojangles” Robinson in 1949, one of the greatest original tappers, saw the schools in Harlem closed at noon on the day of his funeral. Three thousand people attended and thousands more stood outside.

Following the death of Robinson, there were notable changes to tap. In Broadway shows, the tap acts changed to “dream ballets” and nightclubs were closed. Popular music changed from jazz to rock and roll, and Motown took centre stage. However the 1970s saw another shift: a number of female tappers, such as Brenda Bufalino and Jane Goldberg, decided tap had to be saved and organised festivals where tap could be performed and taught again.

Tap continues to develop and move forward, with new tapping innovators and new steps to accomplish. Considering the history of tap and its rate of development, the future looks exciting for tap on stage.

Lucy Guerin is an Australian choreographer based in Melbourne. In 2002 she established Lucy Guerin Inc. to support the development, creation and touring of new works with a focus on challenging and extending the concepts and practice of contemporary dance.

With credits including Medea (National Theatre), Motion Picture (Dance Massive, Melbourne); Weather (Melbourne Festival, North American Tour, Theatre de la Ville Paris) and Conversation Piece (Belvoir St Theatre, Sydney), it is no wonder her co- production of Macbeth at the Young Vic is off to a flying start.

Lucy Guerin and Carrie Cracknell’s Macbeth plays at the Young Vic until 23 January 2016 (www.youngvic.org). It will then play at Birmingham Repertory Theatre from 26–30 January and HOME from 2–6 February. The pair have created a new version of Shakespeare’s supernatural tragedy, weaving powerful and unsettling choreography throughout the story.

Lucy has also been commissioned by Chunky Move, Dance Works Rotterdam, Ricochet (UK), Mikhail Baryshnikov’s White Oak Dance Project (USA) and Lyon Opera Ballet (France). In 2016 Lucy returns to London to create Tomorrow for Rambert.

Photo: Richard Hubert

Have you always wanted to be involved in the arts?

Yes. As far back as I can remember I liked to make things, dress up, write stories and songs. I have always liked to express my thoughts in a visible way.

 

Where did you train and what was it like?

I trained at a suburban ballet school in Adelaide, Australia and then went to a tertiary dance college. We studied ballet, Graham and Cunningham techniques but also made our own choreographic works which I really enjoyed.

 

What is a day in your life like now?

My days vary drastically. Working on Macbeth for the Young Vic, my day could begin with meetings with the other director, designers or composer. Then some lighting or sound work in the theatre, followed by rehearsals with the cast, the evening preview show and then more meetings after the show with the creative team and crew. But at other times of the year I may be writing grants, preparing new ideas for a show, touring a work or spending all day in the studio with the dancers researching a new work.

 

What prompted you to go into directing?

I loved being a performer, but at a certain point I became frustrated with being an interpreter of someone else’s ideas. I wanted to make the decisions.

 

What has the Macbeth rehearsal process been like?

The Macbeth rehearsal process has involved a lot of discussions about how dance and text can integrate to express ideas in a different way than either could achieve alone. There has been some improvising to find a more spontaneous way to invent the material as well as meticulous crafting of how the scenes fit together. Carrie has worked mainly with the actors and I have worked with the dancers, but with a constant eye on how they will come together.

What has been your favourite part?

I really enjoyed the actual words of Shakespeare. It was a pleasure to spend so much time with them, and absorb them. But I think my favorite part was working with the beautiful dancers from the cast. They were an inspiration.

 

What’s the best thing about working in the performing arts industry?

I love the interaction with collaborators and other artists, and also the travelling. I love that it’s my job to think of ideas and spend a lot of time in a room researching ways to articulate those ideas with talented people.

 

What’s the worst thing?

Explaining to taxi drivers what I do and what kind of performance I make. I still haven’t found the right words to describe it well.

 

Do you have any pre-show rituals?

Only one, a stiff drink before press night! That can be a tough moment.

 

What is your advice to an aspiring performer?

Learn from everything you do at the beginning, and do everything you can. Your best asset is your individuality. Listen to your own imagination, even if it doesn’t seem to fit with the current trends.

 

What’s next for you?

I am on my way to France to remount a work I made previously on The Lyon Opera Ballet. I then return to Australia to work with my company in Melbourne. We have a season of short works by local choreographers called Pieces for Small Spaces in our studio. I will come back to London next April/May to make a piece for Rambert.

Matthew Bourne’s charity, Re:Bourne, has recently seen its patrons announced. Darcey Bussell CBE, Tom Daley and David Walliams have all taken roles as the charity’s patrons, flying the flag for its work and championing dance for Bourne. For young people, role models are vital in inspiring their participation in the arts and this is more important today than ever.

Founded in 2008 Re:Bourne invests in the future of dance, and is a crucial way of finding and nurturing the next generation of dancers, choreographers and audiences. The charity has grown significantly in recent years, now delivering workshops, projects and productions across the UK and around the world. Re:Bourne’s activity has continued to grow fast, with new projects and productions planned in order to engage more young people and audiences in dance.

In 2014 Re:Bourne created and toured a ground-breaking dance-theatre adaptation of William Golding’s novel “Lord of the Flies”, introducing many boys to dance who had no experience in the performing arts The production brought together adult dancers from the New Adventures company with young people in an innovative project, consequently creating a large-scale touring network. The production went on to play to an audience of over 70,000 and engaged over 8,000 young people all over the country.

Having Darcey Bussell, Tom Daley and David Walliams on board as patrons is a huge coup for Re:Bourne. They are inspiring and much-loved figures and are undoubted role models for young people in the UK today. They each have a list of accolades to their names, including dancing and now judging “Strictly Come Dancing”, being an Olympic icon who single-handedly put diving on the map and being one of the most popular comedians and actors of the last decade.

A rare Irving Berlin musical has received what producers claim is its UK premiere, with its content only discovered recently after it was first staged in the United States in 1949. The unseen musical – named Miss Liberty – by Berlin was staged on Broadway in New York, telling the fictionalised version of events that led to the Statue of Liberty being mounted on its plinth and becoming part of the city. Berlin remains one of the most important American songwriters but much of his work and music has been overlooked, now ready for rediscovery.

The musical also included four songs that were originally cut from the show, to be seen for the first time by British audiences. The songs have been discovered by Dominic McHugh, a senior lecturer in musicology at the University of Sheffield. Miss Liberty is now receiving his attention in full, to bring the production back to life. The musical was performed in the UK on 9 and 10 December at the Frith Hall in Sheffield and featured the original score, with the original orchestrations.

In addition to his Miss Liberty coup, McHugh had also previously discovered the unheard musical numbers from song writing duo Lerner and Loewe’s My Fair Lady that were also performed earlier this year for first time since 1956. The musical numbers were removed from the musical after the show’s first preview in February 1956 on Broadway: they were later discovered, alongside a ballet penned for the musical, at the Library of Congress in the USA by McHugh in 2008.

The songs, which were believed to be lost, have survived in just a box in the library. It is unknown as to what the ballet music consisted of: many musicals of that period included a ballet, however the ballet for My Fair Lady was thought not to have survived the years.

In a basketball court in Rio de Janeiro’s notorious Morro do Adeus, a ballerina is teaching ballet to young girls, offering an opportunity to transcend the harsh reality of their surroundings. The city’s Morro do Adeus slum is made up of more than a dozen favelas, a huge network of neighbourhoods with a population anywhere between 60,000 and 120,000.

Tuany Nascimento, the young ballerina behind the classes, abandoned her ambition of becoming a professional due to the expenses, but she is determined to give similar opportunities to children in her community. She aims to give the girls a life experience through ballet – whilst aged only 20 herself – starting the “Na Ponta dos Pés” project in 2012. Through the girls’ ballet training she aims to give them the foundations to go to college and even achieve their dream jobs, giving the girls determination and focus.

Whilst today there is less ruling by gangs in these areas, and less violence and cartel power in the favelas as a result, the majority of ‘pacified’ areas still have war within them. Nascimento would like to see authorities providing more social and cultural activities, rather than taking control of the areas through state forces attempting to prevent violence breaking out. Nascimento therefore aims to continue the ballet project and provide opportunities, giving young people a chance not to fall into crime.

In September this year Nascimento received a grant to start building a new community centre that will include workshop space, a library and a fully equipped dance studio, meaning her days of teaching workshops in the exposed outdoor sports area will soon be over. Local businesses have promised to contribute with construction materials and further fundraising in order to continue to provide for the young dancers.

For many in the showbiz world, the festive period is equal to one thing – pantomime! And for many graduating students straight out of college, performing in pantomimes can be a way of gaining some work for a few weeks while they try to secure a future contract. Working as a professional dancer in a pantomime, alongside the juvenile dancers and the principals, can be a way to hone skills and possibly work alongside bigger stars that producers have paid to appear in the show.

Panto means a period of at least six weeks away from your home, and often the show you are performing in is not local to you. This means dancers need to find digs in the area they are performing. It’s important to arrange digs immediately so you know you have a comfortable place to return to after rehearsals and the show, and sharing with other company members is always a good idea. Try to stay as near the theatre as possible so you can get back quickly and easily after the show, especially if you don’t have your own mode of transport.

Aside from the musical Cats, pantomime can perhaps be one of the most physically demanding forms of theatre. It is ultimately important to ensure your fitness levels and body conditioning are at their peak, ready to take on the run. There are usually two shows a day, equating to twelve shows a week, so it is a good idea to put your fitness first. The show run could be up to six or even seven weeks so maintaining a good level of body and vocal fitness is vital. Use your voice daily for a period before rehearsals begin and cross-train regularly in areas aside from dance.

Pantomime can also be an invitation to party with the other cast members and new friends, however the hectic social life and long days can take their toll. Appearing professional and performing at your peak does not go hand in hand with partying and staying out late. Make sure you get enough sleep to perform well the next day, you may need to be back next year!

With current emotions for the people of Greece running high, it seems many are turning to tango as the dance of passion to help them during troubled times. It is natural that humans want to express themselves, and particularly during the hard times Greeks are experiencing. Dance is naturally unspoken communication and through the tango and Argentine tango there is so much passion to convey.

Traditionally, Greeks many have agreed that their favourite pastime was sitting around a table dining with family and friends, but now, with tango music powered by generators attached to cars, habits have changed and Greeks have turned to other forms of relief. It is maintained that Greeks also have a special affection for Argentina, the birthplace of tango, as a country whose economic troubles is often compared to their own. Perhaps this explains why tango is so popular among the Greeks.

In Greece pop-up milongas, like tango dance studios outside, have gained a popularity especially with the growing numbers of the young and middle-aged who have turned to tango. There are now three or four milongas every day and most are free of charge. Tango studios are appearing in lower-class areas equally quickly, mirroring the pattern of when tango first originated in Buenos Aires in the early 19th century.

For many it is the philosophy of the tango that is appealing as everyone can improvise, a man can lead or a woman can lead and at any time the rules can change. In recent years, Greece has produced world-class tango dancers, with several winning European championships and emerging as finalists in global competitions. The dance form – so resonant of love and loss – appeals naturally to their experiences. Many would even argue that Greeks invented drama, so their appreciation of tragedy is very compatible with tango.

The government’s Department for Culture Media and Sport’s overall budget is to be cut by 5% it was recently announced, yet the Arts Council will continue to be protected. Chancellor George Osborne has promised to increase funding to Arts Council England, and national museums and galleries in his Spending Review, however there have been different concerns over the future of museums, galleries and theatres that rely on funding from local councils.

However, Osborne told the House of Commons that the Arts Council and the UK’s national museums and galleries will get a cash increase between now and 2020, and as a result Arts Council England’s grant is expected to rise by between 1-2% over the next five years. This means it can continue to fund its 684 theatres, museums, galleries, dance, opera and ballet companies and other cultural organisations at current levels until 2018.

It was a welcome surprise to hear Osborne proclaim that one of the best investments for the nation to make is in our arts, museums, heritage, media and sport: Ed Vaizey, the Minster of State at the DCMS, said the Comprehensive Spending Review settlement for his department was the best news the subsidised arts have had for six years. Many in the arts had been prepared for a deeper funding reduction, relieved for the decision not to have significant impact.

Despite the good news however, it is likely that many museums, galleries and performing arts organisations must heed the repercussions of cuts to local government budgets, meaning some may close. Across the country, especially in less well-off areas, civic and local museums may face difficulties because of local authority funding cuts over the 2015-20 period.

While the Comprehensive Spending Review also included other provisions for arts and culture, such as £4million for a Birmingham Dance Hub, it has been highlighted that arts organisations still need to look for new sources of funding in this very narrow funding environment. A more diverse funding model will mean a greater emphasis on philanthropy and the growing social investment funding environment.