Dance Direct Blog. News, Reviews & Advice About Dance

Resolution! Review: Opportunity for Dance Writers

Resolution! 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 Logo American 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 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

Alan 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 Logo The 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 Logo From 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.

Christine Devaney – Inspiring Creativity

Glasgow-born Christine Devaney trained at London Contemporary Dance School and has been performing, choreographing and teaching throughout her extensive career. She was a founding member of Dundee Rep Dance Company (now Scottish Dance Theatre) and for nine years performed with the internationally acclaimed V-tol Dance Company where she became Associate Director and played a key role in developing their highly respected education work.

Christine’s performance and choreographic work spans across theatre and dance where she has worked with companies including: Tag Theatre, The Kosh, The Unicorn (London), Theatre Gargantua (Toronto), Frantic Assembly, Graeme Miller, Benchtours, Freshmess and Yolande Snaith Theatre Dance. Christine is a long-standing creative collaborator with Plan B in Scotland. Christine has continued to develop her teaching and mentoring practice throughout her career and is passionate about nurturing and challenging individual creativity alongside teaching dance and movement techniques. She has been involved as a mentor on the Young Dancer’s Bursary Scheme with Dance Base and was choreographic mentor for Tony Mill’s solo works Scottish tour (2010).

Christine is currently an Associate Artist with Imaginate and founded Curious Seed in 2005. The vision of the company is to create engaging, thought provoking, uncompromising performance work with physical expression at its core. Since 2005, Curious Seed has produced the solo work Almost, But Not Quite for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe (2005), Code Butterfly a large scale site-specific work for young women at Out of The Blue as part of the Leith Festival (2007). Their current show, Chalk About comes to the Lilian Baylis Studio at Sadler’s Wells on 1 & 2 November and features Christine.

Have you always wanted to be involved in dance?

I have to confess, yes! I started dancing when I was young mostly because my pals were doing it, but then I loved it and I was the one who continued as they stopped over the years. As well as going to local ballet and tap lessons I used to dance a lot on my own, in my room, or in the gym-hall during lunch break or after school. It was a P.E. teacher at school who introduced me to contemporary dance – thank you Mrs. MaCleod.

Where did you train and what was it like?

I trained at London Contemporary Dance School. Well, it was an amazing experience to leave home at 17 to be doing exactly what I wanted to do but it was also hugely challenging in many ways. Of course the physical training was hard and I was pushed, but that was what I was there for. It was more on a psychological level that I found it incredibly intense at times. I had great friends and found the support I needed.

Did you start choreographing young?

Mmm. That’s a very interesting question. I was always making up little dances and enjoyed contributing to the choreography in the group I was part of before going to London to train, and I knew that I wanted to explore choreography more. However the way that choreography was ‘taught’ at The Place at that time, was a little elusive, shall we say, and I was just wasn’t encouraged, and in fact was more or less told I wasn’t a choreographer. I found this strange and wondered why? And this stayed with me for many years. But there was a small group of Scottish students training at Laban and The Place who used to get together to make work anyway and sneak off and perform it at any given chance. My first job was with Dundee Rep Dance Co. (now Scottish Dance Theatre), and right from the beginning I was creating small pieces of work with community groups, but I suppose because I was concentrating on developing as a performer I didn’t think of myself as a choreographer for many years.

Do you prefer choreographing to performing?

I absolutely love and continue to be incredibly curious about the creative process, as a performer on the inside of it and a choreographer on the outside. I had thought a few years ago that I was going to stop performing, but here I am still doing it and still learning about what it is to be a performer. And I’ve still got so much to try and make and say as a choreographer – I’ve got a few years to catch up on, and maybe one day it will completely take preference over performing. I do know that even if I stop performing I won’t stop dancing.

How did Curious Seed come into being?

After many years of living and working in London, mostly with V-tol Dance Company, initially as a performer and latterly, Associate Director, I decided to return to Scotland. I felt that I had something to give to the dance community there. I also wondered if I had what it takes to drive a creative vision, rather being a good ‘right hand man’. You know, have the idea and start doing all that’s needed to turn this idea into art – the right people, funding… all of that stuff as well as getting into the studio and leading the creative process. So I formed Curious Seed, and have managed to continue exploring if I’m any good at it! I like to take my time with things.

What is a typical day like for you?

An egg for breakfast (I love eggs), some dance practice or body work of some kind, this varies for me, depending on if I’m doing research or in rehearsals or between projects, it could be class, improvising or Pilates, some admin – there is always some to do! Maybe some meetings. An evening meeting is good as it could involve a glass of wine. At the moment with being on tour with Chalk About, shows are typically in the morning or afternoon, so it’s all about preparing early for the show, then packing up then finding somewhere for dinner… it’s not too glamorous! I’m writing this on a day off, about go and have a swim and then try to start writing a funding report I need to do…

What’s the best part of dance for you?

I still love what dancing gives me personally, which is hard to put into words but as I have grown older it feels more and more spiritual. I’ve met incredible people through being involved in dance. People who have shown me different ways of experiencing the world. This has been very important to me and still is. It’s also an honour to connect people, audiences, strangers through the work.

What has the rehearsal process been like for Chalk About?

Very gradual! It started out in a workshop in late 2011 as a way of exploring how two people from different countries and who didn’t know each other could share ideas and work together… then we were commissioned to make this into a full show for the Imaginate Festival in Edinburgh in 2013. Initially it was just myself and Leandro Kees the other choreographer and dancer I created the work with, but then we brought on a designer, composer and lighting designer to contribute, so it became much more like the collaborative rehearsal process I like to cultivate for Curious Seed’s productions. We also spoke with children at different times during the making of the show and included their responses in different ways to help shape the show.

What is the hardest part of the rehearsal process?

With Chalk About it was having two lead artists who were both in the work, and who had different ideas, but of course this is what made the work what it is! Usually the hardest part of the process for me is the middle stage, and this is when what I call my ‘angel of doubt’ arrives. I have to listen to it, as it’s just part of me, but then I walk way from it, and carry on…

Do you have any advice for aspiring performers?

Find your own way, while working really hard to become a versatile performer. Follow your interests!!! Be inspired and motivated by others but don’t try to be like anyone else! Be kind to people, don’t take any s*-t. Remember to ask yourself now and again if you’re happy? Don’t be scared to ask for advice. Don’t lose your connection to your dance, your drive, your joy.

What are you most looking forward to about the performances?

Chalk About is really lovely to perform, as it has different emotional peaks and troughs and Hendrik (Le Bon, who performs the show with me now) is a joy to be on stage with, so just doing the show in different venues with different audiences will be fun and keep it very much alive and fresh for us. The audience reaction is great as they are laughing at us one moment and then in the next a moment of reflection and sadness. We dance and laugh and joke and talk about family, love and loss… And we then dance some more… what’s not to like about that?

What’s next?

It’s an exciting time for Curious Seed as we’ve just done our first five year plan! Of course we will need some funding and support but that’s a minor detail! There are so many great projects and possibilities in the pipeline. We’re already in the middle of developing a new a sight responsive work called Dust and All That… This is a co-production with Edinburgh theatre company, Magnetic North. I’ve also started research for a trilogy of work that I feel is for teenagers. I can’t wait to do and discover more about this…

Billy Elliot’s Live Screening

The recent live screening of the much-loved Billy Elliot the Musical has topped the UK and Ireland cinema box offices, with takings of £1.9 million. The screening, which was broadcast live from London’s Victoria Palace Theatre to more than 500 cinemas on 28 September, beat new releases such as The Equalizer and The Boxtrolls to the top spot, and was the widest ever cinema release of a live event. This is fantastic news for musical theatre fans – and the industry – in expanding the reach of the musical for new and perhaps unanticipated audiences.

The musical, written by Lee Hall with music by Elton John, is an adaptation of Hall’s 2000 film. It is directed by Stephen Daldry with choreography by Peter Darling. The story, set in the mining town of Newcastle during the Margaret Thatcher era tells the story of a young boy’s quest to train at the Royal Ballet School against the odds of social, economic and personal difficulties.

25 former and current Billy Elliots, including the three original performers – James Lomas, George Maguire and Liam Mower – took part in a special finale of the show, which was broadcast to eight countries. Encore screenings of the performance went on to take place at more than 350 cinemas on 2, 3, 4 and 5 October and a DVD of the special event will be released on 24 November.

Billy Elliot the Musical is produced in the West End by Universal Stage Productions, Working Title Films and Old Vic Productions in association with Tiger Aspect, and is based on the Universal Pictures/Studio Canal film. The popular musical is currently booking until 19 December 2015, but by expanding its reach through cinema, who knows how long it could run for!

The Railway Children Returns To London

The award-winning production of The Railway Children will return to London this year from 16 December, in a specially built venue at King’s Cross station. Mike Kenny’s stage adaptation of E. Nesbit’s novel The Railway Children will be moving to a purpose built 1,000 seat theatre, complete with a railway track and platforms, and with a state of the art heating system. The York Theatre Royal production, which is in association with the National Railway Museum, will once again feature a live 60-tonne steam locomotive and Gentleman’s Carriage.

Directed by Damian Cruden, with design by Jo Scotcher, lighting by Richard G. Jones, music by Christopher Madin and sound by Craig Vear, the adaptation was first produced by York Theatre Royal at the National Railway Museum, York, where it enjoyed two sell-out and critically acclaimed seasons in 2008 and 2009. The production then opened at Waterloo Station in the former Eurostar terminal in July 2010, and won the 2011 Olivier Award for Best Entertainment, before opening in Toronto in 2011 in a temporary theatre built at the base of CN Tower in Roundhouse Park.

The Railway Children tells the story of Bobbie, Peter and Phyllis, three children whose lives change dramatically when their father is mysteriously taken away. They move from London to a cottage in rural Yorkshire with their mother, where they befriend the local railway porter, Perks, and embark on a magical journey of discovery, friendship and adventure. The much loved classic was first published in 1906 and has subsequently been adapted for the stage and screen, most famously in the 1970 film version directed by Lionel Jeffries and starring Jenny Agutter, Bernard Cribbins, Dinah Sheridan and Sally Thomsett.

The Railway Children is booking until 1 March 2015.