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Crazy for Gershwin

Late April saw the new Crazy for Gershwin tour announced for October and November of this year. It is set to be a celebration of the works of George Gershwin, including classic orchestral compositions alongside a selection of show-stopping numbers, written in collaboration with his lyricist brother, Ira. The pair formed one of the most successful partnerships in the music industry and their music is known worldwide.

The performances from the Gershwin repertoire of music, song and dance will include ‘Rhapsody In Blue’; ‘I’ve Got A Crush On You’; ‘Someone To Watch Over Me’, ‘Oh, Lady Be Good!’, ‘Fascinatin’ Rhythm’; ‘S’Wonderful’; ‘Strike Up The Band’; ‘A Foggy Day (In London Town)’ and highlights from ‘Porgy and Bess’ such as ‘Summertime’ and ‘It Ain’t Necessarily So’. Performers for the tour then include the London Concert Orchestra: Jonathan Scott on piano, Meeta Raval as soprano, Rodney Earl Clarke as baritone and Richard Balcombe as conductor. The performances will also include a ballroom dancing duet and two tap dancers.

There have been other takes on the Gershwin success in other performances, such as English National Ballet’s production of Strictly Gershwin, which was staged in the round at the Royal Albert Hall and then in proscenium arch theatres around the country on the company’s tour. The performances included Gershwin hits such as those above, adding a multitude of ballerinas into the mix. There was a ballroom dancing duo here as well as some of the dancers donning their tap shoes and adding syncopated rhythm to their performances.

Dates and venues of the Crazy for Gershwin tour are yet to be formally announced but when they are the tour looks set to be perfect for any Gershwin or simply musical theatre fan.

Tamara Ashley: A Figurehead In Digital Dance

Tamara Ashley works as an artistic director, curator, academic, writer and choreographer. She is currently the Artistic Director of dancedigital and also directs the MA Dance Performance and Choreography programme at the University of Bedfordshire. As Artistic Director of dancedigital, she has led on projects such as Digital Futures in Dance and the recent dancedigital festival, with a particular focus on supporting artists in the development of their work.

Tamara began her dance education in Hertfordshire as a member of the Herts Youth Dance Company in the early 1990s. Following that she undertook her undergraduate dance training at Roehampton Institute London and Goucher College, USA. With the support of a full scholarship she went on to earn an MFA in Choreography and PhD in Dance from Texas Woman’s University.

Where did it all begin?

Coincidentally I joined Hertfordshire youth dance company which is now taken care of by dancedigital! I went on to study at university which led to me studying in the ISA and establishing myself as a dance artist. I then moved into teaching dance and working on projects before becoming part of dancedigital which I’ve been leading for four years. We had a rocky, challenging period of funding cuts, structural reviews and renewal of our focus but now we are expanding.

What is a typical day like at dancedigital?

Wow! First I check in with the staff and producers and go through the agenda for the day. I then work through my emails and speak to the artists we are working with, such as helping them plan. I talk to teachers, funders, write funding applications, present the organisation to national bodies and above all try to advance digital dance. I am also mentoring on the Youth Dance England Young Creatives scheme in which I give advice as the participants look at their work in progress. My main role however is to represent our organisation in advising and mentoring younger artists.

What do you like most about dance?

Aside from the digital aspects I am also really interested in the health and wellness side of dance. I am also a yoga instructor and look closely at connecting with the body and connecting interactive projections with somatic experiences. I look at new experiences of embodiment, leading onto the 4D experience of the body with digital dance as a view into the future. It is important to develop and understand the body’s place within the world.

Explain the idea behind the newest dancedigital project…

The dancedigitall festival is to be presented at the University of Bedfordshire from 25-27 May, including presentations by Focus, Essex’s youth dance company. Focus is for 14-18 year old dancers and the company is directed by Robert Gentle, a digital dance development specialist. The main focus of the group is on the creative skills of the dancers. The festival will be a full weekend of talks, performances, installations and immersive dance, such as that with lights which are fed by movement.

dancedigital received funding from the Royal Opera House bridge which prompted further experimentation with new digital techniques, meaning the organisation is the first to do this. The support for arts and technology came early on, resulting in interactive and light based work, 3D work, partnering and a rich quality of movement with detailed movement vocabulary.

What is your greatest achievement to date?

At the moment it is seeing the work of the artists of dancedigital and their innovation and success. They have secured funding and touring commissions which makes me very proud. I would also say the technological focus of the youth dance company is also a great achievement, as it is an innovation in their field and a very special experience for young people.

What’s next for you?

We are looking at the future network of the schools we work with in Essex and Hertfordshire, as well as working on a new app. It will be a choreographic app for young people to encourage them to make movement for themselves and to inspire them. It will be aimed at primary school children as a movement project for them.

Strictly Come Dancing ‘Meet The Stars’ Weekend

Donahey’s Dance School is set to host a special Strictly Come Dancing ‘Meet the Stars’ weekend in June in Warwickshire, offering avid fans of Strictly the chance to meet their dance icons on a weekend dance break. The weekend includes tuition and performances by Strictly Champion Aljaz Skorjanec and Janette Manrara, Anton Du Beke and Erin Boag, and Natalie Lowe and Ian Waite and is a unique opportunity for keen fans and dancers to get up close and personal with the pro dancers.

The weekend package includes four hours of Ballroom and Latin dance classes with the Strictly dancers, tailored to the participants’ dance ability. The workshops are perfect for both beginners and intermediates, as well as experienced dancers.

Guests will also be treated to dance showcases from floor-side VIP seating. This unique up-close and personal guarantee at is at no additional cost. The Strictly dance weekends have been hugely successful for the past eight years due to the personal experience offered. The school works in partnership with the stars of Strictly to offer a unique and coveted experience.

Donahey’s dance school was founded in 1968 and is run by mother and son Shirley and Paul Donahey. Teaching adults and children of all ages, Shirley and Paul offer classes in ballroom, disco, Latin American, salsa, rock and roll, and Argentine tango. Donahey’s also specialise in organising dance weekends across the UK featuring the Strictly stars, enabling people to meet their dance heroes and learn from the best.

Donahey’s Dancing With The Stars weekend includes two nights of dancing, a Black Tie Ball with live music from The Tony Greenwood 15-piece Ballroom and Latin Big Band, and a late night ‘Latin Lounge’. The weekend culminates in a breathtaking Grand Finale dance showcase from the Strictly dancers.

New Multi-Arts Festival For The Roundhouse Summer Sessions

Camden Roundhouse The Roundhouse, Camden, has announced a new multi-arts festival, named ‘Roundhouse Summer Session, in some of the best live entertainment for London this summer. Whilst lots is going on inside, outside visitors can enjoy Camden Beach, the Roundhouse’s very own seaside resort, all of which is taking place throughout July and August. On the terrace, Camden’s biggest outdoor space, there will be 150 tonnes of the finest sand, deck chairs, beach huts, live music and some of the best food pop-ups in the city.

Summer Sessions will present live music, dance, comedy, cabaret, spoken word and live-scored cinema in an intimate, table-seated setting. The eclectic line-up includes the world premiere live scoring of There Will Be Blood, exclusive UK headline performances from Sinéad O’Connor and Chilly Gonzalez, a preview of new work from BalletBoyz, performances from rising star Andreya Triana, Penguin Café, Funk Da Cirque, Boom + Bang Cabaret and The Nest Collective host London’s biggest Ceilidh.

Following international success, BalletBoyz present their award-winning show Serpent/ Fallen for the final time in London, together with a chance to see an excerpt from their much anticipated new full length work Young Men, choreographed by Iván Pérez, based on the theme of war and the men that train and fight together. Serpent is choreographed by Liam Scarlett (Royal Ballet Artist in Residence) and Fallen is choreographed by Russell Maliphant. Fallen won the award for Best Modern Choreography at the 2013 National Dance Awards.

Funk Da Cirque returns to the Roundhouse with Soul Trip, a show that combines street dance styles including boogaloo, house, waacking and b-boying – mixed with theatre, acrobatics, human pyramids and body percussion. Following sold out debut shows at Roundhouse CircusFest 2012 and hot on the heels of appearances at the National Theatre’s Watch This Space and Camp Bestival, Funk Da Cirque includes some of the best young street dancers and acrobats from across London, aged 11-25.

Boom + Bang Cabaret is a cabaret circus extravaganza featuring the most talented circus performers from around the world including evil clowns, fire breathing panthers, a drag ringmaster, a Russian prima ballerina, death-defying aerial feats and more. The Boom + Bang Circus is the new creative collaboration between producer Bioux Lee Hayes (formerly of Boom Boom Club and La Reve) and the award winning, international burlesque and circus performer Kitty Bang Bang.

Busby Berkeley: More Hollywood Treatment

The son of an actor and actress, Busby Berkeley became a Broadway dance director in the 1920s after serving in the army during World War I. He came to Hollywood to work on films like Eddie Cantor’s Whoopee! in 1930 and turned to directing with the 1933 She Had to Say Yes and then Gold Diggers. He continued to work throughout the 1940s and early 50s, aiming to help people escape the misery of those eras, full of breadlines, depression and wars.

Now Warner Bros. Pictures is giving iconic choreographer Busby Berkeley the chance to be reborn, with actor Ryan Gosling rumoured to play the famous director and choreographer of musicals from Hollywood’s golden age. Named “Buzz: The Life and Art of Busby Berkeley” by Jeffrey Spivak, the adaptation is set to be produced by Marc Platt and Gosling.

Platt has musical experience in that he produced Broadway’s box-office hit Wicked, and is currently working on Disney’s adaptation of the Broadway musical Into the Woods, for release in December. He also produced the popular film Legally Blonde, which was turned into a Broadway and then West End musical.

Berkeley became famous for his elaborate dance routines in Hollywood musicals, such as the 1933 42nd Street and the 1935 Gold Diggers, two of the many movies he choreographed for Warners. He was especially famous for his overhead shots in which chorus girls performed shifting kaleidoscopic patterns, and he earned three Oscar nominations for best dance direction, a category that no longer exists. These overhead spectacles are awe-inspiring, the choreographic movement impeccable.

Northern Ballet announces new ballet for children

Northern Ballet has announced that its much-anticipated enchanting new ballet for children, Elves & the Shoemaker, will première in Leeds this October, revealed on the evening of the television broadcast of its production Three Little Pigs. The company is extremely excited to launch this brand new production.

Elves & the Shoemaker is the latest in Northern Ballet’s award-winning series of Short Ballets for Small People which already includes the hugely popular Ugly Duckling and Three Little Pigs. The ballet has been created to introduce families and young children to live dance, music and theatre and encourage this participation. It will be performed in venues across Leeds before touring widely across north England and joining theatres on Northern Ballet’s national tour across the UK. It will then tour throughout the UK in spring 2015.

The production will retell the Brothers Grimm story about a shoemaker who receives some much-needed help from two elves: this colourful and heart-warming production is choreographed by Northern Ballet’s Ballet Master Daniel de Andrade. It will be set to an original score by composer Philip Feeney with set designs by Ali Allen. The production will give more young children and families the opportunity to visit the theatre and see ballet for the first time, igniting their interest in the art form with the hope of continuing this throughout the rest of their lives.

The company’s production of Ugly Duckling was a sell-out success on tour and became a BAFTA award-winning TV adaptation for CBeebies. The production of Three Little Pigs continues to delight audiences and critics on tour throughout the UK and a CBeebies television adaptation was screened on Easter Monday this year. Since its inception, Northern Ballet’s ballets for children have been seen live by more than 53,000 people and have been seen on TV by hundreds of thousands of people.

The Royal Ballet Graduate Scheme

The Royal Ballet is set to launch a year-long training scheme for graduate dancers, aimed at providing female ballerinas in particular with an “extra chance” to gain employment in the industry.

The number of female graduates entering the dance industry has been the topic of many conversations, so the steps to be taken by the Royal Ballet look to ease the problem and provide employment solutions for some.

The scheme is to be called the Aud Jebsen Young Dancer Programme; it will commence in September 2014 and will offer up to six paid work placements to dancers who have graduated from ballet school. There will be opportunities to work with the company’s corps de ballet, teachers, coaches and young choreographers, enabling young graduate dancers to begin to work their way up the dance career ladder and secure a healthy start.

Participants of the scheme will also be able to perform with the Royal Ballet, gaining invaluable performance experience as they continue on their dancing journeys.

Royal Ballet director Kevin O’Hare said that the organisation would initially look to the Royal Ballet School for recruits, but would also encourage graduates from other training providers to apply. The programme is to be open to both male and female dancers, however O’Hare hopes to see more female ballet dancers applying because it is hoped to then encourage them to continue their career either at the Royal Ballet or another dance company.

The competition between female dancers is extremely high, simply because there are so many of them. Men tend to appear more successful in their endeavours because there are less of them in the ballet world, with seemingly more jobs to go around a smaller number. The Royal Ballet graduate scheme aims to give female dancers an extra chance, setting them up to either join the Royal Ballet or any other company around the world.

Ghost Peloton At The Yorkshire Festival

Ghost Peloton is a ground-breaking collaboration between Glasgow-based public arts organisation NVA (they of the light suits and 2012 event Speed of Light) and Leeds based dance company Phoenix Dance Theatre.

As night falls on the Friday 16 and Saturday 17 May an audience of over 3,000 people in Leeds will watch a ghost peloton of 30 synchronised cyclists dressed in LED light suits. The company will commit to mass choreographed movement in a live performance that fuses endurance sport, dance and public art.

The work will unite the live action of the cyclists with film projection of the 10 illuminated dancers interacting with a nationally reputed ‘flatline’ BMX stunt cyclist. This film also includes the Ghost Peloton blazing a trail through iconic locations drawn from the Tour de France route through Yorkshire as spectators pedal along three national cycle network routes across Leeds.

This stunning event of movement patterns is also made up of volunteer cyclists taking part in the performance, lead by Phoenix Dance Theatre Artistic Director Sharon Watson and NVA Creative Director Angus Farquhar. Ghost Peloton is a central part of the Yorkshire Festival 2014, the first cultural festival in the Tour de France’s 111 year history. The piece draws on talented and diverse artists to provide the audience with creating something unique and engaging on many levels.

Directed by Farquhar and choreographed by Watson, Ghost Peloton is inspired by the wheel in motion. The work fuses performance cycling with choreography performed by the Phoenix Dance Theatre dancers on film with the varied landscapes of Yorkshire. Each ghost rider, bike and performer will be lit by a fantastic lighting design by Phil Supple, using bespoke LED suits which can instantaneously change colour, flash rate and luminosity. The lights are set to a stunning electronic score.

Learning To Dance

Learnuing to Dance For most young children, dance class is a time to don the pinkest tights in town and join their friends in becoming fairies, soldiers and various other characters at the command of their teacher. It is only when children become a little older that ballet and dancing becomes a little more disciplined and structured. Instead of bouncing, bending and clapping there are pliés, tendus and lots of skipping. The focus may still be on having fun, but now works to encourage the ballet basics.

Ballet has been shown to have many positive effects for children, such as confidence, strength, flexibility and focus, love of music and rhythm promoted in classes. The class must also suit the child and their needs, with many not taking students before the age of three in order for them – and the others in the class – to have a fulfilling experience that is worthwhile.

Children need to be able to concentrate on the simple tasks of the class alongside the others. It is important the class is structured and secure, later translating into identifiable sections of warm up, barre work, centre practice, travelling and sequence. Their concentration will improve as they learn, forming a cycle of positive reinforcement. Ballet also provides much discipline, requiring children to focus whilst balancing rules with fun.

The physical development caused by ballet goes without saying: children need to be at least three before their range of movement and balance is sufficient to take on such a physical and mentally demanding activity. Following this they can then work on the co-ordination, strength, flexibility, grace, range of motion and endurance that is required. From there comes emotional development. Little dance students can become very independent quickly, moving alone and growing their confidence for this, as well as feeling comfortable as part of a group.

Punchdrunk And The National Theatre

Punchdrunk - The Drowned Man: A Hollywood Fable Punchdrunk’s The Drowned Man: A Hollywood Fable, presented with the National Theatre, is set to close on 6 July after a full year of performances. It is the longest running show in London in Punchdrunk’s history and has already played to over 170,000 people in over 340 performances. This number is thought to increase to well in excess of 200,000 by the end of the run.

Punchdrunk has transformed a vast building next door to Paddington Station into the forgotten world of Temple Studios, a legendary film powerhouse. Audiences are asked to step into a world where the Hollywood studio system meets a forgotten land filled with dreamers who exist at the fringes of the movie industry. Celluloid fantasy clings to desperate realism and certainty dissolves into a hallucinatory world. This theatrical journey follows its protagonists between illusion and reality in a jaw-dropping phenomenon.

The Drowned Man: A Hollywood Fable is inspired by Büchner’s fractured masterpiece Woyzeck and set in a seedy Hollywood underworld. Led by Felix Barrett, Punchdrunk – formed in 2000 – is the internationally acclaimed theatre company whose previous award-winning productions include Faust, The Masque of the Red Death, Tunnel 228, It Felt Like A Kiss, The Duchess of Malfi, Sleep No More and The Crash of the Elysium. Their current New York show Sleep No More won a 2011 Drama Desk Award for Unique Theatrical Experience and a Special Citation For Design And Choreography at the 2010-11 Obie Awards.

In 2008, the company formed its education and outreach department, Punchdrunk Enrichment, which works with schools and community groups across London to deliver innovative participatory projects. As well as producing theatrical productions, Punchdrunk occasionally works with corporate partners in the execution of unusual experiential projects and events. The company is currently presenting its New York debut, a new version of the critically acclaimed Sleep No More at the legendary McKittrick Hotel in the Chelsea district.