Tag: Dance

The 14th National Dance Awards

2014 National Dance Awards Critics' CircleThe Critics’ Circle National Dance Awards for 2013 took place at The Place’s Robin Howard Dance Theatre on 27 January 2014. A prestigious event for acknowledging dance talent, the awards recognise an array of talents throughout the previous year.

The awards are decided by the 60 members of the Dance Section of the Critics’ Circle after an extensive round of nominations and voting. To be eligible, performances had to be given in the UK between 1 September 2012 and 31 August 2013. The awards were hosted by former NDA winner, Tommy Franzèn, and Bennet Gartside of The Royal Ballet.

CRITICS’ CIRCLE NATIONAL DANCE AWARDS WINNERS 2013

BEST CLASSICAL CHOREOGRAPHY
Christopher Wheeldon for Aeternum by The Royal Ballet

BEST MODERN CHOREOGRAPHY
Russell Maliphant for Fallen by BalletBoyz® The TALENT

OUTSTANDING MALE PERFORMANCE (CLASSICAL)
Nicolas Le Riche for Le Jeune Homme et la Mort / English National Ballet

DANCERS PRO AWARD FOR OUTSTANDING MODERN PERFORMANCE (FEMALE)
Julie Cunningham for New Works 2012 / Michael Clark Company

OUTSTANDING FEMALE PERFORMANCE (CLASSICAL)
Yuan Yuan Tan for RAkU / San Francisco Ballet

DANCERS PRO AWARD FOR OUTSTANDING MODERN PERFORMANCE (MALE)
Paul White for The Oracle / Meryl Tankard

JANE ATTENBOROUGH DANCE UK INDUSTRY AWARD
Amanda Chinn, General Manager of Scottish Dance Theatre

GRISHKO AWARD FOR BEST INDEPENDENT COMPANY
BalletBoyz® The TALENT

STEF STEFANOU AWARD FOR OUTSTANDING COMPANY
Mikhailovsky Ballet

THE DANCING TIMES AWARD FOR BEST MALE DANCER
Dane Hurst / Rambert Dance Company

GRISHKO AWARD FOR BEST FEMALE DANCER
Natalia Osipova / Mikhailovsky Ballet

DE VALOIS AWARDS FOR OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT
Leanne Benjamin
Matthew Bourne

The awards are a celebration of brilliance amongst the diversity of dance forms. More than 200 nominations of companies, choreographers and performers were received from dance critics and the eventual 40 short-listed for the awards came from a wide spectrum.

The 15th National Dance Awards will be held on Monday 26 January 2015.

Stretching Sufficiently

Edgar Degas - Dancer Stretching at the Barre

Despite the fact that stretching out dancers’ muscles is vital, there are many points to heed as you work towards a more supple, flexible body. In order to stretch safely and successfully, the body and muscles must be sufficiently warm: don’t hold static stretches (those held for longer than 30 seconds) before warming up. The stretches do increase flexibility but only once the body is warm. Stretching cold muscles achieves nothing and often leads to overstretching ligaments and tendons, increasing instability and resulting in pain. It also decreases the muscle’s ability to contract, resulting in less power and available strength once you start dancing.

The key to stretching effectively is to be incredibly warm, by first activating the muscles and getting blood flowing through the body before working toward greater flexibility and a more balanced body. Unfortunately, in a constant pursuit of greater flexibility, dancers have a tendency to favour extreme, and sometimes dangerous stretches, instead of following a gradual approach, creating weaknesses in their bodies. The first step in switching over to a safe stretching regime that increases muscle flexibility without sacrificing the stability needed for balances and the power needed for jumps is losing bad habits.

Often dancers get caught up with stretching one area of the body that they forget about the other muscles: if you stretch your hamstrings make sure you equate this when stretching your quadriceps. This means that creating imbalances in the body is less likely to happen. An additional method of countering this is by using a foam roller. This can be used when dancers are feeling tight in order to free up the connective tissue muscles before stretching them, decreasing muscles tension and pain. Foam rolling can be done prior to activity, even on cold muscles, or post-activity to release inhibited muscles and allows more freedom in a muscle that was otherwise restricted.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Big Dance Pledge 2014

Big Dance 2014The Big Dance Pledge is back for 2014, a chance to learn, make and perform dance with the rest of the world as one. As a mark of the 5th anniversary of the Big Dance Pledge, this special 5th edition is created by Scottish Ballet with fun and celebration at its heart, as part of the Glasgow 2014 Cultural Programme of the Commonwealth Games. Lots of help is at hand; watch the ‘Pledge Family’ demonstrate, look through the Big Dance tutorial and inspiration films to begin planning your own Pledge!

You can even make your own version for the Big Dance Pledge 2014, with a group of friends, classmates or work colleagues to put your dancing on the map! Once you are rehearsed and happy with your dancing, be ready to perform as part of the two simultaneous performances on 16 May 2014 from wherever you are to be part of a unique and simultaneous wave of dancing across the world. If you would like to learn the official Big Dance, watch the complete choreography online. You can learn the dance with 5 tutorial videos, showing one section at a time – don’t forget to use the special warm up video!

The Big Dance Pledge will travel around the world with the support of the British Council. School children all over the world will be able to learn the Scottish Ballet choreographed dance and participate in the Big Dance Schools Pledge through the British Council’s Schools Online website. The British Council also plan to provide step by step guides for Commonwealth schools on how to take part, alongside additional teaching resources that will provide an introduction to dance.

Devised for people of all ages and abilities and with a variety of dance styles included, Scottish Ballet’s Creation of the Pledge has been in development for almost one year by the company’s education team.

Ballet Beautiful

Ballet BeautifulMary Helen Bowers is the ballerina behind Ballet Beautiful, a dance-inspired workout that she teaches to Victoria’s Secret supermodels helping them attain those trademark tight abdominals and lean legs through the carefully crafted dance-inspired workout moves. Bowers is a former dancer who joined the New York City Ballet in her teens and became a prima ballerina, passing this knowledge onto the models with a ballet-inspired workout that sculpts swan-like arms and tones abdominals for the revealing lingerie.

Bowers often trains with the models backstage at runway shows, as well as on-site: for the most of the year she trains the models three or four days a week, depending on what is going on their schedule and if there’s a big photo shoot. Most of the sessions are a one-hour workout, but the schedule increases to longer sessions before a big event, such as the annual Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show.

The movements in Ballet Beautiful combine modified fitness positions and resistance work with classical ballet moves that target the muscles dancers use, for example Bowers swaps thigh-building gym squats in favour of thigh-slimming ballet basics like the Grand Plié. Another move that targets “ballet muscles” – inner thighs and the buttocks – can be achieved by placing both shins on a mat with one hand on a chair and drawing the opposite knee out to the side in a modified arabesque.

Bowers’ client list isn’t just limited to Victoria’s Secret models; she also instructed actress Natalie Portman for her Oscar-winning role in “Black Swan”. Bowers had to turn to online sessions and bring in extra backup to free up her time to coach Portman for the grueling role in 2010. Following the release of “Black Swan,” Bowers hired professional dancers to teach Ballet Beautiful private lessons to handle the demand.

The London Ballet Circle

The London Ballet CircleThe London Ballet Circle provides financial support to student dancers, raising funds by hosting events such as talks by dancers, choreographers and company directors where members can find out from artists about their life and work. The events of the LBC offer a range of prestigious industry artists as speakers at the events, and the LBC also arranges private visits to ballet schools so members can observe students in training, and their incredible discipline and dedication devoted to their art. All of the LBC events raise vital funds to assist the education of the next generation of talent.

LBC was founded in 1946 by Stanley Hawkins and its founder President and first Patron was the founder of the Royal Ballet, Dame Ninette de Valois. Dame Alicia Markova – founder of English National Ballet, as it is now known – succeeded Dame Ninette. LBC also aims to promote interest in dance, rather than just ballet, and the associated arts by arranging a broad range of talks amongst other exclusive events. Recently LBC has hosted talks by world famous stars such as Marianela Nunez, Thiago Soares, Mara Galeazzi and Edward Watson.

Recent visits include watching classes and rehearsals at the Royal Ballet School, English National Ballet School, Tring School for the Performing Arts, the Central School of Ballet and the Yorkshire Ballet Summer School. LBC has also organised private guided tours of dance-related exhibitions at the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Royal Ballet School Museum at White Lodge.

Funds raised by the events provide financial support to gifted student dancers whose school principals have identified as greatly benefiting greatly from high level tuition, such as that provided by the Yorkshire Ballet Summer School, the Wells Weekends, and other summer schools run by the country’s leading ballet companies.

The New Year’s Honours List 2014

OBE Image: New Year's Honours 2014The New Year’s Honours List 2014, released on 30 December 2013, included nine honours for dance professionals, championing their work for the arts sector. Dance UK runs the dance sector’s Honours Advisory Committee which is a group of dance professionals who volunteer their time and expertise to ensure dance professionals are regularly nominated from across the rich and diverse world of dance. Teachers, dancers, managers and choreographers can all be nominated, recognised for their hard work in all dance forms.

Choreographer and former dancer Gillian Lynne CBE was made a Dame as part of the New Year’s Honours List for services to dance and musical theatre, acknowledging her dedication to the industry which spans decades. Dancer and choreographer Carlos Acosta, received a CBE for services to ballet, recognising his work in the dance world. Assis Carreiro, former Director of DanceEast in Ipswich, was awarded an MBE for services to dance. Assis is now Artistic Director of Royal Ballet of Flanders. In addition, Liv Lorent, founder and Artistic Director of balletLORENT based in Newcastle, received an MBE for services to dance.

Other honourees included Lady Patricia Marina Hobson MBE awarded an OBE for services to ballet & philanthropy, Margaret Jaffe founder of Northern Dance Centre awarded the British Empire Medal for services to dance, and Jane Pritchard, Curator of Dance, Theatre and Performance Collections at the Victoria and Albert Museum: Jane was awarded an MBE for services to the arts. Jane curated the Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes exhibition at the museum and was archivist for both English National Ballet and Rambert.

Teaching Routes To The Same Goal

Dance Class

Teaching vocational theatre and dance is the subject of much discussion with many training options available, and students with different learning styles, such as through visual cues, hearing cues and doing things actively.

What makes a good teacher?

Theatre and music teachers in vocational schools play a specialised role in student development, taking time to develop their skills by giving information and guidance to progress quickly. Some teachers do this by sharing industry contacts, careers advice and specialist teachers.

At vocational school specialist teachers apply both experience and theory to teaching lessons. Students have access to the ‘experiential’ model of education where physical skills are used to experience and train in the subject. Vocational teachers speed up this experiential process by helping to rectify bad physical habits and engage students intellectually.

Vocational school is available both as full-time and part-time schools. A full-time vocational school teaches core curriculum subjects and specialist subjects, such as acting, dance and drama full-time, whereas Part-time vocational schools work alongside a child’s traditional schooling, teaching specialist subjects after school or at weekends. There can be academic and vocational grades awarded at the end, depending on what each school offers. The part-time type of school replaces the role of a traditional middle school such as Sylvia Young Theatre School and Tring Park School.

It’s important that vocational schools keep high standards and help children to progress onto specialist further education schools: vocational schools are important places for young people to learn the skills needed for entry into theatre, dance and music crafts, even if they have not had prior experience. Vocations like theatre, dance and music require students to carry out a lot of physical repetition: the region of around 10,000 hours of practice is needed to become an expert before their bodies and minds understand fully.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Flagship Children’s Theatre For Darlington

Darlington Borough Council

Darlington Borough Council has announced it intends to use £600,000 of ring-fenced funds from the future sale of Darlington Arts Centre to help create a flagship children’s theatre which will become the first permanent performance space for children’s touring company Theatre Hullabaloo. The company will bid for £1.5 million of Arts Council England capital money for the project and the local authority will provide its own cash as match-funding if the bid is successful.

The proposed theatre would include a 150-seat studio theatre space for professional performances by Theatre Hullabaloo, as well as rehearsal areas and a cafe. Other arts organisations and community groups would be able to stage works and use the space as well. While Darlington Borough Council would be unable to subsidise the new venue, its proposal would entail running the building and sharing management costs with the Darlington Civic Centre while Theatre Hullabaloo would programme the space.

The council-owned Darlington Arts Centre, which was the previous base for Theatre Hullabaloo as well as other arts groups, closed in July 2012. The new venue will not replace the Darlington Arts Centre, but will form an important part of a proposed cultural quarter for the town that would also have national significance as a small theatre space for the town.

The proposal is for the venue to embody the values of the company which are that children should not be compromised as an audience by having to be secondary users in an adult-designed space. The venue will be a children-centred space that would allow the company to create and perform its own work and create a hub for artists developing their own practice in theatre for young audiences.

MOVE IT 2014: The UK’s Biggest Dance Event

MOVE IT 2014MOVE IT, the UK’s biggest dance event is back for 2014. From 7-9 March, Olympia London will be the home to over 100 live performances, inspirational dance classes spanning all genres and live interviews with renowned dancers and celebrities from the dance world. Tickets for this fantastic dance event are now on sale, in addition to MOVE IT 2014 merchandise, is available to pre-order online at http://www.moveitdance.co.uk/Content/MOVE-IT-2014-merchandise/5_50/

Join over 20,000 dancers at the UK’s biggest festival dedicated to dance of all styles and levels and enjoy an array of spectator and participatory activities. MOVE IT 2014 includes…

The interview sofa: discover useful expert knowledge from dance stars with interviews on the latest dance topics with guests including Darcey Bussell CBE, Strictly Come Dancing judge and Prima Ballerina. Darcey will answer questions, pass on invaluable tips and talk about her work as President of the Royal Academy of Dance.

The main stage: this central performance area is THE destination for live dance, with performances from the UK’s biggest dance stars and fresh new talents from all over the UK including Lukas McFarlane (presented by Beautiful Movements), Boy Blue, the English National Ballet Youth Company, the cast of West End show STOMP, BalletBoyz, and the Royal Academy of Dance.

Tasters and masterclasses: over 220 dance classes in a huge range of styles are available to try, open to budding dancers, enthusiasts and professionals. Masterclasses are taught by some of the UK’s leading choreographers and dance experts from the worlds of hip hop, ballet and contemporary, and will host a series of intensive dance lessons for those wishing to progress and take their skills to the next level.

MOVE IT still has much more to offer! Catch the latest spins, freezes, flips, shimmies and dance moves live on the Freestyle Stage in a showcase of raw talent. Bag the latest trends in dancewear at the range of retail stands and top up on your careers advice at MOVE IT to find out everything about the dance industry and community from experts, workshops and every major performing arts university/colleges under one roof.

The Albany’s £1 Ticket Offer

The AlbanySouth East London’s Deptford has a secret weapon in the form of The Albany, the Southbank Centre for non-central Londoners. The arts venue is also a meeting and training place, a social place, a work place and a performance space, in addition to being a cafe and a place for young children. The venue has had a longstanding and successful relationship with the Deptford market just outside its doors on Deptford High Street, mixing its cultural vibrancy with the theatres.

The Albany has recently launched a scheme with has integrated itself straight into Deptford market in the form of a pop-up stand offering a limited number of £1 tickets to events and performances at The Albany. Tickets are purchased first come first served, offering local residents and shoppers the chance to engage with the arts cheaply, and perhaps even take a risk and attend something they may not have considered spending money on a ticket for. Encouraging audiences to see different art forms broadens their appreciation and knowledge of the art scene, and London’s in particular.

10 were available for each show, and according to the theatre 182 were sold, with an estimated 70% of those being first time bookers. At £1 per ticket this isn’t a money making exercise yet the level of first time buyer response is good, along with the promise of repeat booking at the full price of £6. The Albany’s stall is now a regular feature of the market. It enables members of the theatre team to interact with audience members one to one and allows time for genuine relationships to be created.

Freeing cheap tickets to audiences is a fantastic incentive for those who don’t attend performances or arts events regularly to support their local arts venue. The Albany offers a wide variety of performances, including those specifically for children and young people. The Albany is also a central place to meet, discuss and share – as a mini Southbank Centre – offering the residents of Deptford an area which is theirs for the community, just outside the expense and bustle of central London.