A monochrome Zoetrope of cross- continental imagery.

“Created in collaboration with Peruvian artists and long- time collaborator, composer Steve Blake, ‘Laberinto’ continues Anderson’s work around misconstruction of reimagined lost dances, leading the audience on a serpentine journey into the labyrinth, into worlds beyond death.”

The piece was performed at Bristol’s Old Vic in their Weston
studio, an enchanted yet cosy space which fit the themes of Laberinto
perfectly. This meant the dancers were really amongst the audience, almost
close enough to touch but certainly close enough hear and maybe even feel their
breath.

The dancers begin the piece with grounded movement which
seems heavily influenced by Capoeira, an afro-Brazilian martial art form. They
create strong shapes, providing visual imagery for the audience which is almost
like a caricature or cartoon. This makes characters for each performer within
the monochrome zoetrope of cross- continental imagery that emerges on stage.

The dancers hold their own persona within the piece, each
with their own personality and therefore, their own characteristics. This allows
the audience to form a relationship with each, creating space for light- hearted
comedic moments which feature regularly within the piece and to the very end (including
the bow). These add to the theatrics of the performance and provide breaks from
the intensity of the images throughout. Also making the piece accessible for
those, who are not necessarily from an arts background.

I adored the stark contrast between the characters, whether
that was being devilishly camp or oppositely, stern and unphased. The posture
of these really played true to the role. They often carried a Parisian
‘laissez-faire’ attitude which occasionally indulged us in their inner
flamboyance. However, that isn’t forgetting the shift in physicality when
performing sections that deemed more heavily tribal influenced. The dancers
would then adopt a curved and more grounded approach, contrasting the seemingly
European personas they were previously carrying. Sadly, as the performers
tired, it did seem as though the sparkle of what were such strong, captivating
personalities had become more distant and less embodied by the dancers.

The costumes, all variations of monochrome catsuits, hold
reference to French icons such as Marcus Marceau as well as to Incan or Native
American masks. This fusion of European and Latin American aesthetics is
constant throughout the piece, both in imagery and movement. The use of face
paint on the face enhances the characters in which the dancers play. With
strict monochrome and neutral expressions, it is their physicality which tells
us of their individual stories. Only to be broken with exaggerated facial
expressions or the use of the tongue which strikes contrast to the sullen
monochrome otherwise. Imagery like the sticking out of the tongue and piercing stares
relate to that often seen in tribal rituals. This is heightened in the
penultimate section of the trio. The trio is made up of a solo and a duet. The
soloist seems to be trapped within a shamanic ritual between the other two
dancers. The two dancers appear to be chanting around the soloist but not
verbally, physically. The shamanic chanting is created via the use of hands and
gestural movements, almost like a text. Repeated, over and over, each time with
more power and vigour, growing in strength and intensity.

Throughout the piece the dancers’ hands will never be seen in a fist, but always splayed or stylistically positioned. Often the hands and arms will make references to whacking or vogueing foundations, often crossing over with that of 1980s catwalk models or magazine covers. This shape of movement is always precise, with transitional movements from one shape to the other. These shapes provide the context for the audience, often presenting imagery from familiar historic images. Not only supermodels but mimes, jesters, court dancers and circus performers. I did question at times which images have been used to make the choreography, as although some were obvious in their links, others not so much. There seemed to be expressions that linked with that of ‘Uncle Tom’ propaganda from the 1950s but whether that was purposeful or solely my connections, I am unsure.

The choreography itself relies on a mixture of devised games
(such as freezeframes or adding to the picture) as well as the use of strict
patterns playing with timings, canons, shape and poise. The accents of the choreography
tended to swap between ‘hits’ and breaks’, meaning sharp held movements and
sharper movements that then blend into something softer. The pathways of the
piece were most intriguing and formed a key role within the piece. The
characters would glide past each other, whilst in strict canons but along
unusual pathways meaning as the audience, your eyes were constantly drawn to
different areas within the stage.

The set simply details a square of flooring which is matched
by a dangling box light above. This cube of parameter provides ample space for
the performers to move and with their grounded movement quality, they seem
encased within the space and we the audience are peeking through the looking
glass. The strict spacing provided by the set allows the structure of the piece
to provide breath and more importantly to reset from scene to scene. Almost as
though when the dancers aren’t within the set, they are offstage (although they
continue to pursue their characters and to respond to what is emerging on
stage).

I was fortunate to witness the Q&A at the end of the
performance which added further insight into the process of creation and how
such a project came about. I was happy to learn that photographic images had
been one of the core ways in which the piece had been created and that the
piece focussed on these shapes and imagery throughout. It’s wonderful to see
such open ways of creating and these types partnerships taking place. I look
forward to seeing more from such an emerging professional company and wish them
the best of luck on the rest of their tour.

Rambert2 is a spectacular and charged performance with dancers of incredible physicality,
elasticity, and vigour. I believe they earned the standing ovation; less so the choreographers.
Rambert2 is made of three pieces, of which Sin, choreographed by Damien Jalet and Sidi
Larbi Cherkaoui, is the most striking and beautiful. Sin is sandwiched between a
disappointing and dated piece with a scifi flavour and an explosive but crowded and uneven
piece at the end.

The first piece opens with dancers in space-like suit playing an impossible game of words.
The theatrical side is quickly ditched and left unresolved to move to fun and rhythm. It lacks
a journey, cohesiveness, and beauty. The final piece brims with colour and movement. It
shows off the dancers’ agility, strength, and smoothness. They also show skill and
coordination in working a rather limited stage. Sin is simply mesmerising. It is a gripping
duet capturing the conflictual nature of desire, the life force of eroticism, and annihilation. It
is beautiful and beautifully executed.

Rambert2 is a bonfire of energy with uneven pieces. Its main weakness lies in being too
concerned with effect. It is ‘stagy’ with an expert use of music, lights, and showing off talent.
It wants to entertain the audience and overall it succeeds. Yet, it does so by relinquishing the
poetry that is present in Sin and at the beginning of the final piece.

Rambert2 was part of Cardiff Dance Festival, performed at Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama

(First Published on Groundwork Pro and Cardiff Dance Festival)

Our mission statement at Get The Chance is “Creating opportunities for a diverse range of people to experience and respond to sport, arts, culture and live events.”

After the publication of the new Arts Council Wales, Corporate Plan, 2018 – 2023 “For the benefit of all” we interviewed a range of arts professionals in November 2018 to discuss the intentions of Arts Council Wales and suggest ways that their ambitions may be best realised.

A year one from this article we spent time broadly discussing the aims of the Corporate Plan and what change (if any) has occurred in the sector. The questions we asked elicited a personal response from everyone involved. We are publishing our second response below from Rachel and Jamie from Avant Cymru. Avant Cymru describe themselves as “A forward thinking theatre company from the South Wales Valleys. Creating relevant, distinctive theatre, dance, Hip Hop and artistic activity with and for our community and championing this work at home and afar.”

Hi Can you tell us about yourself please?

Hi Avant Cymru are made up of many different individuals. We have key members for the company who come a different range of backgrounds

BAME

LGBT

LOW INCOME/HIGH INCOME

There are two elements we can relate to with each other, all have mental health issues or have family members who have had long term mental health conditions. The other is that we all have Dyslexia and for some, other learning disabilities including ADHD and Dyspraxia. 

 What was your personal pathway into the arts?

 We have all had different pathways, one thing which we all have in common is that our parents were not in a position to be able to pay for classes and training which others could afford as we were growing up. For Rachel Pedley our Artistic Director this resulted in her assisting classes to cover the cost of her classes and taking on multiple jobs to pay for the clothing, equipment and assessments.  

Do you think your class; gender or ethnic background has impacted on your education or career?

All of us have found prejudice for our backgrounds from certain individuals. This has helped us find strength in each other. We appreciate that none of us sound, look or have experienced the same as the other and this means we can enrich each other by sharing our differences. 

 What have you found to be your personal barriers to accessing the arts and being able to develop a sustainable career? Is a sustainable career even possible?

Money – Money, Money and most worryingly segregation.  

Do you feel comfortable within your personal arts environment or is the different class, gender, ethnic background or privilege of colleagues something that impacts on you?

There are many environments we find ourselves in where there are middle to upper class people. As a majority working class company we do find it difficult to be able to explain that the places we perform, teach and train are very different to those accessed by the people we see outside of the Valleys and outside of the areas we perform across the world with our Hip Hop work. We have been to the purpose built buildings, with equipment and resources. We are grateful for the spaces and people who support us, without them the Valleys would be falling behind, they have kept opportunities available helping companies like ours to excel and grow. However the Valleys need purpose built spaces and talent to be championed. 

Are things are getting better or worse?

Worse – Segregation is happening through policy led decisions. 

ACW have the target of “We will enable a greater number and a wider diversity of people to enjoy, take part and work in the publicly funded arts.” Do you think this is acheivable?

True diversity happens when you have all involved who want to be. All financial backgrounds, race, religion, abilities, ages accessing and participating. 

Do you think ACW will be able them to deliver on their targets and why?

Unless the funding is focused on actual practice coming from the people and the varied communities looking to open their doors, it will never be achieved, you can’t buy diversity by forcing people into areas, jobs, etc without them having their heart and soul in that area. There are already many diverse projects happening across Wales – not funded by anyone in many cases. The funders need to look beyond those they think they know and see the amazing work being developed from the ground up. There you will find achievement that will be sustainable, diverse and rich as it comes from those who may not have the ability to write a funding form, or deal with the networking meetings, but those who love the area, the people and the art of where they live and what they are inspired by.

How do you think ACW would be able to best realise their intentions?

 Come to hear from audiences and participants, see what is being achieved and who is achieving it. 

From your personal lived experience what needs to change?

That funders fund what the community want and need, instead of pushing statistics.

If you are interested in the work of Avant Cymru, further information on their next event can be found below.

Open Art Surgery with Breakin’ Convention
Ty Pawb Art Gallery, Wrexham, LL13 8BBFri 14th February 2020

Open Art Surgery Wales invites you to delve into the mind and souls of some of the UK’s finest hip hop artists as they dare to try something new, dangerous and exciting!Artists present brand new short works devised and developed in just one week with mentorship from hip hop theatre aficionados Jonzi D, Ivan Blackstock and Anthony Lennon.This unique event, which takes place at the end of a week of intense research and development, presents six new works to the audience who are then invited to critique, feedback and ask questions to the artists involved.

Open Art Surgery is not about presenting finished work. The focus is to develop theatre skills within hip hop artists and to experiment with new ideas that could be developed further in the future. Breaking down of the fourth wall to allow the audience to engage with the artists, Open Art Surgery is an unmissable event in the Breakin’ Convention calendar.Hosted by Breakin’ Conventions Jonzi D

https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/avantcymru/open-art-surgery/e-bmqjvl

The highlight of the Dance Festival, for me, has been the workshop offered by Fearghus Ó Conchùir, Artistic Director of the National Dance Company Wales (NDCW). It was not only an opportunity for those like me, without dance training, to participate, but also a personal gift from an experienced and professional dancer to whoever wanted to be part of it. The workshop was open to all, with no financial or skills barrier, and it was led by Fearghus with an open attitude, making no impositions.

We began with some basic ballet moves. My lack of dance training meant that movements were like foreign words which I stumbled to pronounce. The repetition at the beginning helped me fix the plies that, judging by my aching legs, I used throughout the day.

After the initial ‘structured’ session, Fearghus told us that we would do ‘contact improv’ in couples and in group, an announcement which was met by a terrified expression on my face. Being used to intellectual work alone, having to focus on the body and make sense of it with others is daunting. In the dancing space, I can only express myself through my body. There is nowhere to hide.

I have done some ‘contact work’ before. This time, we began as couples where one touched the other’s body gently, while the other became attentive to their own body and then responded to the touch. A simple touch, an attentiveness to one’s body, and a response to touch formed the essential elements of our dance for the day. I quickly found myself in duets and in group in synergy with others without effort, so much that asked to improvise alone, I complain that I lost my partner.

The togetherness that Fearghus wanted us to explore requires listening to one another’s bodies and being in dialogue with one another. It is not achieved by putting aside differences, rather by working with them. Perhaps the most interesting exercise was one of imitation. We were all asked to dance a solo for one (very long) minute while observed by the rest of the group, who in turn had to replicate something of our movement.

Like impressionists, we tried to imitate, but soon became interpreters with our own bodies. We tried to extract the essence of a person’s movements and recreate it, but this process of analysis and reproduction soon became one of interpretation. Other people’s movements sat differently in our bodies. It was a beautiful exercise in discovering the other as well as oneself.

Outside competitions and professional performances, dance is a gift of one’s way of expressing oneself through movement. It makes one vulnerable. It makes one risk judgment and rejection; yet all giving is thus. A soulful gift is the giving of oneself with no expectation of reciprocity.

Tir Cyfreddin/Shared Ground Workshop was part of Cardiff Dance Festival.

(This article was first published on Groundwork Pro Blog)

A storm of the mind as well as in temperament.

The piece opens with the dancers rooted to the floor, in
what seems like the foundations of a tree. As tensions build, the tree begins
to sway by the wind which causes a ripple through each performer. The storm
builds taking hold of the dancers swirling them through the space like leaves
drifting through the wind. Thus creating, an autumnal flurry of movement and
immersive sound. It’s imagery like this, that forms the development of the
storm throughout the piece. The dancers utilise this as well as breath to
create the effect of the ever-growing storm around us. It’s their skill and
power as performers that really drives the audience with them through the storm
that’s created.

The movement used was often self-indulgent allowing us to see the performers not as performers but as people, with their own desires and limitations. Even when taken by the wind and shifted through the space, the performers remained as themselves, not characters. Their own emotions drove them to move and create, with the ensemble often echoing the soloists state of mind in the backdrop of the stage. At times, swirling and spiralling across the space whilst the soloists remained still, reflecting their inner turmoil although their own appearance remained static and unphased. The first half of the piece focuses on simpler values to portray the story of the storm, imagery via use of line and shape within the movement and allowing the knock-on effect from dancer to dancer which creates this ever-building tension.

However, the second half, relies heavily on theatrics and storytelling to get this point across. The timing of movements and the beginning of phrases becomes predictable, which with such fascinating, detailed music (composed by Amarok / Michal Wojtas which I shall be purchasing once released) becomes frustrating. There seems a loss of detail in the realness of these people, which was previously so enchanting. Facial expressions become forced and lose their authenticity, with an absence of realism in their hands and reaches.

Although, with this being said, the theatrical elements
really did provide food for thought. Especially the initial solo by Norikazu
Aoki. It approached the theme of mental health with self – destructiveness and
the desire from those around him to help fight this addiction. These things are
extremely important to be visualised in work on stage and such a difficult
topic to explore well. By leaving the solo so simple, it allowed the audience
to resolve their own interpretation of what was happening. It sparked a real
understanding of these issues from the point of those witnessing someone
deteriorate and how we can and should assist in those moments of self-harm.
This sharing of help was continued throughout the piece with simple, gestural
motifs such as that as the unfolding of hands.

The role of the observer stands as its own motif throughout the piece. This played by the choreographer James Wilton. He is present in almost all the scenes providing stillness to the continuing motion on stage. This leads me to question, is this piece the story of one man? Are the performers on stage sharing his own personal experiences to the audience? And was this his journey to self help and how he overcame his own demons?

I feel this track captures the ebbs and flows of Roots, NDCWales specifically Écrit by Nikita Goile. The performance started with a lone female dancer moving fluidly, almost like a crisp packet in a melancholic wind.  A muscular male was positioned behind a white screen, mirroring her movements. To me this suggested he may be out of reach in some way; another women perhaps, even though the synchronisation implied an obvious connection.  I feel the performance brilliantly portrayed the struggle that every human being must go through: a quest for true love. The company made brilliant use of the space, and the eerie lighting provided an excellent back drop to the performance. The dancers used sweeping movements and emotive body language to visually represent  their potential romance, although love must always be reciprocated and sometimes we have to cut off a part of us and let go in order to reach the highest peak.

It is danse, not dance, because it was in France where Rosalind Crisp realised what she needed to do next. She needed to challenge all the moves and positions that controlled her body after years of ballet and dance training. The one-woman performance begins with a video of Crisp. She moves incessantly. She is a puppet rebelling against her puppeteer. There is an energy inside in search of escape into a movement. That elusive movement is constrained by habits and training. It’s like watching someone running in different directions looking for a way out of a labyrinth.

By the side of the screen Crisp begins to move. A light is shone upon her. There is no music, no sounds, only her breath. Her constant focused movement is gripping. You can’t stop watching her. She begins to talk to the audience. “Sorry I can’t speak Welsh. I’m stuck with English, French, and dance,” she says, “The problem with dance is that,” she whispers, “people don’t understand it.” 

What at first might have felt a terribly serious performance turns into a warm and humorous connection with the audience. Crisp tells us about dance and we respond laughing, smiling, and watching her every move. Her self-irony makes her work true and accessible. There is not an ounce of pretension.

Crisp rocks. Literally. She dances to rock music and then tells us that she stopped doing that because it makes you thirsty and there’s lack of water in Australia. Crisp is striking for her earnestness and deep levity. She is deep, just not serious. She is also poetic in how she describes movements wanting to elope with dancers and the dancer being seduced by the promise of being carried away. She ends with a video of herself on a mound of earth and dead vegetation to be witness to the devastation of the bushes in Australia due to deforestation. Her body cries the loss of life. 

La grande dame of dance, France awarded her the title of Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Dame of the Arts), is funny with no histrionics, gripping with no artifice, and weird, beautifully so.