Hello!

So it's been a while since I last blogged but I thought it would be nice for you all to see some comments left by the young people participating in episodes2011...


What did you enjoy most about episodes2011?

Being with mates and performing
All the dancing
Seeing new dance styles
Everything
The whole thing
Performing on stage for real!
Short lived fame!
Dancing with friends. The atmosphere and the experience in general
Performing
Seeing other people’s dances
Dancing and fun, I could not stop smiling
The audience
Performing on stage
The feeling you get on stage
I liked the atmosphere, all of the dancers were really polite


What is the best thing about dancing?

Being on stage
Being free
Being challenged/ pushed
It’s really fun and keeps you fit
Performing
It’s fun
Doing whatever you feel like
Being with true friends
All of it!
Dancing is the best bit about dancing
It’s EPIC and you get to express yourself
I (heart) dance
You don’t have to hide your inner bad man!
You get to be anything you want to be
It’s epic
You get to express yourself through movement
I love dancing for too many reasons to say!
Expressing yourself and having fun
Exploring
Fun
Moving with friends
Interesting
Exciting
The best thing about dance to me is the inspiration and the warm welcome other dancers offer. Meeting new people, creating all different styles just makes dance an overall joyful experience.
Being on stage and showing everyone
There is no limit to what you can do, you can let your emotions run free.

Makes me feel all smiley! :-)

Midnight in Nottingham

It is the last push before our first show. We are in Nottingham. Our temporary homes are in The Meadows and at Dance4 in Hockley and in Mapperley Park where we're staying. It is strange and hard to embed yourself in a city you barely know. And yet it has a certain kind of wonder too. Knowing that I am here to meet with strangers makes me behave a certain way - open, willing to try new things, friendly, unafraid. It's a funny way of viewing a city - walking around wondering who might share the stage with you in a few weeks - might it be the waiter at that place where we had dinner, or the girl who has adopted us as her mates at the library, the woman with the big dog, or the super-friendly sandwich shop owners?

And sometimes, just occasionally, I lose hope. I wonder whether there's any point at all. Whether it really will change. Whether this tiny effort can shift any of the patterns that are so embedded in us. Whether we're doing something worthwhile.

But then there are the people. All of you who make it possible. The people we meet, and the people we've met. And it always comes back to the fact that having the right people around makes anything possible. It reminds me of something a dear friend once emailed me after coming back from a big conference about social change:

what I find myself asking me, again and again is, where to go from here?
and then I find myself asking, yet again and again, not where but who?

And that is precisely why making a different shaped echo of the world just for a moment can shift something. Making something possible that wasn't there before. Whether that's giving someone a flower that will open up in their home, or making a touring show that really asks us to live in each place and look its people in the eye, or asking strangers to come together for one night and have faith in something.

And here we are, nine days away from our first Glorious gathering on the stage of the Nottingham Arts Theatre. Nine days away from our crazy and ambitious fundraising deadline. And thank you - not because you never give up, but because you carry on regardless. And therefore I know we can do it.

Join Rajni and the Glorious team at www.indiegogo.com/glorious until 26 February.

Even When You Are Dreaming: Nottdance2011

Image: Ali Fekih, Flamingos Credit: Sara Iskander

Standing in the queue for the bank counter, in my peripheral vision I noticed a young guy quietly practicing his body popping as though whispering to himself. His muted movements could easily have passed for the fidgeting and rocking motion we make when standing in queues. This was different; it was like he was waiting for that big moment when his whispers could become shouts when he might clear a space on the dance floor and blow people away with cheeky, chess like ‘impossible’ moves.

At this point I realised how true it is that everyone dances, we use our bodies every day to navigate our way through our houses, cities, villages and fields, each location changes the way we move. The busy London commuter, adjusts their walking speed when entering the city their body taught and straight, seemingly the form of abject professional but imagine that same method of walking in their home walking from the fridge to the counter to make a cup of tea.

We use our bodies to express ourselves and to communicate with others, from the ecstatic embraces after waiting for a loved one in the terminus of an airport or bus station or conversely the lingering of hands on hands when someone is Leaving. When we become angry or frustrated our bodies coil or curl up with rage, that makes you feel you might explode. Even when we are sleeping our dreams allow us to continue to move and to dance.

These minute performances go unnoticed to us, they pass us by as we choreograph our daily lives. What if these movements were amplified? Would they look or feel like dancing? If we were more aware of our movements would we do things differently?

This is the second time I have worked on the Nottdance festival, a collection of the world’s most exciting dance and future movement artists presented across the East Midlands region I grew up in. It feels that now more than ever its urgency is felt.

Projects like Rajni Shah’s Glorious, an unusual and tender musical, present a hopeful vision of our collective future against the sense of fear and uncertainty in light of debilitating climate change, political shifting sands and financial collapse. The musical will only be performed 10 times in the world, each time reconfigured with local musicians and performers.

Or the World Premiere of Matthias Sperling & Rachel Krische’s Superdance, clad in lycra and asking whether dance performance could indeed save the world and as if that wasn’t enough it is part of a Double Bill with CoisCéim Dance Theatres’ beautiful duet Swimming with my Mother.

For me the show I am most excited about is the up until recently Secret Show, now announced as Ali Fekih, performing Flamingos (Les Flamants Rose). A self-taught street dancer, Ali has developed his own dance language defined by the abilities and limitations of his body. Nottdance is Dance4’s festival that tests and challenges what dance is, who can do it and I would recommend a dose of dance to anyone.

Nottdance2011 takes place at various venues from 23 February – 13 March. http://www.dance4.co.uk/category/nottdance-festival-2011/

Mathew Trivett
Assistant Producer, Nottdance2011

Two Dancers Share the Space with Some Lace

Two dancers share the Studio…with myself and some lace.

After re-arranging the space and making it feel like home for my time as artist in residence at Dance4 my time is up. I was very lucky to be able to have the space in the centre of town amongst the creative juices of the staff in the Dance4 office as they prepare for NottsDance 2011!! Myself and two other dance artists used the space and delved deep into some of my research: "what happens to the space when a designer and two trained dancers have to co-exist”? Well, that was the question that I went into the space with, hoping to touch on a few answers or even just observe what happened.

I am currently involved in two research projects one which looks at The Human Vs the Mannequin and the other With your Partner which will be an on going project here in Nottingham, which investigates the mechanical aspect of the making of lace manufactured here in Nottingham as well as the final product of lace itself.

I had split time frame with my dancers, so I worked one-on-one with Samantha Stonefield for four days then Kate Prosser joined us in the space for the last four days. This worked as I wanted both artists to respond on instinct and not to be affected by one another’s idea or take on the proposals brought to them by myself.

As artists we always enter a space with a plan or a mission but things change things, get real and, for once, I just went with it. As my time went with Sam went by I realised the way in which she was responding to the information was bringing something much more tactile than I anticipated, and time and process became involved as a part of the mixing pot. I must admit that it threw me at first as it wasn’t “on the list” (!!) and I had intended to arrive at a place with one dancer before the other arrived in two days time.

Time kept itself as a constant reminder as the light from day to night peered through the huge windows the studio. Grace finally made it to the studio and we had a one-to-one bringing her up to speed with my idea but making sure to pick my words carefully as I didn’t want her to be conditioned by my time in the space with Sam.

Hours passed with myself and Grace in the space warming up, responding, vogueing and making notes. Sam arrived and we all came together and to work further. For me I found it very interesting watching them both work with the same idea but approaching it from different perspectives. At times they both doubted themselves especially when Grace was vogueing to techno music and Sam was asking herself as many questions as she could possibly think of in response to the piece of lace she had hold of.

It was around that point I decided to keep them as two separate solo synopsis of work that I wish to develop in the future. Maybe I was making more work for myself but I realised that’s what I had been doing whether I realised or not.

Things began to shape up in space with fabric, lace, flour, pictures and movement and things were finally stating to make sense and feel right. However, with Grace I got to a point where I became obsessed with her getting tired as tasks got more difficult and I really just wanted to push her whilst she was in the mind frame. Each time I pushed the material from what she delivered it got more and more raw and she was creating and delivering material in the language I had intended to leave my time in the studio with. Naturally, what I was finding with tapping into the beauty of the tired I filtered gradually over to Samantha’s movement quality in the space and it changed the look and added to the essence without changing the trajectory too much.

My aim for time in the studio wasn’t to leave with something finished; it was really mainly to make two small synopsis of work so I could get an idea of how my ideas could look in space, as well as collaborating with others. At the end of our time in the space I opened up the studio for a mini idea sharing after giving both dancers one more instruction. They now had total freedom to change the space, the music and timing of what we had been investigating since the start. The control was in the artist’s hands to decide when we as the audience should enter the space. The performers choose how they ended their exploration with other people now in the space. I think I added this at the end purely for the element of surprise for myself and also to see how they responded to complete reverse in responsibility.

Others and myself were finally invited into each performance by the dance artist with the freedom to walk around the space and watch from where we chose. Watching it with a slightly fresher eye it made a difference and I was able to step out of the whole process and observe.

A small Q&A at the end gave us all a chance to think and feedback about perception, responsibility and performance.

Then time runs out as always!


Overall it was extremely great fun to be in the studio amongst great, hard-working people and creative goodness.

Stay up to date with both works at Studiofiftyfive@blogspot.com, on our blog studiofiftyfive.blogspot.com or at Nottingham’s Light Night on Friday 18 February at the Nottingham Playhouse 7.45 pm.

Dwayne Antony
Freelance Artist

Ben's Episodes2011 blog

Episodes was two days of complete craziness! And I was lucky enough to experience both sides of the whole process.

Thursday I was thrown into the world of being a runner, having been in shows before and seeing what the runners do during the performance i thought it would be good fun and pretty easy. I got half right.. Runners have a tough time!

It was my job to make sure everything went smoothly, so making sure the groups were in the right place, on time and quiet! Which during a show with 13 youth groups is a challenge. But we had a great team and managed to run a smooth show and the day went really well. Also the highlight of this night was a message played backstage with ten minutes till the start, "10 minutes till curtain up, we are now entering PERFORMANCE MODE!" okay it wasn't the highlight but as i heard this i saw the stage manager, lighting technician and sound technician look at each other then continue to drink there coffees, I think me and Rachel might be simple minded to find this amusing! The real highlight was to watch as all the hard work put in throughout the day made for an excellent show.

Friday was a mixture of a day for me. I started the morning as i had thursday, running around all other the Playhouse and having a good chat with the stage door receptionist about the "good old days" and shows we had been in, I don't really know how i can talk about the good old days being 18.. But then i had to give my well practised responsibilities to Matthew who arrived and genuinely looked scared at what he was about to get into, and went into "PERFORMANCE MODE!" as i was also performing this night with Clout Youth Dance the company i am in. This was a strange turn around as i couldn't stop myself being a runner and helping the others like i had been for the last day, but i managed and focused on my dance side.

As we were one of the last groups to tech we decided to get straight into costume and make up, which is always fun as we have some great costumes! So there was me walking around the Playhouse with my newly cut 1940s style hair, a white and mucky face and some green overalls, a look I'm hoping will take off world wide.

During the dress I got to see some great pieces of work and actually rest instead of running around like the night before. Our run went really well and we got some great feed back from other groups although they could only see us from the side as they were waiting for the finale.

Being the last act in the show we had to wait in college street till the second half and something that Clout are getting famous for is the amount of food we take anywhere and our ability to turn a dance studio into a picnic! All the food was healthy of course, we were getting ready to go on stage… While here i was dragged back into work mode by Adele and filmed some of the performers answering some questions on episodes, and i witnessed a handstand competition which turned very competitive and i think i saw Ian from Retina give himself a free pass straight into the final, fair? I wouldn't question him :D

On to the actual performance at last! After stretching in the corridor, this was pretty impressive and there is a picture of us all with are legs up the wall in splits (i say splits but i was way off) we all rushed through to the side of the stage and watched eagerly as Ecdc finished their performance. This was our first time showing our new piece 'Hang Fire' to an audience, so if you were at the Playhouse you saw a World Premier! The performance was great! it ran really smoothly and nothing went wrong, well i lost balance on a move i had done a million times before and got a little carried away in my solo so i was a bit late for a music cue but I cant be perfect all the time:) And as i said before we were the closing act and this meant there was the rest of the performers in the wings for the finale, which can be a little off putting when you are staying in character and have to walk directly towards them so i thought i would freak one of them out by starring them down, sorry who ever that was! With our dramatic end to the piece (I wont spoil it if your coming to U.Dance) we got a great reaction from the crowd and it made all our hard work worth it.

I had a great two days at Episodes2011 and am really sad I wont be part of it next year. I hope i haven't put anyone off helping at episodes as its a great experience and for me its helped to show the hard work that is involved to put on a event like this and truly respect the people who do this for dancers, actors and musicians alike.

I hope you all come along to U.Dance on the 27th March at the Leicester Curve, and see all the great groups involved, including Clout as i can't wait to perform 'Hang Fire' again

Ben Eagles

Events and Promotion Trainee, Dancer and worlds best runner! (i feel..)