Intern's Choice

‘What exactly does a Nottdance Intern do?’ I hear you ask. OK, well maybe not you specifically, but let me enlighten you anyway!
This year Dance4 has taken on two extra people – myself and Katie – to specifically help support the regular producing team in the months running up to and during the festival as there is so much extra work involved in a condensed period of time. We have both been given our own events to project manage (much to our pleasant surprise!), and have had to organise components such as our artist’s travel and technical requirements whilst liaising with the venues… as well as lots of other random prep-ing tasks along the way.
What’s so great (and scary) about being the Nottdance Intern is the fact that Dance4 trust us with the responsibility to produce events ourselves – even though neither of us has ever produced anything on this scale before! It’s like being thrown in at the deep end to see how you cope: you push yourself to deal with things you might have wimped out of before (who else is going to make that deadline?!), though it’s not a problem as I feel as though I’ve have had great support from everyone at Dance4 all the way through. What a journey it’s been :-)

Anyway, I don’t want to write too much about what I’ve been up too (Katie’s going to fill you in about some Intern-related assignments) so I thought I’d just tell you about a couple of my favourite pieces in the festival…

This year Nottdance has worked in association with the Cultural Exchanges Festival in Leicester to programme a talk with acclaimed choreographer Lea Anderson. This stood out as a brilliant event to me as the personable and informal discussion/screening gave me a great introduction into her work with The Cholmondeleys and The Featherstonehaughs – I had only heard the Anderson name banded around in various texts relating dance and film but never actually seen her work (apparently ‘Flesh and Blood’ was focused on in the A level Dance syllabus). Likewise, I think that for the audience who did know a lot about Anderson, the discussion allowed an insight into her inspiration and working process. As someone who focused her university studies into dance on film I found this to be an inspiring perspective into thinking about film in dance.
Now trying to locate videos of Lea Anderson’s work! Any ideas?

Samir Akika/Unusual Symptoms brought ‘Extended Teenage Era’ to Lakeside in the final week of the festival. Well, where do I even begin?! The mixture of break dance, contemporary choreography, observational comedy, pop cultural references and mouse-trap-esque scenery arranging was a pleasure to watch! I feel it safe to say that everyone who saw this show came out with a huge smile on their face and I am so keen to watch it again as there was a myriad of goings-on to take in. If you have the chance to see this show, I strongly recommend that you do.

Finally, I have to mention Simon Ellis’ ‘Leaving’ which was one of the festival’s closing events on Sunday 13th. This was one of my projects and one of my favourites to watch too. On the surface, the participants (most of them never having performed before) were randomly hugging and waving goodbyes around Nottingham train station, but take a step back and you began to notice little ‘performances’ taking place everywhere in the station. Which of the couples in extended hugs were part of the project and which were just leaving a loved one to board a train? It was even hard for me to tell the difference. The subtleness of ‘Leaving’ within the station provided an unobtrusive and beautiful insight into the moment of departing (and, in a way, greeting too), and the sunny-ness of the Sunday afternoon framed it perfectly.

And so now it’s back to the Dance4 office, post-Nottdance Festival 2011, where the atmosphere is oddly still. Where are the artists running up to us with requests? Why is the phone not ringing off the hook? What happened to everyone wearing our brand colours of black and orange? It’s strange to think that I’ll be leaving at the end of this week (but not before a cake party on Friday afternoon in aid of Comic Relief!). I’ve had a blast working in the team on Nottdance and this short stint in event management has spurred me on to continue on this path – what a fantastic opportunity!

Thanks and much love to all at Dance4. I can’t wait to see what you bring out for the next Nottdance Festival!

Radojka x