Article19 V-XI : The Evil Imp:

Self Interest If you're new to the wacky world of dance then there is a pretty good chance you will turn to the internet looking for information about this most beleaguered of professions. What is it? Why is it? Where is... Published Monday, 22 February, 2010 at 11:21
Forgetful Wells File this one under "It's Funny Because It's Sadler's Wells Which *Is Dance* But They Didn't Read Their Funding Guidelines Properly So Let's Laugh Near Them, Not At Them!" Over the last year or so a question has been niggling... Published Thursday, 18 February, 2010 at 07:50
Why It's Different It sometimes comes up in conversation why things are different for professional dancers compared to other folks doing their particular, non dance, job. Why do we focus on dancer's pay and health provision so much, what's all the fuss about?... Published Thursday, 18 February, 2010 at 05:24
Trendy Spikes Writings and rambling in the press are telling anybody that will listen that the current crop of dance shows on television, 'So You Think You Can Dance' and their ilk are cheap and nasty but they're good for dance. Published Friday, 5 February, 2010 at 03:52
Teach Creativity The above video features author Ken Robinson making a presentation at TED (Technology, Education, Design) discussing how children need to be taught to be creative rather than purely academic. Quite a bit of the presentation is concerned with dance. Published Thursday, 7 January, 2010 at 10:20
Javier Booted from BBC BBC News is reporting that the BBC (it's always a bit weird when they do that!) is shelving plans to run all four acts of 'In The Spirit of Diaghilev' from its Christmas schedule. The four acts of the performance,... Published Friday, 27 November, 2009 at 01:25
Stop Laughing At The Back! Sadler's Wells Theatre makes it back into the headlines, well here at least, after it was discovered they have the "best dance video on the web"! Seriously? Our editor laughed so hard he fell of his chair and broke... Published Tuesday, 17 November, 2009 at 05:18
Still Here? As the world gets metaphorically smaller thanks to the wonder/curse of the internet, online video, free communication systems and the PDF document making print material almost redundant British Dance Edition (BDE), in the eyes of some, is struggling to remain... Published Tuesday, 20 October, 2009 at 09:40
Mapping the Money In a spectacular display of ignorance Arts Council England's, so-called, "Dance Mapping Study" has come to the conclusion the rest of the dance world came to 25 years ago that dancers don't get paid enough. We should either celebrate that... Published Wednesday, 14 October, 2009 at 01:00
In Search of the Thoughtful Voice As a form of communication text messaging has its uses, not very many for sure but it definitely has some practical purpose. Here in TheLab™ we're struggling to think of one but there has to be one, right? In many... Published Saturday, 3 October, 2009 at 02:05
A Bit of A Kicking The Scottish Government, when it's not spending huge sums of money on really ugly buildings for itself, can also be found spending huge sums of money (£343,000 to be exact) on really bad dance projects. 'Off Kilter' a co-production of... Published Thursday, 10 September, 2009 at 02:49
Trouping About The sheer volume of insufferable cretins in the dance-world that occupy the higher echelons, self imposed or otherwise, of this particular art form can be readily identified by their use of one single word, that word is "troupe". Everybody's favourite,... Published Thursday, 30 July, 2009 at 04:49
Narcissus Made Whole It's no secret that here in TheLab™ we have very little time for the current AD of Sadler's Wells Theatre in London, Alistair Spadling. If he's not mouthing off some inscrutable crap about women he's programming some of the most... Published Monday, 20 July, 2009 at 02:07
Old Man Ashford John Ashford, out going AD of The Place in London, has taken a parting shot and pretty much everything before he moves on to pastures new in Europe, where the grass is always, always, greener. Published Sunday, 14 June, 2009 at 04:46
The Tangled Web They Weave On may 11th Alistair Spalding the AD of Sadler's Wells Theatre, quoted in the Guardian newspaper, uttered a couple of sentences that have, over the last few weeks, exposed just how inept large scale arts organisations are at answering simple... Published Thursday, 4 June, 2009 at 12:27
Dance Optional Browsing around the performing arts podcast section on iTunes we, here in TheLab™, were surprised to see a new entry from those crazy kids at the Royal Opera House in London. The podcast covers the Royal Opera and the Royal... Published Friday, 8 May, 2009 at 02:59
Money Under The Bed Arts Council England (ACE) continue their "good christ how bad a week are we having?" with the announcement of a £40Million (GBP) fund to help certain companies in the arts that may or may not be struggling during the current... Published Friday, 1 May, 2009 at 02:11
Dateline Antwerp Belgium is home to some of the most hard core creatives in the dance world and now they're taking it to the people with the project below that had 200 participants dancing a very tightly choreographed piece of work in... Published Friday, 1 May, 2009 at 01:54
Mass Casualties There are unconfirmed reports that at least 30-40 people have expired while watching Arts Council England's online videos of their recent "Great Art" series of seminars held at the Sage Gateshead in, erm... Gateshead in the North East of... Published Monday, 30 March, 2009 at 03:04
Ancient It would appear that the awards people have been at it again. This curmudgeonly group of tweed wearing, tea drinking, scone scoffing individuals, smelling every so slightly of urine, have once again put their loafer covered feet firmly into their denture laden mouths Published Wednesday, 18 March, 2009 at 01:52
Institutionally Bone Idle On reflection this has not been a good couple of weeks for dance on the internet. The Hofesh thing didn't work, Dance Uploaded TV is no good and now we have Sadler's Wells Theatre (SWT) in London losing the plot... Published Wednesday, 4 March, 2009 at 02:17
Ready For A Close Up? What you are looking at above, and we know you're wondering, is a dancer from Hofesh Shechter [Dance Company]. We're not sure which one it is, it might be the man himself, but it's hard, very hard, to tell.... Published Monday, 2 March, 2009 at 01:13
DanceTV Uploaded! Why Bother? With their latest attempt to provide an online experience for dance built, so very obviously, by committee we have Chisenhale Dance Space, East London Dance, Greenwich Dance Agency and Laban getting egg all over their collective face with danceuploaded.tv.... Published Tuesday, 17 February, 2009 at 04:53
Don't Be Good! With Christopher Frayling's whining voice ringing in our ears from the days old story of ACE not getting enough credit for being almost completely useless let's take a look at a scenario from the recent past, shall we! Let's take... Published Friday, 6 February, 2009 at 03:06
It's Not About You. The outgoing Chairman of Arts Council England and all around idiot savant Christopher Frayling (who has a Knighthood that we regard as irrelevant so it will not be used here we say) has used his final speech to prove... Published Tuesday, 3 February, 2009 at 05:12
Polish Your Noggin It's silly season again in the arts with a slew of awards shows handing out gongs to the same people they always hand them out to. We've written about this before, and we're getting tired of it!! Published Thursday, 22 January, 2009 at 05:09
Hofesh of the Dance Is Hofesh Shechter in danger of becoming the contemporary dance equivalent of Michael Flatley? If you don't know who Mr Flatley is then all we shall say is 'Lord of the Dance' and "one trick pony" and leave it at... Published Tuesday, 13 January, 2009 at 04:22
Alan Yentob is a Plank! Those of you who don't live in the UK and don't indulge in soporific BBC documentaries on the arts may have little or no clue at all about who Alan Yentob is. So read on dear reader and let... Published Tuesday, 9 December, 2008 at 12:21
Being Fired For Effect? There are a couple of tricks in the film business that are recommended for all of those new to the game. If you're the director then always print the very first shot you take so the rest of the... Published Thursday, 4 December, 2008 at 04:09
The Sad Kitchen If you have been paying attention you will remember the story we told you a few weeks ago about Sadler's Wells/londondance.com "launching" a "new" video player on their respective websites. Both sites are run by the London theatre. It... Published Wednesday, 12 November, 2008 at 11:38
Why The Hate? Why do they do it? Why do they hate dancers so? What have they done to deserve it? Why, why why? What the hell are we talking about you ask? Among their many crimes in the online space The... Published Wednesday, 22 October, 2008 at 01:40
Dance Umbrella Goes Global! Here in the UK you may not be too familiar with the US cable news channel MSNBC, a 24 hour operation operated by NBC and, oddly enough, Microsoft. With that in mind you may be startled to learn that they... Published Wednesday, 22 October, 2008 at 01:09
Epic Fail? It's no secret at all that Arts Council England (ACE) doesn't know its technological arse from its elbow. Only ACE could spend millions on a computer system that doesn't speed up funding applications, doesn't allow you to make funding... Published Monday, 22 September, 2008 at 10:35
No Prize for Old Rope The Place Prize has been lurching around in London for a while now, they have made it to the semi-finals stage, but unless you live in London and actually attend one of the performances you would probably never know it... Published Wednesday, 17 September, 2008 at 12:43
Blogging ACE When it comes to openness and transparency Arts Council England (ACE) bears more than a passing resemblance to a very large brick wall. That is to say, they are the very antithesis of being transparent. If you're still reading after... Published Wednesday, 6 August, 2008 at 03:46
Money For Nothing (Tickets for Free) Do you have some spare time on your hands? Do you want to earn £40,000 per year for just 2 days work per week? Do you have a knighthood and a pin stripe suit? Have you given up actually... Published Tuesday, 29 July, 2008 at 12:05
On Bended Knee When it comes to pandering and sucking up nobody does it like the PR folks at Convent Garden's Royal Opera House. When they want to kiss some ass they go all in, charging at the wall full tilt until... Published Tuesday, 29 July, 2008 at 09:57
Political Jab US politics continues to deliver the very best in political satire with the latest cartoon from the Jib Jab crew who became famous back in 2004 with their 'This Land' video. Taking it, lightheartedly, in the neck this time around... Published Tuesday, 22 July, 2008 at 10:45
Firing for Effect Arts Council England (ACE) in their latest attempt to convince everybody that they are not racist and they "get" people that have a skin colour other than white have done what any self respecting organisation does in this day... Published Thursday, 17 July, 2008 at 01:14
Overload One of TheLab's™ digital stills cameras, when equipped with a 4 Gigabyte memory card, will shoot, almost continuously, 860 high resolution photographs. A project that we are currently covering has already amassed almost 2,000 usable images (meaning they are well... Published Wednesday, 2 July, 2008 at 01:38
Ballet Umbrage The world of classical ballet, at least the very small part of that world in London, is having a bit of a flap , to say nothing of the journalists having a field day with the headline writing, about... Published Wednesday, 2 July, 2008 at 10:39
Panda Fines You may remember a little while ago a short story regarding the Atlanta Ballet and a dancer in a Panda costume tumbling from the stage into the open, and empty, orchestra pit! No? What do you mean you forgot about... Published Sunday, 8 June, 2008 at 11:18
Harder Than It Used To Be The basic principals of subsidising art are, fundementally, to make that art happen when otherwise it would not and to make that art accessible to people whom otherwise could not access it for financial or other reasons. Let us... Published Wednesday, 4 June, 2008 at 01:31
Pull The Other One! It's not at all clear what was going through the mind of the creative team behind Phoenix Dance Theatre's new show 'Cattle Call', if anything at all, but from our perspective, here in TheLab™, somebody, somewhere is making a... Published Wednesday, 28 May, 2008 at 01:41
Out Of The Box Nobody who works in this business on a regular basis would deny that some dance makers can be (say it quietly) a little bit pretentious! Or hugely pretentious come to think of it. All too often they will spend more... Published Thursday, 15 May, 2008 at 06:57
The Main Event The question that has often been asked is; "can dance be the main event?" Meaning, is this much maligned art-form capable of catching the public's attention in the same way as feature films and rock concerts and can it... Published Saturday, 3 May, 2008 at 06:12
Eating All The Pies Some of you may well have noticed, and most you will not care one bit, that Arts Council England (ACE) has a new boss in the shape of Alan Davey their new Chief Executive. When there's a change of leadership... Published Tuesday, 15 April, 2008 at 05:41
Magic Roundabout File this one under "don't we make fun of you enough already?" because Wayne McGregor has become the all new, the one and only, wait for it....... "Youth Dance Champion" (seriously, stop giggling at the back!) That's right boys... Published Friday, 11 April, 2008 at 12:23
Please Die Quietly! If life has ever been inexplicably cruel to you, God himself has forsaken your soul and you have run out of chocolate chip ice cream you may have found yourself watching a live snooker* match on television. You will notice... Published Tuesday, 1 April, 2008 at 06:32
Content is King When the internet was nothing more than a fledgling technology project, way back in the 1990's, the mantra of those in the know was simple. "Content is King" - Meaning that simply having a website was not enough, the... Published Monday, 31 March, 2008 at 12:05
Everything Old Is New Again For a small profession, relatively speaking, the dance world has an awful lot of awards ceremonies going on all the time, with the emphasis on the word "awful"! This time it's the Olivier Awards, named for Laurence Olivier the well... Published Friday, 14 March, 2008 at 05:13
Cultural Politics The current political shenanigans going on the in the United States of America are historic for a number of reasons, not least of which is when either Barack Obama or Hilary Clinton secures their party's nomination it will be the... Published Friday, 14 March, 2008 at 03:15
Extraordinary Times It occurred to us, here in TheLab™, while watching the dancers of Verve do their thing with the current touring material of the 2008 programme, that these particular individuals, along with all serious dance students, are extraordinary individuals in... Published Tuesday, 4 March, 2008 at 03:01
Camel Culture The UK government's recent announcement that all school children aged between 5-16 years old should receive at least five hours of cultural activity per week has met with mixed reactions from the arts and teaching sectors. Emotions range from... Published Wednesday, 20 February, 2008 at 01:06
Dust for Brains The New York Times if often the place to turn for sober news coverage, informed editorials and a progressive voice or two. Unfortunately they get as slack as any other major paper when it comes to fawning coverage of... Published Wednesday, 23 January, 2008 at 06:44
Pan Handling One of the often missed services that Arts Council England provides is something called the Arts Jobs List. It's basically an old school email bulletin. Subscribers to the list get an email when somebody, somewhere posts information to the... Published Monday, 21 January, 2008 at 12:33
Hissyfit Hard as this may be to believe the arts, as a whole, is working itself up into an enormous lather over the recent cuts announced to regularly funded organisations by Arts Council England. Such is the outrage that artists... Published Thursday, 17 January, 2008 at 02:36
Reviewing the Reviewers The reviews section of Article19 lurks at the top of the page like a street urchin few people want to go near. We've never been a big fan of reviews here in TheLab™ so there it sits, looking nervous,... Published Sunday, 13 January, 2008 at 09:59
Bad Acting in HD You know you're watching a high definition (HD) television channel because all the station ident logos, like the one above, have lots of wispy clouds of colour floating around to emphasise the fact there is more detail in the... Published Tuesday, 1 January, 2008 at 03:09
ACE Drops The Hammer On October 16th this year Arts Council England (ACE) told Article19 that the "vast majority" of regularly funded arts organisations (RFO) in England would be receiving "good news" about their ongoing commitment to provide support. It would appear, following some... Published Wednesday, 19 December, 2007 at 12:24
Painting Pictures When they close the book on dance blogging, history will note that it was here, and here alone, that Panda bears and cocaine were mentioned in the same piece of writing. It is those two most disparate elements that... Published Sunday, 16 December, 2007 at 07:39
ACE Goes Bargain Hunting It's one thing when we, here in TheLab™ have to get on the metaphorical soap box and decry ACE for wasting huge sums of money on things that were, on reflection, not worth the price of a carton of milk.... Published Thursday, 6 December, 2007 at 02:33
Social Dancing Social networking, on the internet at least, is a phenomenon (or irritation) that's very hard to ignore and depending on who you talk to it is either the saviour of mankind or an unrelenting scourge that will be the... Published Wednesday, 5 December, 2007 at 04:41
Misquoted? People on the "inside" of the business that we call show are well aware of the dubious practice of selective quoting that goes on for publicity materials. A word removed here and there, a little bit of context obscured,... Published Thursday, 29 November, 2007 at 01:53
What Are You Doing? Arts Council England (ACE) has a mantra which states; "never say anything with 100 words when it can be said in a 10,000 word summary that no one will ever read". With that in mind they have released the... Published Monday, 12 November, 2007 at 12:30
Dance City, Takes Ball, Goes Home The procedure for Article19 securing permission to film a performance is pretty straight forward. We call or email the company, explain what we want to do, the company, almost always, say yes. The company then let the venue know... Published Sunday, 21 October, 2007 at 01:08
Can We Have Some More Please? Last weeks announcement that arts funding will not be cut back to pay for the Olympics, in fact funding is going up in line with inflation plus 1.1%, have brought the great and not so good out of the wood... Published Monday, 15 October, 2007 at 01:20
Didn't We Fire That B*tch? The petition to try and persuade the Government to not spend huge sums of money (£9.5Billion at the last count) on the London Olympics in 2012 has, as expected, fallen on deaf ears. The Prime Minister's office has responded to... Published Thursday, 4 October, 2007 at 04:49
Is Damien Hirst a Prat? As one Article19's readers can be heard yelling "YES" at the top of their collective voice but hear the man out first and then answer. It appears that one of Mr Hirst's famous, or infamous, pieces of art is... Published Monday, 1 October, 2007 at 04:25
Finally, A Good Idea If you're looking for good ideas from the dance administration machine they are, like the mythical Scottish Haggis, hard to find. They do exist however and often times they are based on well worn ideas of old. Dance Umbrella, the... Published Sunday, 30 September, 2007 at 03:46
The Union Is A State If you're an independent film maker then getting your hands on money to finance your project is hard, if you're a dance film maker then getting your hands on money to finance your project is almost impossible. Unless of... Published Sunday, 30 September, 2007 at 01:45
If Wheeldon Wobbles Will He Fall Down? Christopher Wheeldon, the current poster boy of ballet, will be launching his company, Morphoses, in London this week at Sadlers Wells Theatre. For the last few months barely a word has been written about the wonder boy choreographer that... Published Sunday, 16 September, 2007 at 10:05
Do You Feel Lucky, Punk? Things must be very slow during the summer at Arts Council England (ACE) because the funding monolith has gotten all "FBI" and is "launching an inquiry" into just why there are so many US musicals in the West End... Published Monday, 10 September, 2007 at 12:35
Difficult Perspective The saying goes; "numbers don't lie", unless you work for the United States Supreme Court and you want George Bush to be President that is. When we talk about dance the numbers are usually pretty small. Small companies, small... Published Monday, 3 September, 2007 at 12:37
Bend Over! Far from taking the organising committee of the London Olympics (LOCOG) into the street and beating them down for even thinking of blowing £9.2billion on a 3 week long sports event, Arts Council England has, once again, dropped its... Published Monday, 13 August, 2007 at 09:34
At What Point! It's no secret that here in TheLab™ we are not big fans of the Olympic Games. Sure, we enjoyed watching Cathy Freeman win the 400m in Syndney just like everybody else. If running around tracks is your thing then... Published Sunday, 5 August, 2007 at 08:33
Monica Mason, Bat Sh*t Crazy? It's tough being the Artistic Director of The Royal Ballet. The company is on autopilot churning out tedium on tap, Wayne McGregor is your resident choreographer but he's never there and Christopher Wheeldon is trying to poach all your... Published Saturday, 4 August, 2007 at 07:26
Ringing Bells Dance is often described, usually in a whimsical tone of voice with folk music as accompaniment, as a "universal language". Dance is a form of expression that transcends the spoken word, different cultures, religions, even continents are no obstacle to... Published Monday, 30 July, 2007 at 02:34
StreB(ed) Out It's unusual for members of the dance fraternity to engage in open warfare, through the media, but that is what's happening between Terry Dean Bartlett and Elizabeth Streb, the AD of Streb Extreme Action (yes, that's really what the company... Published Wednesday, 25 July, 2007 at 02:07
Any Slower and You'll Stop The latest dance "media" project causing a fuss in the wide world of dance is the 'Slow Dances' project by David Michalek, an artist of sorts who has chosen to point high speed film cameras at dancers, and little... Published Monday, 23 July, 2007 at 12:19
A New Hope? The new Minister for Culture, Media and Sport in England, James Purnell, has promised to put an end to the mantra of achieving targets that have made the arts into little more than a process of arithmetic deduction for several... Published Sunday, 8 July, 2007 at 07:13
Babel Fish Fauston Carpet of the Amsterdam Research and Science Enterprise guest blogs on the Evil Imp to decipher the recently released job description for the new Artistic Director of Dance City in Newcastle upon Tyne. The National Dance Agency is... Published Tuesday, 26 June, 2007 at 03:31
Says It All Really! We'll have more on this over the weekend! [ Fancy a Well Paid Job? ]... Published Friday, 22 June, 2007 at 04:22
Has A Bulb Gone? Staring into the inky murk on stage, shapes shift unnoticed from side to side, front to back, duets come together, intertwine, move on and repeat with effortless grace. A trio slides onto the stage from the left at the... Published Wednesday, 20 June, 2007 at 03:20
Curioser and Curioser A couple of strange things have popped up today in some audition notices, well, one is curious and the other one unintentionally prompted us, here in TheLab™, to almost throw up. An audition notice for a television show on LivingTV... Published Wednesday, 20 June, 2007 at 02:45
Could'a Should'a Would'a Those of you who follow US politics will be familiar with the mantra of the Bush administration when any of the President's advisers are asked to testify before Congress about what bare faced lie or illegal act they have been... Published Thursday, 14 June, 2007 at 03:44
Expensive New Toy As the rest of the arts in the UK struggle to come to grips with the massive cuts to Grants For The Arts (GFA) made by Arts Council England (ACE) the Royal Opera House (ROH) in London has decided to... Published Monday, 4 June, 2007 at 04:11
What's up with Hip Hop? A few days back some members of TheLab™ went to a showcase dance performance. You know the sort of thing, several works, different dance makers, all a bit of a mixed bag between creative professionals and first timers. In... Published Sunday, 3 June, 2007 at 09:23
Roll Your Eyes Most ridiculous quote of the year, so far, has to go to Karole Armitage a veteran choreographer who presented the premiere of her new piece, 'Gran Partita', with Rambert at Sadler's Wells yesterday. When discussing the work in an "interview"... Published Wednesday, 23 May, 2007 at 03:24
Covering Your Tracks In our second Royal Opera House story of the day we focus on the selective facts coming out of ROH about the recent donation from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation of £10Million (GBP). With regards to the donation itself there is... Published Wednesday, 16 May, 2007 at 02:42
The People's House? News came through last week that the Paul Hamlyn Foundation has given our old friends at the Royal Opera House a rather hefty donation of £10Million (GBP). The money will be placed into an endowment to provide year on year... Published Wednesday, 16 May, 2007 at 02:16
Save Your Sympathy Whilst most people in the arts are infuriated about the huge cuts being made to funding by ACE there are some that have expressed sympathy for the funding giant because the cuts are really being made by the Government so... Published Monday, 7 May, 2007 at 03:57
Push Back If you've been following the news, which is a struggle sometimes I know, then you will of course have heard about the cuts to the Grant for the Arts programme made by ACE a couple of weeks ago. Well to... Published Monday, 30 April, 2007 at 07:12
Vomit Mustard Yellow We must apologise for the picture above. We had nothing to do with creating it but publish it we must for, after all, how can we mock the inept and the stupid if we don't illustrate why we are... Published Thursday, 19 April, 2007 at 01:37
Ave atque vale The non announcement by Arts Council England that Grants for the Arts will be cut by a staggering 35% (£29million) is further evidence, if any were needed, that ACE are poor stewards of this country's artistic well being. It is... Published Wednesday, 4 April, 2007 at 09:44
Submarine Car In the second part of our series looking at rich people doing stupid things we focus on a young lady known only as 'Hayley' who is under the slightly misguided impression the Merecedes Benz sports cars have underwater capabilities.... Published Tuesday, 27 March, 2007 at 04:09
State of the Obvious It's been an interesting week in dance. We've seen some excellent dancers performing some excellent work and when you really get down to it that's what this art form is all about. But then the politicians and the bureaucrats... Published Saturday, 24 March, 2007 at 02:56
Stop The Madness Olympics Update 2: News reaches TheLab™ that the cost of staging the 2012 Olympics in London has now ballooned to a staggering £9billion GBP ($17.5billion USD) up from the previously forecast total of "only" £2.8billion GBP ($5.4billion USD). Over £2billion... Published Saturday, 17 March, 2007 at 02:50
Billy No Mates Here in TheLab™ we have absolutely nothing against rich people. If we were burdened with massive wealth we would be doing the same thing as we are now but in a place with heating, running water and a few... Published Monday, 12 March, 2007 at 11:24
Declaration of ............ Press releases are funny things, if for no other reason than they are usually terminally boring or patently ridiculous. The latest from Rambert Dance Company (the best dance company in the world if you believe their hype) is one... Published Tuesday, 6 March, 2007 at 03:23
Are You Gay, Lesbian or Other? It would now appear that apart from asking the usual questions about your name, address, and telephone number on their funding application, Arts Council England would very much like to know, if it's no bother, your sexual orientation! ACE, when... Published Saturday, 3 March, 2007 at 01:08
The Great Debate (Sort Of) It seems our little piece slapping Scottish Ballet around has ruffled a few feathers, including those of one of the dancers involved, with the good folks in dance coming down on both sides of the argument for and against using... Published Monday, 26 February, 2007 at 10:48
Dancers For Sale In a sign of the increasing desperation marketing savvy of the dance world Scottish Ballet has decided to put two of its dancers on the meat open market. An online auction on eBay offers up dinner for two with... Published Sunday, 11 February, 2007 at 03:25
Wayne's World Wayne McGregor has been nominated for roughly 345,673 awards in the slew of prize giving ceremonies that are slated to be announced in the coming weeks, months and years. Among the nominations are: Acme™ GrowHairFast™ 'Most Gullible Customer' Award... Published Saturday, 20 January, 2007 at 01:28
Dr King Day, Watch and Learn With the farcical nonsense surrounding Simone Clarke and her membership of the BNP getting more and more out of control it is perhaps time to pause for thought. Today is Martin Luther King Jr. day in the United States in... Published Monday, 15 January, 2007 at 03:48
De-press-ed The press flacks at the English National Ballet (ENB) will be wishing they didn't have to get out of bed this morning after they found out a group of 'anti-fascists' will be picketing the London Coliseum in protest at principal... Published Friday, 12 January, 2007 at 02:26
Lego Bricks News reaches us that Malcolm Fraser, he's an architect (allegedly), will be in charge of building the Scottish Ballet's new home at the Tramway in Glasgow. Normally such things wouldn't concern us since SB is a ballet company, obviously,... Published Tuesday, 9 January, 2007 at 02:22
Simone Clarke and the BNP Simone Clarke’s recent ‘outing’ as a member of the far right political party the BNP (British National Party) is nothing short of a public relation disaster for her employers, the English National Ballet, Arts Council England and the company’s sponsors.... Published Saturday, 6 January, 2007 at 02:28
Oh Good Grief, said Charlie Brown As we roll up to Christmas and all that goes with it the 'arts team' at The Guardian, completely stumped for anything approaching an original idea to write about, came up with asking 'artists' about their 'perfect christmas tree'. I... Published Wednesday, 20 December, 2006 at 07:00
We Are Times Person of the Year Apparently we are all now 'Times Person of the Year' the annual accolade usually dispensed to one influential individual for good reasons and bad has come to the masses and it's about time too! (no pun intended). This year Time... Published Sunday, 17 December, 2006 at 12:41
Operatic Hissy Fit Opera star Roberto Alagna took to the stage for a performance of 'Aida' at the La Scala Opera House in Milan, Italy this past Sunday and promptly walked right off again after he was booed by the audience during... Published Saturday, 16 December, 2006 at 02:42
We're All About The Joy Without doubt YouTube, the online video site, is swamped with footage that is an absolute waste of storage space. But if you look very hard you can find some excellent examples of the good folks in this cynical world spreading... Published Tuesday, 5 December, 2006 at 02:18
Forsythe Sells His Soul OK, not really but the man who famously blew a gasket when Ballet Frankfurt were sponsored front of house by Cartier is now putting his face to Rolex watches (not literally though). The high brow ads, running in newspapers... Published Monday, 4 December, 2006 at 02:09
Peaceful Resistance When it comes to 'sticking it to the man' spreading graffiti all over the shop is usually one way to get yourself into a whole lot of trouble for very little in the way of a return. The Graffiti... Published Thursday, 30 November, 2006 at 12:40
2012 Folly In Overdrive So it begins! The estimated costs of putting on the London Olympics in 2012 have already started to get completely out of control. An announcement yesterday informed us all that the estimated cost of £2.4billion GBP ($4.5billion USD) to construct... Published Wednesday, 22 November, 2006 at 11:42
No Fun At All A trip to Ireland this past weekend to film Dance Theatre of Ireland for an up and coming video feature was soured somewhat by the inevitable witless cretins whom, despite all claims to the contrary, make flying the most... Published Monday, 13 November, 2006 at 04:05
Clark and the Fawns It is the signature song of the arts that self abusing - former or otherwise - screw-ups are looked upon with pitty, admiration and pride by a largely sycophantic, incestuous group of artists, media types and patrons who can... Published Saturday, 21 October, 2006 at 04:50
Pillow Fight Club (Honest!) Remember back in the day when Flash Mobs were a thing? People would gather in a given place, do something weird and then bugger off before anybody could figure out what was happening? Apparently they didn't vanish off the... Published Thursday, 12 October, 2006 at 10:24
Dance City Kindergarten Dance City, one of the UK's National Dance Agencies, is running a new project to try and get 'young people' (were not allowed to call them kids anymore) aged between 11-18 years old involved in the running of their... Published Thursday, 12 October, 2006 at 01:48
Dance Goes Political For once the Guardian is doing an actual reporting job with their coverage of dance and the political scene with a piece by John O'Mahony. Leading off with a look at William Forsythe's 'Three Atmospheric Studies', a piece about the... Published Friday, 29 September, 2006 at 03:51
Grinding It Out The Place Prize moves ever closer to its conclusion in London this week as the five finalist slug it out for the £25,000 first prize in the worlds only contemporary dance competition where the prize is cash. The audience for... Published Monday, 18 September, 2006 at 01:11
Guardian Drops The Scissors It's Autumn so it must be time for the Guardian's annual puff piece on dance to make all of their readers think that the paper is smart and reports on things that smart people like, such as the arts. This... Published Thursday, 7 September, 2006 at 12:42
Explosive Soap It took two years and many trips on planes for TheLab™ to figure out how to transport one multi-part video camera, digital SLR, several lenses, a laptop computer and other sensitive equipment without having to rely on the troglodytes that... Published Sunday, 27 August, 2006 at 09:07
Sobering Thought For The Day Amid the usual hysterics and hyperbole from the media and those who should know better regarding yesterdays complete over reaction security problems at UK airports it's nice to read a well thought out editorial opinion from the press. The New... Published Friday, 11 August, 2006 at 11:59
OK GO Do It Again We reported on OK GO's last music video, made in their back garden with no money, and the boys from the worst dressed band in the world have made another stunning piece of choreography with little more than a cheap... Published Sunday, 6 August, 2006 at 12:21
Taking the P*ss? Impulstanz in their fervour of post modernist celebration are running a little tidbit from the Jonathan Burrows piece 'Both Sitting Duet' where the two protagonists - Jonathan Burrows and Matteo Fargion - are literally just sitting down and flapping their... Published Monday, 31 July, 2006 at 03:28
Big Dance Low Key You may or may not have noticed that the past week from 15th July to the 23rd of July was Big Dance Week or whatever Arts Council England were calling this colossal PR exercise that was almost certainly a waste... Published Tuesday, 25 July, 2006 at 10:34
Ross's Rich Pickings If you thought there was no money in the publicly subsidised arts sector then spare a thought for Jonathan Ross, the BBC One, Radio 2 presenter. Such is the publicly financed, national broadcasters desire to hang onto the 'talents'... Published Friday, 7 July, 2006 at 08:52
Timing is Everything Filed under 'bad timing shame about the publicity image' Newcastle sees the launch of the Vamos Festival - or !Vamos! with the first ! inverted but we can't do that with html - a celebration of 'Spanish and Portuguese speaking... Published Monday, 3 July, 2006 at 10:17
Silly Webby Ballet.Co, the ballet equivalent to Article19, sort of, has a rather curious request on its link pages which we feel merits a mention. The site compiles a daily list to various ballet related stories around the internet from newspapers, magazines... Published Saturday, 1 July, 2006 at 09:54
Talent(less) Show, Again?, Really? Filed firmly under the category of 'you must be bloody joking' a television company called, wait for it, 'Just Fabulous TV' (stop giggling at the back!!), is launching yet another television show to revel in the abject humiliation of the... Published Wednesday, 28 June, 2006 at 10:06
World Cup Cliche The World Cup is well underway in Germany and if you have never had the mis-fortune to experience this particular sporting event from the viewpoint of the UK media then you are missing a treat. Never has one country's assembled... Published Monday, 12 June, 2006 at 04:15
Take Responsibility? Not A Chance! We have published many audition notices here on Article19 but not one of them has ever included the paragraph, or anything approaching it, like the the one quoted below taken from an email notification for an audition with Stan Won't... Published Monday, 29 May, 2006 at 12:34
Just Say No!! Should you ever be unfortunate enough to be invited around to Mark Baldwin's house for movie night then we strongly advise you to say 'thanks, but no thanks!' In a recent 'interview' (we use that word in the loosest possible... Published Wednesday, 17 May, 2006 at 10:15
Place Prize, Oh Good Christ Once again the ramshackle excuse for choreography on the cheap rolls into view with the re-emergence of the worlds most painfully dull marketing exercise. Like a creature lurking from the murky depths of a poisoned lagoon; it rears its ugly... Published Monday, 8 May, 2006 at 01:33
David Lammy Unhinged The ruling Labour government here in the UK has responded to the ongoing apathy toward the arts in much the same way it responds to most things, they have released a 'pamphlet' (stop giggling at the back) Actually the pamphlet... Published Thursday, 20 April, 2006 at 10:47
Money Laundering! Making money in the arts is a puzzle few are able to solve and often times it seems impossible. The trick to making money it would appear is to not be an artist or posses any kind of actual talent... Published Tuesday, 11 April, 2006 at 02:49
Why They Hate Us! Thumbing through the latest copy of Dance UK's magazine, a feat of herculean effort because the thing is so dry it is actually able to repel standing water, it became very obvious why the good folks of Planet Earth don't... Published Monday, 27 March, 2006 at 01:37
Stop Smoking Crack!! I'm not sure what kinds of illicit narcotics or how much the newsletter writer over at Impulstanz is smoking but it must be a fair amount because they have been keeping us entertained for years with their fabulous emails. The... Published Monday, 20 March, 2006 at 04:04
Threat Level Update It's sad to see the threat level is still on 'Oh Good Christ' so here's a quick round up of some of the things keeping the threat level up in the higher reaches of insanity. 1. Dance City and their... Published Sunday, 12 March, 2006 at 02:33
Dance Under Threat! A quick glance to the left reveals two new indicators on the current state of our mood, here in the Lab, and the current state of contemporary dance in general, in the shape of our multi-coloured threat assesment. Dance, like... Published Wednesday, 1 March, 2006 at 11:44
Step Away From The Camera In today's Guardian , Akram Khan gives us his thoughts on what he would do "if he had the money" and the dreams Mr Khan has are somewhat disturbing to say the least. Quote; "I would spend the money to... Published Thursday, 23 February, 2006 at 01:51
Same Old Song, Same Old Ballet! It's a tired old song from the ballet world that today's 'kids' lack discipline and the necessary moxie to make it in the world of elite ballet companies, whatever that means. Derek Deane, former director of English National Ballet,... Published Tuesday, 7 February, 2006 at 09:52
Are You ******* Kidding Me? The Telegraph newspaper, seemingly unable to write actual news stories anymore, about anything, brought us a process story about Morris Dancing, apparently it's making a comeback! For the benefit of our non UK readers Morris Dancing is the only dance... Published Tuesday, 31 January, 2006 at 05:57
Sniveling Wretches OK, the title is not nice, that much I acknowledge and if any of you are upset by it I offer you, by way of compensation for the emotional harm suffered, a hot chocolate and some buttered crumpets, what more... Published Wednesday, 25 January, 2006 at 09:51
Lizzy Aggis Watch and Learn Why is it that a band making a video in their back yard with a $400 video camera because they don't have the money to do it any other way looks way better and a damn sight more entertaining than... Published Saturday, 14 January, 2006 at 06:31
Think of the Children Every year LD.com (you should know who they are by now, wake up at the back), tries its very best to hawk the world's worst christmas gifts, still featured on the site, onto their unsuspecting 'readers'. This years calamity... Published Thursday, 12 January, 2006 at 01:03
Dancing Through The Ages The Guardian yesterday seemed to be reaching for something new to talk about with dance so they ran a section in their G2 magazine about dancers who are all from various era's. Nothing wrong with that except you have to... Published Tuesday, 10 January, 2006 at 01:07
Khan is Yoda, Yoda is Khan? A recent entry in the comedy section got me thinking that Akram Khan not only speaks like him but he also bears more than a passing resemblance to the philosophizing, little green, light saber twirler (surely the best part of... Published Monday, 9 January, 2006 at 11:24

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