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'State of the Arts', the annual Arts Council England bun fight that seeks to achieve absolutely nothing and does so admirably and with enthusiasm is back.
We, here in TheLab™, have not been invited, we might get argumentative juices on the carpet, so we made a poster instead.
Welcome, to poster Wednesdays.
]]>We won't bother taking you through the runners and riders. Safe to say that the people you think were nominated for these things and the people who won these things are exactly the people you would expect to be both nominated and to win these things.
Except for one! This particular award was presented to Protein Dance in the category of "Best Independent Company". Now, the question that most naturally springs to mind for you, our dear readers, and for us, here in TheLab™, is "what the hell is an independent dance company?"
So we asked the magic circle Critics Circle (CC) that very question. A spokesperson told us that classifying this particular award gave them much pause for thought. The CC don't think the name is very good and it might change but the name of the award has nothing to do with the size of the company, or how much funding they get.
The award is also not about the size of venues the company performs in or whether or not they have their own "home" venue.
We know this for certain because at least two of the nominees in the "Outstanding Company" category (English National Ballet and Richard Alston Dance Company) don't have their own venue.
You might argue that The Robin Howard Theatre, at ThePlace, is the home of RADC but that would be foolish because they almost certainly think of themselves as a mid to large scale venue kind of company and the Robin Howard is most definitely a small-scale venue.
The next question that springs to mind is why are there two awards for "best" company at all? Yes, one award uses the word "outstanding" but that's just a posh way of saying "best". Isn't a dance company just "a dance company"?
Once again the CC struggled to differentiate between the two categories. There was some discussion about the, now defunct, "foreign company" category but that didn't really make a lot of sense since Protein, and all the other nominees in the "best" category are UK based.
Not Making Sense
So what are we to make of this strange categorisation? We can only surmise that the CC considers the companies in the "best" category to be, somehow, less than the companies in the "outstanding" category. As far as they are concerned the "best independent company" is more than the scruffy lot at Resolution but not as good as the ENB or RADC, dancing in pyjamas lot (and we say that with love, honest!)
The thought of moving the four companies from the "best" category into the upper echelons of the "outstanding" category was simply too much to bear for the CC. You can't put the street urchins from Protein or Tilted up there with the tutus and tiara mob so we'll just invent a fictitious category of dance company to keep them happy.
Many dancing folk inside the wacky world of dance would find it completely hilarious that the work of Protein and Maresa Von Stockert could't compete with RADC never mind the cartoonish antics at ENB or the Mariinsky.
What is it For?
Another point of contention with this award category comes down to why it is awarded in the first place. Protein did not win for a particular piece of work. That award went to Akram Khan for 'Vertical Road'. Since Protein don't make cars or computer software then, presumably, the award is being given for the work they make.
Surely if the company is the "best" at something, independent or not, then they should also be nominated and win for "best modern choreography", no?
Bizarrely, Protein did get a nomination for 'LOL' in the "best modern choreography" category but Akram Khan was not nominated in the "best independent company" category.
Are we to believe that Protein won for the quality of their administration, their ability with get-ins or the post show talks perhaps? If not then give them their bloody award for best choreography and be done with it!
Perhaps the problem is that Akram Khan might be good at making work but he drops the ball completely when it comes to filing the paperwork.
We can only speculate.
Those Women
Finally, we note that women only won in categories that specifically stated the recipient had to be female. No female dance makers were nominated in either best modern or best classical categories. Make of that what you will but considering the above, is it really that much of a surprise to learn that the Critics Circle and its rusty old members are completely out of touch with reality?
A long time ago, in a piece of writing far far away we, here in TheLab™, made a lot of fun of the Rural Retreats project being run by Dance East, one of the UK's National Dance Agencies.
In defiance of all logical reasoning the project is still running and the latest "retreat" wrapped up on January 8th after 3 days of hard talking.
This time the collective brain trust of dance "leaders" have come to the conclusion that dance needs to be re-branded in order to free itself, so they say, from "dance form fragmentation".
Let's be clear from the offset, we have no ******* idea what that means!
Dance East themselves were unable to comment on the whole re-branding idea either since the report from the retreat is not yet available. Also, some of the participants don't want their particular views on this matter released to the public.
We bet they don't!
The press release does say this much; "the group of future leaders agreed collectively that dance needs to re-brand under one umbrella, 'Brand Dance'"
Sans any firm answers all we can do for now is speculate. Presumably this "branding" exercise is all about, what we will call, the Ballet Boyz Virus.
It's simple, all you do is take everything and boil it down to the most basic, generic level. It's not about work, style, content or substance it's about marketing, shirtless photos, sound bites, bad tv programmes and buzz words. It's about screaming girls and big smiles.
No more contemporary, hip-hop, breaking, ballet, kathak, tap, fusion, etc it's all going to be just Dance™
Subtlety and variety is out, black and white is in, you're either Dance™ or you're not. You're either Dance™ or you're "little people". (nice-one on the Bladerunner reference. Ed!)
This is Snow Joke
None of this nonsense is at all surprising given that one of the speakers at the "retreat" was a man called "Sir" John Hegarty. Mr Hegarty works for an advertising agency (the improbably monikered Bartle Bogle and Hegarty) and, as we all know, advertising agencies really enjoy the substance of things, don't they?
In the press release Mr Hegarty is credited with coming up with the advertising campaign from years ago for Levi jeans. The one where Nick Kamen strips down to his underwear in a launderette because he was too poor to own more than one pair of trousers or something.
Maybe that's part of the plan. Dancers stripping down to their underwear for photo shoots in FHM and Heat with the tag line; "It's So Hot In The Studio".
You're laughing now dancers, but just you wait!
Another one of the other speakers was a former rowing coach. A person who teaches other people how to row, you know, people sitting in a boat going backwards. If ever there was a metaphor for the people gathered at this meeting.
The Rub
We can only surmise that as a group this lot are just one step removed from the current crop of Republican politicians vying for the presidential nomination for their party in 2012.
They're saying a lot of words out loud in the vain hope that the people paying attention to them won't realise that none of it makes any sense.
The issues facing the dance profession as a whole have nothing to do with branding. They have everything to do with massive funding imbalances, lack of job creation, insecurity, rudderless marketing strategies and arts organisations run by petulant five year olds more concerned with being "in the huff" instead of engaging in substantive communication.
At present the dance profession is lacking strong leadership. People willing to speak, on the record, in the strongest possible terms about the problems faced by dancers, dance companies and the profession in general.
If this lot are the future of that leadership, if they really do think that dance has a "branding" problem that can be solved by ad agencies and tag lines, then, once again, we really are screwed.
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For some reason the christmas holidays have become the time for dance programmes that, for reasons past understanding, make it onto television.
Apart from the usual classical ballet re-treads, this year brought us a couple of "documentaries" one of which was 'Ballet Boyz, The Next Generation' broadcast on More4 (part of Channel4) on christmas day.
The film is, ostensibly, about the next generation of the Ballet Boyz, the London based dance company of former ballet dancers William Trevitt and Michael Nunn, who also made the film.
The press blurb for the programme tells us that it was "two years" in the making which is odd because over the 45 minute running time nothing much at all seems to happen.
It starts, predictably enough, with an audition but before you can take a breath we have moved on through the dancers being chosen, having their hair cut for a photo-op, a few weeks prep work, some rehearsals, some more rehearsals, a premiere, another audition and another premiere.
There is no surface which is not skimmed throughout the entire programme. No background depth on why these particular dancers were chosen and, ultimately, why some of them were replaced. Nothing about why relatively un-trained dancers were used instead of some of the many hundreds of unemployed, fully trained dancers or why they are all male.
No interviews with the dancers detailing their experiences, or their issues with learning the new work. In fact we get to know so little about the dancers that you don't even notice which ones get replaced.
What we do get are numerous shots of Mr Nunn and Mr Trevitt mugging to camera telling us how hard everything is and how exciting everything is. We didn't time it but you appear to see more of the [old] Boyz than you do of the work the company is creating and performing.
When they are on camera the [old] Boyz don't come across very sympathetically at all. At one stage, whilst choosing a new choreographer to work with, Mr Nunn tells us how they are going to pay this particular individual a "shed load of money" to create a piece.
As if the arts didn't have a hard enough time as it is convincing the general public, who pay for this stuff (Ballet Boyz are funded by Arts Council England), that funding culture is a good idea we have this buffoon acting like a tone deaf dilettante, apparently throwing other people's money around like confetti.
Downhill in Africa
The second half of the programme is where the wheels really come off the wagon as the company heads, en-masse, to Ethiopia, for reasons that are never fully explained.
For the opening skirmish the [old] Boyz (one of whom has taken the time to put on a full Steadicam rig*) are at the airport in Addis Ababa looking for the [new] Boyz who have managed to disappear into the vacuum cleaner like security apparatus.
They discover their proteges sitting on the floor in arrivals looking somewhat dejected because their luggage is still in London.
What follows is several minutes of the entire company, camera gear in tow, wondering around Addis Ababa trying to buy some temporary clothes for the [new] Boyz.
At one stage Mr Nunn claims that the local retailers want to charge them "£5,000" for "socks and pants" a state of affairs he is evidently disgusted with.
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) describes the Ethiopian economy as "poverty-stricken" where "per capita income is among the lowest in the world".
Ethiopia's population is approximately 91 Million, the population in the UK is 62 Million. The UK government spent $1.06Trillion(USD) looking after its citizens in 2010, the Ethiopian government had just over $5Billion(USD) to spend on their citizens.
So yes, if they see westerners wondering around, especially one with £20,000(GBP) worth of camera gear strapped to his chest, they are going to try it on a little but you don't act like a petulant jackass who just got overcharged in a Soho restaurant.
You exercise a little cool headed judgement and move on because the Ethiopians have some real issues to deal with, you have lost luggage to deal with.
Also, given the [old] Boyz travel experience it might have been a good idea for them to suggest to the [new] Boyz that they pack a couple of changes of clothes in their carry on bags. Most people do that no matter where they are travelling. Farcical market shenanigans avoided.
At this stage we're not sure the [old] Boyz should be left in charge of a lost kitten, much less a dance company.
More Tone Deaf
The pace of the "documenting" continues much as it did in London with various bits and pieces of footage thrown together of the [new] Boyz working with a group of Ethiopian dancers, from a local dance company, to put together a show.
The voice over, provided by the [old] Boyz, grinds on with some hysterics about lights (they don't have any) and various minor injuries and afflictions befalling the dancers at one stage or another.
Again, taking their location into account, this all sounds completely ridiculous. If you don't have any lights why didn't you FedEx some across with you (it can be done, we checked) or do the show outside. Such things are mind numbing minutia that should't be in a documentary when there are bigger stories to be told.
The final slap in the face comes with another voice-over, this time from Mr Trevitt, saying that the show has raised £600 that will enable the local dance company to keep going for another year.
It would be a heart warming moment were it not for the fact that we know that ACE funded this little film to the tune of £40,000 and Channel 4 threw in another £40,000.
We don't know what they spent the money on but £80,000 to put this nonsense onto a digital memory card was £79,950 too much (the £50 was for the memory card). ACE could have just given the money to the company in Addis Ababa and a whole lot more could have been achieved.
Division
The entire documentary comes across as nothing more than a photo-op. It's all empty packaging with nothing inside the box, the film doesn't scratch the surface because surface is all there is.
In the wacky world of dance the Ballet Boyz are a divisive company. The Middle England Ladies That Lunch club seem to love them and what they do. The wider dance profession looks upon them slightly puzzled by all the support and attention they get. Here in TheLab™ we're running out of reasons not to have the [old] Boyz thrown in a North Korean Prison for a very long time.
The main reason being we don't have the power to throw people in prison. If only wishing made it so!
[ 'Ballet Boyz - The Next Generation' on 4OD ]
*Steadicam is a brand name for a camera stabilisation device comprising a body harness, spring loaded arm and a "sled" that holds the camera and other gear so the operator can create smooth tracking shots.
]]>Apparently somebody called Rob Williamson, who is attending a seminar held by Arts Council England on their doomed Catalyst Arts project, said, out loud, in a place where people could hear him, that;
"we spend more on cheese than we do on charitable giving"
Mr Williamson is the Chief Executive of the Community Foundation so let's give him a medal because he just solved the arts funding problem. Let's go to war on cheese, not with guns, but with taxes.
Put an arts tax on cheese and we're golden, much like the cheese itself. We even made a poster (of course you did! Ed!) to help out with the uprising against farmers, cows and people from Wisconsin.
If this is the level of thinking in fundraising then, seriously, we are all screwed!
]]>One of the answers came from Caroline Miller, the head of DanceUK, she said that "dancers should have better pay". The figure £30,000 per year was mentioned at some point. We think that's a bit low but we get the point she was making.
So far, so laudable. But that was it, there was no further discussion of how such a goal was to be achieved. No suggestions were made, no possibilites offered.
When you look at the problem from a purely pragmatic point of view the issue is very easy to break down.
If you want to increase dancers pay levels then you have to give dance companies and freelancers more money so they can pay increased wages. If you want to invest more money into dance then that money has to come from somewhere. Either new investment through increased subsidy or moving the money from another area of the subsidised arts sector.
Method one is not going to happen until we get rid of the current group of hapless thugs running UK PLC so method two is the only viable option at the moment.
Curiously two of those in attendance at this debate were our old friend and Chief Bottle Washer at Sadler's Wells Alistair Spalding and the Managing Director of English National Ballet, Craig Hassall.
These two organisations, between them, suck up almost £9Million in annual subsidy and a lot more besides from other grants and local authority support. The two men in question are paid almost £250,000 annually between them. A number far in excess of what any professional contemporary dancer could ever hope to earn working in a company today, even if they have a full time contract.
English National Ballet, as of 2010, had an accumulated surplus of almost £4Million in the bank. Sadler's Wells was able to squeeze Arts Council England for an additional £720,000 a while back, money we illustrated in detail that they did not need.
Yet neither of these two men were taken to task on this issue.
Nobody bothered to suggest that if you want to find the money then start stripping back large scale company funding, feed those large scale companies into the hapless Catalyst Arts programme, that ACE is so convinced will be successful, and then use the money saved to invest in the small and mid-scale, thus increasing dancer's wages in the process.
That doesn't just work for dance either, you can formulate the same plan for music and theatre.
You know what that is? It's an idea. So why was that idea, or one like it, not raised by anybody on that panel or anybody sitting in the audience? Why, when those people were sitting there did nobody get in their face about it?
In other words, what the hell are we all doing here?
On the basis of that "debate" the only possible conclusion to come to is, not a whole lot!
]]>It's not at all clear what this project is aiming to acheive or how it's aiming to do it but one thing is clear, ACE and the BBC, at a combined cost of £4.5Million, want it to be a "revolution".
We know this because they use that word four times in just one sentence when explaining the "vision" of the project. Swear to God we are not making the next sentence up.
Thus;
"The Space is about a revolution. A technological revolution which is in turn enabling a creative revolution and a revolution in the way audiences enjoy and experience the arts."
Cutting through the 16 pages of crap you discover that 'The Space' is sort of about putting stuff online, things like dance performances, documentaries about dance performances and original pieces of work specially created for 'The Space' that use, you guessed it, "digital technology".
Presumably shooting on Super 16mm, Super8 or 35MM film is against the rules!
Organisations are being encouraged to apply for funding to create stuff to go into this 'Space' although it's not made at all clear where this 'Space' is or how it's going to work. They do mention computers, tablets and mobile devices but beyond that who knows.
Of course it covers all art forms, well most of them, poetry might struggle here, but we, for obvious reasons, focus on the dance side of things.
Huh?
A particularly puzzling quote from the documentation says this;
This might include proposals that utilise some of the unique capabilities and features of modern connected devices, for example: geo-location or GPS on smart phones and tablets; QR code readers; bluetooth, Wi-Fi or 3G connectivity; SMS messages; the ability to find friends or create groups or communities; or the ability to share or comment on material.
All of that sounds suspiciously like Facebook, Twitter and ........ well, it's Facebook and Twitter isn't it? Both of those services can be hooked to GPS and text messaging, for free. The inclusion of "wi-fi" and "3G" in there is just nonsensical gibberish.
You can also include commenting and feedback forms on there too. All things we have right here on Article19, sans any special investment or expert advice from ACE or the BBC.
So why is the Big Bad doing this? Well, because they have to really. At the moment ACE is spectacularly out of touch when it comes to online media distribution which is why their introduction document sounds like they just discovered that "digital" technology exists.
When you strip out the BS though this is all about putting stuff on the internet for people to watch and/or interact with. Mention of tablets, cell phones and apps is nothing more the mis-direction. They use those words to make it sound like the project is ubiquitous when, in reality, all websites and online media are available on any device that is web connected.
The Rub
Taking a look around the web right now you might stumble across a website called Vimeo. It's for video, the main thrust of ACE's pitch. You can upload videos, tag them, share them, create channels, comment, rate, embed into sites like Facebook and others. All for free.
For just $69 a year you can upload huge amounts of Hight Definition (HD) video and share and embed that too. You can curate groups, gather detailed statistics and lots more. Vimeo also offers a music store where you can purchase usage rights for commercial use for just $99.
Of course making stuff to go online still costs money but for the most part it should not be that expensive, at least not £4.5Million expensive.
It's all there, it's been there for years and Vimeo is just one of many websites that offer these kind of services, mostly for little or no cost. You don't need the BBC and ACE to re-invent the concept and spend millions in the process.
One of the items covered by the funding for 'The Space' is paying for "clearance rights" to use music and other materials in the specially commissioned work. We imagine that quite a lot of money will be disappearing into the pockets of record companies and other rights holders before this project is done.
Also, if the BBC is so interested in getting the word out about culture and the arts then why not use the four television channels and six radio stations and the iPlayer that they already have? People already know and watch those things, so just get of your fat, overfunded asses and go film some shows.
Perhaps the most baffling thing of all about this project is that it will last for just 6 months, from May to October 2012. After that it disappears and nobody knows if it will ever come back. ACE explains this away by claiming that 'The Space' is an experiment, an experiment for just 50 successful funding applicants.
If all of that wasn't frightening enough we leave you with this thought. ACE and the BBC are the final arbiters of what will appear on 'The Space'. If they don't like it, it's not getting published.
Where's Mao when you need him?
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Do you remember, back on the 11th of October when there was a "Private Members' debate on the Education System and Dance" at the House of Commons? No? Well don't worry about it, you're not alone.
From our point of view, here in TheLab™, it was curious to note the attendance of Lauren Cuthbertson and Ed Watson, both principals with the Royal Ballet at this event. The press coverage, such as it was, and DanceUK, long champions of this type of gathering, we're all keen to emphasise their attendance.
Mr Watson was even quoted as saying;
"I'm attending the debate today because I believe that all young people should get the opportunity to take part in dance at school. I benefitted from the best training and I'm so grateful. I want all those children who have a talent for dance to get the chance to receive high quality dance training, no matter what their financial background. I'm here to support the future generations of great British dancers."
The problem is that neither Mr Watson nor Ms Cuthbertson are involved in any kind of teaching, in schools or otherwise. The nearest they come to street urchins in dire need of some cultural education is in the annual run of The Nutcracker.
Article19 asked the Royal Ballet to provide us with details of their teaching activities over the last 12 months. They told us;
"At the moment, neither Lauren or Ed have been involved in teaching with Education, but they have done several Insights this season so far. Lauren was in Dance Futures and spent time talking informally to the children at rehearsals etc. Ed did an Insight event in Thurrock in 09/10 which involved interacting with young people from the audience, and is always happy to talk to participants."
A quick straw poll of some professional dancers working in the wacky world of contemporary dance revealed that, on average, they would, individually, teach 250-300 times per year, not including professional classes or workshops.
One dancer worked out their yearly teaching involved a staggering 775 classes. So why were none of these dancers dragged along to the Houses of Parliament to have their mug shot taken with a few MPs?
One reason might be that this gathering has the same force and effect as a line of people in a post office. It's all a bit of a drag and all that's waiting at the end of the line is a brief interaction with a public service employee.
We would also speculate that it's because nobody either knows or cares who they are. They're just the ones doing all the hard work, getting paid very little for their efforts and they have to put up with the, sometimes, badly managed education projects.
In fact those dancers might have been able to bring some valuable insight to this "debate". Not only could they have spoken at length of the importance of teaching in schools but highlighted some of the drawbacks, some of the failings, some of the problems.
But they're not principals with the Royal Ballet, so no photo-op for them.
DanceUK, the chief architects of these theatrics, said this via Caroline Miller their Director; "The whole dance industry is seriously worried that dance is being overlooked in the Department for Education's curriculum review."
We don't think the "whole" dance industry is worried about that at all. We think dancers are more worried about jobs and pay and the fact that when the chips are down, they are the ones that get overlooked even by their own advocacy organisation.
DanceUK declined to comment when asked why Mr Watson and Ms Cuthbertson were in attendance and whether or not the entire debate was a publicity exercise for DanceUK.
That organisation is facing an uncertain future when their Arts Council funding is withdrawn from April 2012.
]]>No! Well, pay attention next time. Anyways, we, here in TheLab™, have made you two simple business card sized expressions that you can conveniently leave in your seat for those special performances where you just have to express how you felt.
You can even hand them off to the company PR folk as you leave, when then they're trying to get you to do a bloody vox pop on camera or fill out one of those annoying forms.
Be cautious though, because if you give them the yellow one there is no telling what the reaction will be! It should go without writing that should you be set upon by a disgruntled PR flack we accept no responsibility for any injuries you may receive!
However, we have decanted that information into a far more succinct approximation of what will happen if you don't drink lots of water. Welcome to Article19, this is Poster Mondays.
We expect this poster to be in all dance studios by end of business today!
Well, seeing as how it's Monday and, as everybody knows, Monday is poster day here in TheLab™ we set to work utilising a full arsenal of malevolence, mischief, satire, and, of course our general evilness to prove that Sadler's Wells is not dance at all. It's just a really big building with lights in it.
You can click on the image to make it full size.
]]>Step forward our four sentences on the New Adventures Choreography Award (NACA) pointing out that the main winner (and a runner up, although not mentioned in the piece) are both connected to New Adventures.
29 comments in and it didn't seem to be dying down so let's try and clarify here, shall we.
First of all; You cannot, under any circumstances, run a competition which has an open application process, allow former or current employees to enter that competition, have that competition be judged by, among others, current company members, and then award the winning prize to two people connected to the company.
You can't do all that and expect cynical old us, here in TheLab™, not to look at it and go "huh?"
Let's give you a couple of examples, both real and imagined.
If a newspaper runs a competition they have strict rules on employees, former employees, family members, pets, etc from taking part. The reason being is that if any of those excluded groups win it will look fishy. No matter how legitimately they may have won the prize, it just looks wrong.
Now let's imagine that this award didn't come from New Adventures but from Arts Council England (ACE). There are two grants up for grabs and 100 people apply for the grants.
Twelve weeks later ACE announces the names of the successful applicants for the grants and it turns out that both of them are children of senior members of Arts Council England. Would you, our dear readers, expect us to not mention that little snippet of information in our coverage? Yes or no?
Some are interpreting our piece in Quick Bits as an "attack" on the winners of this prize, which it isn't and the reason that you know that it isn't is because we just told you it isn't.
The people responsible for this nonsense are Matthew Bourne and New Adventures who apparently don't know their ass from their elbow when it comes to running a simple competition.
At the very least, all New Adventures staff should have recused themselves from having anything to do with the judging when it became clear that dance makers connected to New Adventures were applying.
But they didn't, so here we are! Life's a beach and then somebody kicks sand in your face, or something.
Last week Dance UK, the dance advocacy organisation that specialises in not saying much of anything at all, got its knickers thoroughly in a knot after a government minister was quoted saying vaguely negative things about dance A-levels.
David Willets, Minister for Universities and Science, suggested that certain A-levels should be considered less important when applying for university courses. Included in that mix were dance, photography and media studies.
In response Dance UK had a hissy fit so large it almost caused a tsunami in the North Atlantic. Caroline Miller, Director of Dance UK, said via their website that;
"Young people should be able to develop a range of skills at school, preparing them for a complex world with varied career routes and jobs. If we set up an old-fashioned hierarchy, only valuing a short-list of subjects which were formally regarded by universities as the 'academic' subjects, it undermines young people who choose to develop intellectual and academic rigor through the arts and humanities. "
Fair point you might think, well constructed argument you could say. The only problem is Mr Willet's comments don't actually stop any of that from happening. If you are taking A-level dance you still get all the benefits of the subject whether or not a government minister says otherwise.
Also, university admissions criteria are not determined by government ministers, they are determined by universities themselves and also by UCAS (Universities and Colleges Admissions Service).
If you're applying for a university place to study astrophysics then the chances are they're going to look at your grades in relation to physics and maths rather than your achievements in the arts and humanities. On the other hand if you're going to university to study dance, sports science or education then an A-level in dance might actually be of some use to you.
It's always been the way with academia, your test scores in relevant subjects are going to be of more help to you than your test scores in subjects that bear little or no relation to your chosen future career. Universities didn't need a government minister to tell them that.
Dance UK also misses the obvious, ironic, elephant in the room when it comes to dance A-level. That particular qualification is of no help if you actually want to study dance at a recognised school like NSCD or Laban.
Tell any of those schools you have an A-level and they'll say; "cool, now if you don't mind, get in the studio because you have an audition class to do". Nobody asks professional dancers for their degree qualifications before giving them a job, if they can find a job to apply for that is.
If a dance school is faced with a prodigiously talented student with no A-level and another student with two left feet and a pronounced equilibrium problem with an A-level then guess who's going to get a place?
There is a wider issue to discuss here concerning the obsession we have in the UK over test scores, degrees and other qualifications that, apparently, prove the high level of intelligence possessed by individuals. Or not as the case may be.
Out in the wide world of dance and throughout society there are plenty of folks with 2-1 Degrees, BA Hons. PhDs an other bits of paper attached to their names who couldn't think their way out of a bus shelter. Stomping your feet on the ground because some no name minister says dance A-level is somehow "less than" is a waste of valuable energy that Dance UK should be expending doing something, dare we say, important!
Watching Dance UK get upset about something like this is like watching Winnie the Pooh
get high on meth. It's mildly amusing for Tigger to watch but completely harmless and when the dust has settled nothing has changed.
Here in TheLab™, we've had our issues with MJW before, none of them in the least bit positive.
A good dance film should have, without fail, good choreography, good dancing, good photography and good editing. The "plot" synopsis for this 19 minute short film however does not suggest that you're going to get any of those things.
"It's rush hour on London Bridge. Crowds are going to work - faces, legs, shadows, backpacks. One man is standing alone. We watch the world through his eyes. He looks up and sees a solitary figure standing on the corner of a tall building. He starts walking through the City of London, witnessing its characters, finally standing up to the Bank of England."
After you've finished saying "huh?" and have managed to crowbar your face from the puzzled expression it has no doubt contorted into you can settle down and watch the film.
The initial "effect" shows the main protagonist, sans shoes, walking on the aforementioned London Bridge while everybody is a speedy blur around him. As tricks go this one was naff 20 years ago. From this point on it's a slippery slope.
What follows is a mish-mash of ideas and setups that are neither visually nor choreographically impressive. Combine that with a complete lack of coherence in the story line and, as a viewer, you are rapidly becoming bored.
One particular sequence shows an Asian dancer temporarily leaving a rucksack unattended at a bus stop much to the consternation of the other people in attendance. It's a clumsy, inelegant metaphor that would be more at home in an episode of Spooks. If you want to analyse the psychological fears of suicide bombing you're going to have to try a lot harder.
Shoehorned in for no other reason than just to do it, is a short Parkour segment that makes about as much sense as everything else and manages to be just as dull as everything else.
Overall the whole feature has the appearance of being an ill-conceived, under rehearsed mess of weak ideas. Normally we could just say "who cares?" and move on but this particular film was shown on television, where people could see it, accidentally or otherwise, albeit on Channel 4 late at night. In short, this film is lazy from start to finish.
Comment is Free
Bizarrely, the director of Dance UK, Caroline Miller, posted a message, via Facebook naturally, about the film that said;
"One Man Walking" on Channel 4 tonight BRILLIANT - a MUST WATCH (see link). Really shows why DANCE IS A SERIOUS ART FORM. Caroline" (emphasis her own).
As you may know Dance UK is the advocacy organisation for dance, apparently. Previously this organisation has cited 'Streetdance 3D', Ed Vaizey (arts minister) and Jeremy Hunt (another arts minister) as being things that are particularly good for dance.
Perhaps that should tell you everything you need to know about 'One Man Walking'.
If you want to watch movement well choreographed and well filmed then we suggest a box set of Buffy the Vampire Slayer which, mercifully, was not made by MJW Productions.
[ Watch on 4OD ] (probably UK only)
]]>So why is Opera North taking all the flack?
At issue, for the school and the LEA at least, is the use of two key phrases in the libretto of the opera, those phrases being "I'm queer" and "I prefer a lad to a lass". The school and the bureaucrats, fearing the immediate corruption of the 4-10 year old participants, removed 300 of them from taking part when Mr Hall refused to alter the writing.
Since making the decision to cancel the performance of the work, Opera North has managed to dig a very deep hole for itself for one simple reason. The initial position they adopted through press releases and blog posts was fundamentally weak and when the press and the Twitterverse sense weakness they go in for the kill.
Three Questions
Whenever you are faced with a situation like this, that involves uncomfortable enquiries from the press and the public, you have to ask yourself, as an organisation, three simple questions;
1. Do we have a position on this? 2. Should we have a position on this? 3. What is our position on this?
From a communications point of view this is the perfect circle of protection with regards to whether or not you should actually open your mouth to begin with. If you get through the first two questions and end up at the third your job from that point on is simple, just state your position.
Opera North clearly has a position on this because they were running the project to begin with. This is where the wheels fell of their wagon though because they did something you should never do when adopting a position. They equivocated their little heads off their collective shoulders. They waffled and waffled and made no sense at all and now they're being punished for it.
You can read their responses at the links below.
Mistakes
For anybody with an ounce of common sense or skill the "out" here was easy. The school and the LEA were responsible for pulling the children from the show for reasons that are completely dubious and suspiciously homophobic.
The last thing a large-scale opera company wants to do is give the appearance or even suggestion that they are some how agreeing with or complying with a decision based on the perception of homophobia.
A large number of gay people work in the arts and a large number of gay people are actively involved with and attend all forms of art and culture. It's a big demographic and not really one to be trifled with.
All Opera North needed to do was tell both the school and the LEA that the writing would, under no-circumstances, be changed because they deemed it to be age appropriate and entirely relevant to aims and objectives of the project and they stand by their writer without equivocation.
If the kids are pulled from the show, Opera North can state its position to the press and lay the blame firmly at the door of the out of touch, reactionary bureaucrats (where it actually belongs).
Ultimately the losers are the kids but the large scale arts organisation is in the clear because they took a stand for free expression, inclusiveness and common sense and they're working hard to present some form of the production without the kids. If they can't actually make that happen then once again at least Opera North was trying.
Yes they are throwing their two "partners" under a bus but better them than Opera North because the school and the LEA are the ones making a mess of this.
Opera North's position would have been strong.
Trending Equivocation
Here in TheLab™ the responses from Opera North to this situation don't really come as much of a surprise. You would be amazed at how often an arts organisation can turn a molehill into a mountain through a simple lack of understanding of how to handle basic communications.
The larger the organisation the tighter they are all wound-up, petrified of making a mis-statement, or what could be perceived as a mis-statement that is subjected to the public gaze.
More often than not arts organisations are so afraid of offending anyone or causing the slightest bit of turbulence that, rather than do what needs to be done, they wobble and wobble until, unlike The Weebles, they eventually fall down, (obscure reference alert! Ed!)
At the time of writing Opera North has issued a third statement, this time credited to the General Director, Richard Mantle.
It's all too late though. The perception is out there that Opera North backed a decision made by people who were clearly hysterical over a non-issue.
The fix was easy, cleaning up the mess will be a lot harder.
[ Response One ]
[ Response Two ]
[ Response Three ]
[ The Pejorative on Article19 ]
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