Interview with Finnish choreographer and dancer who performs a revised version of Carolyn Carlson's epic solo "Blue Lady' from the 1980's.

Video interview with the Artistic Director of Retina Dance Company Filip Van Huffel includes footage from the company's latest show 'Antipode'.

The AD of Motionhouse Dance Theatre talks to us about the company's new production 'Scattered' set to bow for the first time in October this year. Also includes rehearsal footage and interviews with some of the company's dancers.

Following on from a successful career as a dancer with both Scottish Dance Theatre and Phoenix Dance Theatre Errol White takes the reigns of his own company. Susan Cunningham spoke with him prior to the company's month long tour of Scotland.

Where did you first explore authentic movement?

I thought the work I would make would be dance theatre because that's what I enjoyed doing, but in Scottish Dance Theatre I went through a period of examination, of my body but also of who I was emotionally.

Tell me about the work (Three Works)

I always knew I would be a choreographer so that when I came to make a solo I had collected all this information over a 20 year period.

My solo was firstly a critical examination, trying to dissect, to deconstruct physically who I was as a performer. What was original signature, what was authentic to my body and what was learned information, i.e. from where I'd been and what associations I'd had. Not as a negative exercise but as a way of knowing. Stripping everything back to where my origins were.

About a year before that my father had passed away so it was a self examination of who I was emotionally and physically, and why I'd become the person I had. Not to make any judgements on it but to ask what is learned information.

Having your family and friends around you from such a young age; Everyone's a teacher so everything [is] passed down to you as a truth, you don't question anything, you just absorb. My question was, did I actually think those things that are me?

When my dad passed away, immediately I thought I am very much like my dad and it was a way of trying to hold on to a passing of some description. But 2 or 3 years down the line you go, its ok that I'm not, in certain parts, I'm not like him at all.

I'm an authentic individual who exists in his own right. You start to define how you place yourself in the world. The solo was an exploration of that concept. Not to create a narrative for people to watch. I didn't want to prescribe my experience, "You need to feel this....." I wanted to create something which was totally abstract in vocabulary but had an emotional narrative built in to it.

Did you feel the need to change it for your company's debut?

The opening of a solo is like cutting yourself open and saying, "let's begin" (he demonstrates slicing down his chest and ripping himself open). I wanted to create something that was male, but not "male" because that's everything I see now.
I have been that dancer, I can stand on stage with that power but after a while you go, well it's just a trick, they're just moves.

As you get older you start to explore your body in a different way. I think I did that very young and was kick started by the passing of my father, that examination of what is a man.

The duet is an extension of the solo, once you've seen who you are, what happens when you meet someone. How you can be independent and in union with somebody? It's the idea that we are not trying to confine ourselves, we just are.

The idea came to me in a flat in Dundee. It had a big, long corridor and I was shaving at one end (it had a mirror) and as Davina was walking down to meet me, I left the room. This idea of a glimpse in a moment in time and the actions that you do can be perceived in many different ways.

And the 3rd piece?

Is another extension. I'm quite direct when I work; I'm very clear about when we are working, when we are out. Like a performer, when you stand on stage, you're in and then you walk off stage, you're out.

As well as developing the methodology to allow the performers to arrive at a performance from different backgrounds; what is improvisation, what is body awareness, what is pure technique? How we can find the methodology through all those to create the work I want so it's not just turning up and saying, "Lay your life on the line; I want all this emotion!

The third piece for me was; I'm not a social dancer- I'm not a dance bunny. I find it really hard to be around lots of dancers. Even though I live in a very social business, I need my own space. I'm very in when I'm working so I need that complete separation. That's caused me a lot of problems.

Now I've got a company I've got to really confront those. When I teach, it's a professional environment and I'm very open but I like separation. So the last work was; how do you maintain your identity while you're in a larger setting of a group dynamic?

It's not a comment on the business. It's the way in one moment someone can perceive you as a specific individual and not allow that view to change. It's happened to me a few times, you say one thing and you're sent to Coventry for it.

As a company gets bigger, the people can become more disconnected. The value people feel when they are in companies can get manipulated, just by the very nature of things as they expand. So the third one is a comment on how you can maintain your identity in a bigger world. But it's very abstract.

Are you nervous about the debut?

I love performing- it's who I am and with regards to how things will be valued, I can only do what I do.

What would you like the audience to leave saying?

It's two-fold. I'm not trying to tell them to buy a particular product, I'm just trying to pull them down the same shopping aisle and find their own similar product. I'm not trying to prescribe anything. At heart, what I'm trying to be is as honest and hopefully as brave as possible and go, have a look at this, what do you think?

The other point that comes is how people receive it with regards to you being a company and whether it's successful and the works of any value. Everybody that comes that evening will come from different points of view. I can't make work with that in mind. It's like performing, I know exactly what the rep is, I get my body ready- as soon as I walk past the wing, its like anything can happen................... Davina and I are shitting ourselves! [laughs]

But it's like a controlled fall, I've reduced the possibilities, preparing but open to the fact that anything can come through, you're creating a vessel for a unique performance.

The way I work is I create a situation where it's easy for the dancers to come on stage and find ownership of the work, and feeling that it's theirs, not mine. Once Friday comes- it will just be whatever it is. We've had a lot of injuries and problems along the way but the best thing we can do is not hide.

Whether the Arts Council wants to fund me any further that's something else! With the problems with funding and trying to get a company off the ground, can you be the individual you were as a performer? There's so much more at steak, purely financially if this doesn't work. In the last year I have gone from having a salary for 20 years to living off peanuts. There's a question of money and art.

Has that hardest aspect of starting the company?

[He rolls his eyes at my obvious question!] I don't think people who've had a career in dance should automatically get funding however there is a need to keep that experience within the industry. People reach a certain age and don't know what to do. If you've been institutionalised in a company, when you leave that environment and if you don't want to be a choreographer or teacher, what do you do? I think in an ideal world there should be a kind of fellowship funding, a way of supporting those individuals.

I've lived on my savings [which are now gone] so I'm totally committed to what I'm about to do. When the Arts Council award you a lot of money and you look at an element of this.

I'm going to get in to trouble for this; How do you live on six grand a year? When you are rehearsal director, director, choreographer, administrator. [And performer] Before I got this money, if I had not, I would have had to leave Scotland but I want to make work here. I have a strong creative voice and I think there's a real opportunity for Scottish identity within Europe.

However, somebody who is 39 and someone who is 20 shouldn't be paid the same. There's 20 years of experience there, in every other business there's an income measure, I think we've got to register that.

I'm working with a composer who can get 20 grand a week and I'm paying him £500 but he's doing this because he loves the work. There needs to be an understanding of what the real cost of things are. Sometimes I think its all about hitting targets- you can have this money if you do this, this and this. I'm hoping that the changes that are coming in the Scottish Arts Council will start to address these issues. The people in the Arts Council are as frustrated as I am.

I'm a studio person, not a politician; I think there's a role for a mediator of some description to facilitate that connection point.

It sounds really arrogant but I know what I do is good, what I do is of value; the very nature of doing brings value. I bring quality and experience and to pass it on to the next generation, that's what lineage is.

Do you go to see other work?

People get a bit grumpy at me and quite rightly so, but I get more inspiration from theatre and theatre practitioners, I love Lepage and Peter Brook. I like European choreographers; I admire what Rui Horta's doing and the new Forsythe Company.

Performing's where my heart is but after a show, I have to go home. You come off stage and you've just about sewn yourself up and someone comes up to you and says, "I didn't like that bit" and you go, "woooaaaah!... I'm a bit vulnerable here".

I protect my dancers too because the last thing they want is to be dissected in the period after a performance when they are vulnerable.

What's been the highlight of your career... so far?

I remember doing a performance at Sadler's Wells, it's an ego thing, and we all have a sense of ego! Sadler's Wells has always been home for me. The person who designed it was a genius because it's massive but it feels extremely intimate. I was doing a Rui Horta piece, it wasn't a particularly successful piece for Phoenix but I had this piece where I was working with a girl who had a solo. There's this stereo on stage and I come on, stop the music, ignore her completely and walk over to the audience and just look at them.

There's this sensation of standing there with this massive audience and going... ..it's ok.... something is about to happen. It's story telling at its simplest.

The body is vital to me but sometimes we get so obsessed with shape and form that actually the very thing of communication is gone. These moments resonate much more than technique.

As I get older it brings the question, the value of what I have done? Why I've chosen the career path I've chosen. My CV of what I've turned down is better than the jobs I've taken. To dance with a big company might feel great but is it what you really want? Or working with someone who's virtually unknown that gives you the opportunity to find out who you really are? That could be ego destroying, especially for a young male. I'd like to see dancers consider themselves as artists instead of just bodies in space.

What was your epiphany moment, when you knew you wanted to be a dancer?

I was quite late, I was 19. I was a break-dancer/ street dancer. We used to compete up and down the country but I'd given it up, when I bumped into an old P.E teacher in the street. She asked me to do a school project and within 3 months I was at college.

She took me to see London Contemporary - 'Troy Game'. These guys were at the top of their tree, they were stars. When you see something at its pinnacle and not diluted, it opens you up. It opened me up.

The set, the power of the men, and women. I walked away from that completely changed.

Even if I go to see something I don't really like it makes me make a choice. If you allow yourself over a period of time to absorb that, maybe you'll go back and see it in a different way.

I've said I don't want to go and see dance because I don't want to be influenced, you can absorb other peoples ideas without even realising.

I'd rather go and see jazz or sport (I come from a sport background) because these guys come out real pure and they just go for it, there's an honesty and personality in it. It's really important to make history, so you don't make the choices that people have already made.

If you do make choices you know you're making those choices. I really like writers like Paul Alistair or even being around certain people.

Dancers in general are affected so physically and emotionally. You can absorb something and accept it as a truth and never question again. I see that when I teach, the way they've picked up a por de bras or the affectations of teachers (who could have been the worst teachers in the world!) and not at any point did they question.

It's said, when you see something for the first time you see it 100%, the second time you only see 20% in the moment and 80% from memory.

The problem is institutionalised behaviour through college and then into companies.
I like to laugh about it because I come from a background that I shouldn't even be doing this. I remember doing a piece once in polka dot tights and thinking of my dad going, "What are you doing?!!" I'm a grown man for god's sake!

What are you most looking forward to in the run?

I've not been in a rush. I have a voice which will communicate with some people and not others. I'm glad I've taken my time. It's not traditional but I love this idea of bravery. As a communicator, if you show that in a trip or fall then people connect with that and it reflects into their life. I think that is my life.

Do you have a mantra?

It's a Paul Auster quote, "It was, it will never be again, remember." That sticks with me. In companies it can be quite a sterile environment. What I try to install is that idea of now, all we have is now. And that relates completely to performance- a moment in time, where anything can happen.

[ Errol White Dance ]

Holly Denoon, Sioda Martin (dancers with the company) talk about the 'Tell Woman' a show aimed and kids aged 4-10 years old.

Interview with Jasmin Vardimon about her new work 'Yesterday' along with footage from the show and comment from dancer's Mafalda Deville and Luke Burrough.

Interview with Lindsey Butcher about her new work 'Shift' along with footage from the show that makes those Lego™ constructions you made as a kid look like child's play, which they were, so go watch the video already!

by Neil Nisbet

Shobana Jeyasingh Dance Company are entering their 20th year in the wide world of dance. The company's artistic director celebrates by being interviewed by Article19. We're sure the company are celebrating in other ways but we're happy to provide some party hats and a candle or two!

How have things changed over the last twenty years, since you founded the company?

Not being a person who ever made long term plans, when I started this I didn't think about what was going to happen next month let alone in twenty years time. It was never a plan to be around for so long and acquire dinosaur status (laughs). It's funny, you don't realise in-fact [that] you've been around for twenty years but obviously it feels tiring some times.

Also the [current] climate for the arts has changed so dramatically over the years. Actually, that's the hardest thing, it's a bit like being in a theatre and someone's shifted the scenery and you don't realise because it's never a dramatic shift. Suddenly you turn around and instead of standing in an orange sunset backdrop, [you're standing] in a storm backdrop.

What are the biggest changes you've noticed?

I don't know if people always feel this when they are beginning something [but] whenever you begin something there's a kind of energy in starting whatever it is. Beginning something always generates its own excitement and people buy into that because it's something new. You go through a phase where [moving] ahead seems a little bit [easier] because people are interested or excited because it's something they haven't seen before, or it's a new company or it's a new name.

I suppose when I started I felt that the arts was very [ideologically] driven because the philosophy that was underpinning the arts was [that] we couldn't hack it in the market and that's the reason [the] arts were funded. Unlike other activities it wasn't something that was ever going to survive in totally [free] market conditions and that's why the government put money in, to subsidise your existence. But slowly that shifted to a feeling that the arts were meant to compete in the market and it had to try and somehow adapt and sell itself like any other commodity.

There was a shift from artists being these people who were not or should not be interested in the market to artists being people who actually had to adopt the tried and tested methods of [normal] business models. That was a big challenge, what would actually happen to the way we saw ourselves, the way we made work? Sometimes I think that the best thing was pretend not to be an artist (laughs) but to be like a small business person. To put on that facade!

I don't think that model is totally successful because most people who are motivated to create are very different from people who are motivated to enter [into the business world]. Because we [the artists] are in it for different reasons [and] I think the way we measure how successful we are I'm sure is very different to the way a small business person would measure their success.

Then again one had this phase of the arts being agents of social change or social inclusion and [the arts] became part of a huge social work project. I think that has the feeling of being co-opted into another large project which is again is not hugely to do with making quality work.

It's all good and well if you make quality work but one has to justify oneself in this other arena. That's not necessarily a bad thing because I think that everything in the arts is going to be an agent of social change but social change within a frame work of financial accountability within a financial year is what's difficult. I think all artists want to be influential but not have that influence calculated between March 31st till the next March 31st.

I'm really happy that the public rhetoric is again coming back to quality in the arts or excellence in the arts and innovation. It's very difficult [though] to marry innovation to accountability or models of accountability that have come from other areas of life.

I think that's always [going to be] a problem. So I suppose one arrives at a stage where you get to be a little more philosophical about things. There will always be tension between art making and public funding and different governments try to solve it in different ways and one has to just survive and do what you do with integrity.

How do you personally judge your own success and how has that benchmark changed over the years?

There is more pressure and you have to work much harder to achieve the same level of satisfaction. For me personally it's whether or not I feel happy with that piece of work, whether it tours or it doesn't tour, whether there is an audience of one person and their dog or it's attracting millions, my happiness comes from my judgement of [whether or not] I got what I wanted in the end.

Being genetically pre-disposed to being dissatisfied most of the time I'm very rarely satisfied with what I do (laughs) but there are different degrees of satisfaction or dissatisfaction.

I'm also very aware, with choreography particularly, that it's not something you do on your own in an attic, you have to engage with other people. It's a social activity because from the minute you have an idea the first step is always engagement with another person, a dancer in my case.

So together with a dancer, in a studio, that's where ideas are generated so it's an incredibly sociable activity. So success has to do, for me, with the quality of the relationships that I make. The relationship I have with my dancers, their engagement with the work, what they bring to it, the satisfaction they get.

Of course, because one is funded by the Arts Council you also have to have a place for their measures of success which, at the moment, are about subsidy per head, how many people are seeing your work. This is difficult because the whole place of theatre in the 21st century, [in terms of] arts and leisure is very problematic and I think it's going through an immense period of change because people find other platforms to consume and enjoy artwork. So I think for people like myself who are interested in theatre spaces, [it's] a huge challenge.

Can you tell us about 'Faultline', the work you are currently touring?

Faultline was premiered last year and [the idea for it] came from the summer before when over the years, especially in London, one gets very caught up in the general sense of unease around Asian men particularly, Asian youth.

There was a summer when suddenly people thought someone was going to blow up planes by smuggling liquids in bottles [onboard], there was increased security and there were raids on houses in the East End [of London]. Generally, I felt very disturbed by the problematic nature of being Asian and young and male or actually Asian and male or even female. Some of my dancers, who look particularly Asian, young and male or dark skinned, I know there were random checks on them [by the Police], they were stopped in underground stations.

I think we all felt very disturbed and there was a lot of tension and anxiety around that issue so 'Faultline' really came from trying to grapple with the sense of anxiety.

At the same time I was reading the book called 'Londonstani' by a writer called Gautam Malkhani. It's about a gang of youths in Southall [in London]. It's a very surprising book, the ending is a total surprise and nothing at all like you would be led to believe by the beginning. The way he'd created his central character, structurally I found very interesting. 'Faultline' really came from those two events, reading that book and just seeing lots of news about suspected terrorism.

I felt that, especially in London, there was heightened anxiety about being in a city, being in a place with lots of different races and religions the whole kind of multi-cultural experiment, if you like, just seemed to be under threat. I felt there was an incredible amount of uncertainty between people. I think it's changing now but the last two years have been very disturbing psychologically.

When you hear ACE and politicians talking about cultural diversity do you think they are over simplifying things?

It's always the same area that people try to address. Sometimes it's called cultural diversity, it used to be called ethnic minority arts then it was called multi-culturalism. So I think the label changes but actually it's the same area that people are trying to address and it's about cohesion in British society.

I think the Arts Council should be concerned about it because I think governments are there to address these things but it's not just up to them. Just having a label doesn't mean it's going to solve the problem. I think there are two kinds of opinion.

Sometimes, if you put a ring around a particular group of people there is an argument to [be made] that it makes it even harder to integrate because you've just been highlighted. It's like someone has taken a big highlighter pen and written under your name "you are different". There was a time, a long time ago, people wanted us to say how many "ethnic minority" people attend [our] programme? What percentage of your audience is Indian [for example]?

I think that's actually not going to work very well in Britain any longer because it's very difficult to spot a young middle class Indian in the city because [they] don't walk around wearing silk saris and flowers in their hair anymore.

Sometimes these kinds of labels are used to contain people and I think that's where it's not good. I think in the arts it doesn't necessarily promote good quality work but perhaps it gives opportunities to those who otherwise might not have engaged in [creative] art. It's very difficult to test that [though]. There is such a diversity of opinion, the answer is, I don't know. I just know that the labels always keep changing.

On the ground things move faster and probably in a more sophisticated way than the people who write these labels probably realise. What I noticed in Britain, when I started doing workshops here twenty years ago, If I went to a school or anywhere and did a very stock, Indian classical dance phrase sometimes I would have people giggling or sometimes they [would say] "how? how do you do that with your fingers?". But now, wherever I go if you do that people aren't even commenting anymore because it's become so much more part and parcel of British urban life, it's not really a big issue.

So in some ways it's very counterproductive when policy makers still behave as if it is an issue and it needs some sort of special dispensation.

I'm a choreographer because I'm interested in dance, I'm not particularly interested in South Asian dance. I think in some ways that the cultural agenda becomes overblown and actually it stops people appreciating what you are trying to make them see which is actually dance making. I don't particularly want to put my work on stage and [have people say] "that's South Asian British dance", [because] that's counter productive.

What I'd like people to say is "that's dance, I like it!" or "I don't like it!" on the basis of is it good dance? Is it speaking to me? As opposed to "I better like it, it's South Asian dance, I should be supporting minority arts". I think that's really not very helpful at all to any artist because I don't think artists ever want to be accepted as examples of social categories they want to be accepted as examples of good [artists].

Shobana Jeyasingh Dance Company will perform 'Faultline' at the Liverpool Empire Theatre on Saturday February 2nd then touring until the end of April with 'Faultline', 'City:Zen' and 'Exit no Exit'.

[ Video: 'Faultline' on Article19 ]
[ Company Website ]

by Neil Nisbet

Without any doubt Jasmin Vardimon is one of the best dance theatre choreographers in Europe. She has been making work for ten years now and the company will be kicking off 2008 with a preview of 'Yesterday', the company's new work and a celebration of those ten years. We caught up with her during rehearsals in Brighton.

What can you tell us about 'Yesterday' the company's new work?

It's a piece to celebrate ten years of the company. It's gonna be quite different from previous pieces as it doesn't originate from a specific concept or environment. It's more to really celebrate the work I've done up until now. I intend it to be a smaller piece which will be easier to tour [because] the last few works were quite hard to tour.

The revolving stage [from Justitia] was a big set and quite hard to tour abroad. But [Yesterday] is slowly growing. It won't have a big set in terms of shipping [to other countries] but it will have quite an impressive visual element in it. With previous pieces I liked to start in a location but [with this work] it's more of a memory. It's not finished yet, it's mostly in my head but it's more [of a] thought process so it's not as linear as 'Justitia' was for example.

What stage will the work be in for the Sadler's Well 'Sampled' festival?

That's a very early stage because the piece is being created for the autumn. Because we got some support from various organisations to do research, from The Place, I got a bit of time at the National Theatre, we decided to do a research period now for [Yesterday]. So I'm only at the stage of selecting material from old pieces and creating some new material that I want to weave into the old material. So what I'm creating for 'Sampled' is a short [section] between 15 and 20 minutes to [illustrate] what the new piece is going to be like.

How do you develop the intricate movement we see in your work?

It's a process that happens in the studio, mostly. I normally come into the studio with some ideas, some of them are clearer than others, sometimes it's just a direction, sometimes I have a visual clarity of what [it is] exactly that I want. A lot of the time I start from a concept and that is developed with the dancers in the studio.

I work, a lot, with task orientated techniques so I would give [the dancers] a task and see how they react to my idea and then I'll take it from there. I always find it quite hard to explain the process because it's very long, I think I'm notorious for working for long periods, creating and researching for quite long periods of time.

I like [the] process of digging in and not choosing the first things that comes out. [I] always try to go further and create the antagonism then go back and see how things happen after you create [that] antagonism in people, to look at many different options [within] a specific theme or specific movements and various styles of presentation before I decide how I want to present it.

Was 'Justitia' a success from your personal perspective, was the feedback positive?

I think so, yes. Especially from [the] audiences. Emails that I get [via] the website and the reaction of the audience in the theatres, we got fantastic feedback. We were all very pleased with the reactions, especially [from] post show discussions.

It was interesting to see how people interpret different bits and different stories they've seen in [Justitia]. A lot of the time I'm always fascinated how the reaction varies in terms of what people understand or what people see in a scene. Sometimes you think what you saw is what it is but sometimes in the post show discussions people hear other peoples opinions, how they saw it and I like those interpretations. It's like when you read a book and you understand it in a different way and with 'Justitia' it's happened quite a lot actually, for some reason, maybe because it was more narrative based.

Will British Dance Edition 08 be about spreading the word on 'Justitia' internationally?

Not for this year. We are going to concentrate on a different project this year. We're going to tour 'Yesterday' this year, in this country and touring internationally in 2009.

With 'Justitia' it was quite hard because we had quite a lot of interest internationally and it always stalled on the transportation of the set because it's extremely expensive to transport the set. It's a very heavy set. That's one of the reasons that 'Yesterday' is going to be without a set, without compromising my artistic freedom with [the work]. It will be quite an impressive set [design] but it won't be heavy.

We'll have a lot of video projection, which I have used in previous work but 'Yesterday' will have different layers of projection so it will be a softer set.

How is the company going to progress and grow over the next 12 months?

Well, we just recruited a producer and he's working on developing our relationship internationally as well as developing the management side of the organisation because we've had quite a lot of requests [for projects] in the last few years and our management didn't grow as much as the artistic side so we're concentrating on developing [that].

We are also developing an education programme together with Royal Holloway University that's going to run in their theatre department and another college in the south east, Sussex Downs College, we're developing a foundation course with them.

I was keen to develop that because I feel like there is a big gap in [dance] education in the UK because there are good dance schools and there are good drama schools but there is no school that trains for the "in-between". If there is [some training] it's more for musicals which is a completely different approach.

I find it hard when I'm auditioning dancers, in the last two auditions I saw about 700 performers in each audition and I found it quite hard to find performers that have the physical ability that I demand from my dancers and also be able to act and deliver text and become a character. I find that a lot of the time I need to train them and go through that process. So one of the reasons to develop our education [programmes] is for professional development rather than the early stages of studying.

I believe that the whole sector will benefit from it because there is no training in this field. [When] we started to talk about it we found quite a lot of organisations are keen to have this [training] model so we're going to start it small and see how it all goes.

In your view does contemporary dance need to lean more toward "dance theatre"?

No, I believe there is a place for everything, the contemporary dance world is so varied, [there are] so many styles which I think make [the art form] very rich. Personally, what I'm interested in, if I ever go out, I go to see theatre, it's what I normally enjoy. I'm interested in telling stories or in communicating thoughts and provoking thoughts and pure movement doesn't do it [for me]. Personally I'm not interested in creating beautiful shapes or beautiful visuals, or not only that, I'm interested more in communicating ideas. I think dance theatre is my language.

I'm interested in developing this sector because I think it's not developed enough, in this country especially. I want more dancers that I can work with in the future but you also educate future audiences, in a way, when you expose them to [this type of work].

A lot of dancers have never been asked to deliver text, even dancers that I've worked with, the first time they delivered text was when they worked for the company. I find it very strange that [dancers] don't know how to use their voice, they just know how to use their body, I feel like it's one complete thing.

What infuriates you about this business and what do you love about it.

What I really don't like about this business is the fact that you don't have [places] to work. In London and in Brighton (the company is based in Brighton) it is almost impossible to find suitable rehearsal space to work with that you can develop big work [in] and explore working with [big] sets.

You hire the space and then you have to clear up at the end of the day because there are classes. Compared to our neighbouring countries where most of the big companies or companies of our size are [located], like in Germany, they have Opera House's and in every city there is a company resident in that Opera House. In France there is the Choreographic Centre and so on and again there are companies in residence [within] them. In Belgium there are a lot of buildings for dance [and] for dance companies.

In this country there are very few companies that have their own houses and can develop their work from beginning to end and be able to leave their things in place. Creating 'Justitia' was a nightmare because of the big set. To find a place that you could leave it for the whole creative period and really explore it was [really difficult]. There was a production space where we got the set in then we found out that the ceiling was too low so we couldn't turn it for the whole first period of rehearsal. I had to go around it [instead of the stage revolving]. So those kind of things, having the space to work with that's our big nightmare.

The thing that I like is "it". Creating and the process of creation and the excitement about creation, new material and just doing it and performance and the reaction from the [audience]. I like every bit of it that is connected to the creation and the performance of [the work] and I'm not talking about administration or that side of it.

Jasmin Vardimon Company will be performing a preview of 'Yesterday' at Sadler's Wells Theatre in London on 26th January.

[ Sadlers Wells ]
[ British Dance Edition 08 ]
[ Jasmin Vardimon Company ]

by Neil Nisbet

Following a long freelance career Javier De Frutos was the surprise choice to take the reigns of Leeds based Phoenix Dance Theatre in the Autumn of 2006. We caught up with him over the phone during a break in rehearsals for the company's up an coming tour.

You've been the artistic director of Phoenix now for over a year how's it going?

It's going very well, it's an incredibly difficult job, more than I ever anticipated it to be. I think, in general, the title of "artistic director" is a red herring because being the artistic director is probably the most unartistic job I've ever had in my entire life.

Obviously, I'm being artistic when we are in the studio working and even programming and seeing the other choreographers working with the company is still artistic. It's been a really tough adjustment and I'm trying to handle it as gracefully as I can, I think that's the best [way] I can describe it.

Every day [I'm] learning, every day is a new adventure. Also, I have worked as a freelancer for many many years with many many companies and with every company I said I never knew what I was going to do if I ever got a job as a director but I started collecting things that I knew that I didn't want to do and that's pretty much the learning [part].

So in many ways it's to prove that either I was right or I was wrong, in some cases I have been right and in some cases I have been wrong, like everything in life.

What are the company working on just now?

We just finished the Autumn tour, part of [which] was, what we call, the 'Venice Triptych' which is all my work and then the other one included 'Chaconne' by Jose Limon which is from 1942 and has never been done here before. The repertory this year is half my work and the [other] half is two piece by Jose Limon, 'The Moors Pavane' and 'Chaconne'. One of the original dancers from the works, Sarah Stackhouse who's 73 is coming in January to teach ' The Moors Pavane'. It hasn't been done here Since Nureyev did it with [English National Ballet] in the late seventies I believe.

It's going to be interesting because it's truly repertory stuff because they're doing the "classics" and to me the idea is that bringing [in] those pieces is a way to remind people that [some] modern dance works have acquired classic status and they're important pieces of history and it's great for the dancers as well and I love seeing them.

Also, at the same time we're working on a big project which is a collaboration between myself and Richard Thomas who's the creator of 'Jerry Springer The Opera'. It's a full length work which is going to be premiered here [in Leeds] and it's something really different for the company. We want to have repertory and we want to have these things which are more [like] events. It's a big thing for the company and good fun.

Has your approach to creating work changed at all?

Well it is hugely different. I got appointed [as] the director of this company because they [the board] knew my work. I already know, very well, that when you create a work for a company you tailor make it for the company that you are working for which is part of developing the craft.

In this particular case, what is different is, and every single artistic director that I have spoken to has mentioned this to me, you will never be able to close the door behind you when you go into the studio because the door, to your office, will always be open.

You will get a phone call in the middle of your rehearsal so those bouts of inspiration have to be developed very quickly because you don't know when you are going to be interrupted next or when the next emergency is going to be. Also, the dancers are now my employees so it's a very different relationship. On the other hand, these dancers, especially the group this year, are dancers that I selected because I have worked with them in several [other] companies.

So I know them and they know me and that's easier, as a relationship, but you still cannot forget that they are your employees and therefore your responsibility so the way you treat them is different. I can't be their best mate because I'm their boss as well. It's a tricky place to be because as the choreographer, normally, I need to be one of the gang to really immerse myself in there [the studio]. Separating myself from that has been an ordeal for absolutely everybody that I know and I think that's probably why this job is very hard to do.

I don't know, because it has advantages and disadvantages the silver lining is, obviously I can see work being developed and see it grow when I put it on stage which, normally, with other companies you don't. You leave it and then that's it, you leave the baby behind and it's time for him to spread his wings.

Also you form bonds with [the dancers]. I did three works for the Royal New Zealand Ballet, consecutively, and I developed a bond with those dancers and absolutely adored traveling there. Every time I left I had such a sense of loss and I hated getting so close to people and then feeling the loss because I never knew when I was going to come back to see them again.

You have to develop a sense of trust really really quickly and, trust me, not all companies can handle preserving work so for me it's interesting. Also, for me being the choreographer in residence, which is required by my contract, means that I also test on myself whether we are or are not ready to handle certain guest [choreographers] or certain works. If my work is produced the right way then charity starts at home and then we can invite guests to come over.

I don't miss not knowing what I'm going to be doing the following year, that part I don't miss. There were many years when I earned more money than I'm earning now, that's another thing as well. At the same time I do still have a couple of things that I do outside [of the company] because I think it's healthy and the company understand that it's healthy for me to do it so stuff that I do in the West End is like the Ying and Yang.

Phoenix is a "Dance Theatre" company how do you think think the company compares to other companies like Jasmin Vardimon Company and Motionhouse>

It's very different, I think the [phrase] dance theatre might be slightly misleading really. [Phoenix is] a repertory company. Those companies develop the work and the vision of one choreographer so it's what you would call "authored" and in the case of [Phoenix] it's a repertory company and it really should remain a repertory company because we are in the position of offering the opportunity to some of the choreographers to develop work.

The path of creating work on dancers other than your own is a long and arduous one. When I used to develop work for my own company I could say I'll present it when it's ready, it could be three or four months later. Then I had to learn that, especially if you work for a ballet company and you're a modern dance choreographer, they tell you you have to put this on stage in four weeks, working two hours a day..... Shit! (laughs)

It develops all of those skills. You have to accept that it is completely different than when you're doing work for your company and so it should be. I believe in that and I made a good living [doing] that and I learned how to enjoy the pressure of developing [that] craft so I think this company should [keep doing] that.

Also I'm really enjoying bringing pieces of [dance] history to the company because many of the dancers didn't know any of these works and I think it's criminal that they don't and that many people don't know some of these works and contemporary dance would not exist without these works.

It's [like] planting seeds, people learn Shakespeare so they can develop new drama and it just makes for [more] skilled dancers and better informed [dancers]. Also, as a practice, the practice of dealing with dead choreographers is more difficult than dealing with live ones (laughs), it's really a fascinating learning curve, what you can and cannot do with these works. I think, like 'Harmonica Breakdown', many people have forgotten about this work [so] it's been incredible to see it again and the response has been great so I want to do much more of that.

What still excites you and what annoys you about this profession

Dancers still really really excite me. Every once in a while I go up to the studio, I see them and I just, especially this group, this group now is truly truly extraordinary. Many of them have left companies like Rambert to be here, that trust is heartening. There is still that part of me that believes that this is a vocation and not a profession, if you happen to make money out of it then you can feel lucky and stop bitching, it really is a vocation to begin with. If you don't love it then you shouldn't be here!

It's very romanticised but this is a romantic business.

The thing that I absolutely hate are the people that don't feel romantic about it and see it as a business. The businessmen and the politicians who don't fully understand how this [work] is made. I think there is a way to make a balance between the two but people who don't understand the vocation tend to put things down and it's hard because normally I'm dealing with people that are younger than me, like my dancers. I feel very defensive and paternal about it so I would normally scratch [out] anybody's eyes that tried to put their job down.

When you go and have to ask for money, fundraising and you see the various questions that are referring to the business of the company and you have the most extraordinary artists with the most fleeting of careers, the shortest career in the arts, and if you don't see them now they may not be here tomorrow, so I feel very protective about that.

Those things I could do without.

But I think it has to do as well with the audience in general, [they] are still ill-educated about dance and I'm still trying to figure how and when that happened. When dance was still an exciting and acceptable thing in the arts, when choreographers and painters and writers were constantly in touch with one another and at some point they all got segregated and I would love to know at what time in history that happened, it's an interesting subject.

Phoenix will be touring their new works during this year.

[ Phoenix Dance Theatre ]

by Neil Nisbet

One of the most talked about dance makers this year is Hofesh Shechter. A veteran of Batsheva Dance Company, Inbal Pinto and Jasmin Vardimon Company, among many others, he is currently in Scotland creating a new work with Scottish Dance Theatre where we caught up with him by phone.

Do you have a particular working method when you first get into the studio with the dancers?

That's the problem I don't really have a method each time it's different. Sometimes I will come [to the studio] with the idea but it's never really fixed. Normally when I'm coming to work with a new company I discover it with them, while I work with them. I don't have a very solid idea when I walk in on the first day. That's for a very simple reason, normally I don't know them and I don't know what their personalities are like, their abilities. But I have to say that Scottish Dance Theatre are really great, it's a group of really talented and highly motivated dancers and we're having a really good time in the studio.

There is no method there, I have to walk into the studio and discover it with them and with myself.

Is the grounded, precise nature of your movement your signature style?

I don't know if it's a signature. I know I enjoy doing movement that is very grounded and very soft. I can say that I really enjoy movement that is precise but it's not the only thing I enjoy. I'm kind of hoping not to define my style so I can stay free to use whatever I want whenever I want. If I convince myself that this is my style then I will have trouble if I wanted to do something messy and not grounded.

Everything is like words, in language, sometimes I might need different words, so I want to keep it free and open for myself.

Is there a big difference working with dancers on a commission and the dancers from your own company?

There is a real difference. I think the element of not knowing the dancers is really serious because at the end of the day the dancers are the piece, very literally. When I work with my company I feel I can do much more preparation at home based upon what I know already, I know more or less what I can expect from them and how far I can push them and how far they will let me go.

With SDT or with other companies it's always a matter of surprise, it's very different but also that's why I like commissions. Commissions are [about surprises], because I have to work very fast so I'm surprised by the people, by myself. You have to be a little more instinctive or I have to be a little bit more instinctive when I do commissions.

There is also something difficult about it. The restrictions [on] time, the restriction of not being able to choose the people [to create the work with].

There is also a similar element, always, when I create work. The moment of struggle! Moments of trying to define, to myself, what I am doing, moments of trying not care about the definition of what I'm trying to do. There is always a struggle between the dream of the piece and the reality of the studio, that's the tension of creation I guess!

When you're creating movement is their a discussion with the dancers in question or does it come from you?

Most of the movement material I create myself then I will work with the dancers to try and achieve a certain quality and a certain feel for the movement. It might be a case of looking at each and every dancer and trying to give them the right keys, so to speak, in order to do the movement the way I want it to happen, the way that I feel is best for the piece.

Sometimes, commissions are a place where I experiment with this even more, I do start with some movement material and then I let the dancers continue a little bit. Sometimes I use [the material] but it's more of a tool to get to know them, get to know what is coming out of them. What are there habits, what are their strengths?

But normally I will try to direct them to understand the movement in a certain way.

In the summer you will be creating a large scale outdoor piece for the DanceXchange International Dance Festival how will you approach that project?

With a project like that I will have to do much more planning because time will be very short. The exciting thing about it is that I'm going to work with people that have completely different abilities. [For example:] I'm going to work with street runners, what they call Parkour in France.

What I will have to prepare is a kind of master plan but without really knowing the details inside but it's going to be a tricky one.

Since I'm also going to prepare or edit the music it will really allow me to..... because music is so important in a sense of defining how something develops, how something flows. So I think preparing the music very carefully before I start it will be key.

Most of your work features music created or edited by you, do you need to control that aspect to fully form the finished work?

I don't know if it's about control. I think if I put a CD on and find a soundtrack that will fit precisely with what I'm doing I will just use it but the chances that I will find something like that are very [small].

I really think that music is a very powerful tool and a very important tool in dance in a sense of defining the atmosphere of a space. Immediately, when you hear music, you have a feel for something, you get a sense of something, you're going to watch everything in a [certain way]. So it is really important for me and I feel the connection with dance is very important and I am very curious about throwing text into the air and seeing how it affects our mind when we watch dance.

It's an important part of defining my work, it's another layer of this world I create.

You often use spoken word, and your own voice for the soundtrack, is this pre-written or improvised text?

It's normally improvised as I record it. [Sometimes] I write two or three sentences and then improvise, I read the sentences then I improvise, that's normally how I do it. Normally I have a background track of a sound, I [listen] through headphones, take the microphone and just [speak].

What's the biggest kick you get out of working dance and what is the biggest struggle?

Let's start with the kick because it's more important. The kick is that it's really a very strange form of art. It has so much in it. [Just now] I'm working with [SDT] and I have to deal with the concept of the piece, I have to deal with the music [and] the sounds, I have to deal with the people.

When I say "deal", suddenly all of that is a strong part of my life. The connection with the people, the movement material, the fun of just dancing, all the moments we experience in the studio, the moments of dreaming about the piece, it's a very rich experience. It's very mysterious in a way. We're people, we're living in this world and we don't really understand what's going on but when you go into the dance studio everything seems even more strange because dancing is quite strange actually. So that's the fun thing about it, you just connect to a really strange world.

Most of the struggle, for me, is normally with the creation itself, in the studio, in defining and refining an idea. But if I put struggle in the context of the dance world, I have to say that I probably should be very easy on the dance world in the sense that things happen, relatively speaking, quite easily for me. I started choreographing about four years ago and it feels like the outside world has accepted my work quite openly.

I feel that most of my struggling is with myself and even if my struggle is with feeling that there [are] expectations of me like the last project in London with The Place, Queen Elizabeth Hall and Sadler's Wells ('In Your Rooms'), where they just went "here you go, commission, do a new piece, do something that we're all going to be happy with", they didn't say that but in your head it sounds like that.

Struggling with expectations and trying to still be focused. At the moment the company is in a very, I'm saying it's the company but it's me, is in a very sensitive place, because there is a company suddenly being formed and of course the ways to run it are just being formed. Beginnings are hard in the sense of finding ways to make the company work, basically, finding ways to keep the dancers around and finding ways to support it. There is that side but I wouldn't say it's a struggle, it's hard work.

The next performance of 'Uprising' and 'In Your Rooms' is at the Tanzhaus NRW, Dusseldorf, Germany, 24th-26th January. The as yet untitled work for Scottish Dance Theatre will premiere in the new year and the outdoor work for the International Dance Festival will premiere in Birmingham on May 4th 2008.

[ Video: 'Uprising' on Article19 ]
[ Company Website ]
[ Video: 'Bitter Ripples' on Article19 ]
[ Video: 'Cult' on Article19 ]

by Susan Cunningham

Susan Cunningham speaks to the Artistic Director of Dance Base in Edinburgh, Scotland's one and only National Dance Agency. A few years ago they moved from their cramped home in Edinburgh's 'Assembly Rooms' to a brand new facility in the shadow of Edinburgh Castle. How has the transition gone and how much support have they been providing the profession?

Has your vision, when Dance Base was in the Assembly Rooms, of what it would be like in the Grassmarket, been realised?

It's exceeded itself actually.  It's so much more fabulous than I ever imagined it would be. I was excited that we'd have this many studios.  I imagined that there would be an atmosphere but I didn't know what that would be.  The way the building has been designed, it never feels too full, there's always this lovely sense of space.

Do you think you've lost any of the community feel of being in an old Edinburgh building?

You mean people walking through my office before they went to class? (She laughs)  No actually we've gained it, because the community classes we had then were all over Edinburgh, some in Palmerston Place, Tollcross and different places around the city so actually there wasn't a community feel. But now you come out of your ballroom class, you walk past a studio where the African’s going on or the ballet is happening. So people will start talking to each other about the different classes that they've been doing, which they never would have been able to do in the Assembly Rooms.

How does Dance Base support dance companies.  Do they get special rates?

We pay them. They don't pay us!  I put together a professional dance programme which has a budget attached. In that there is money for people who come and use the studios. If they are funded I will give them studio time for free.  On top of that there is a professional training budget so that subsidises all the classes that happen - two classes a week are free to professionals and the others are at a reduced rate, and on top of that I invite dancers to curate.

For example, this term Ross Cooper is the curator and he's brought in someone from Nederlands Dance Theatre and he's created small bursaries for some graduate students to have a term of classes free.  But nobody pays us!

How do you see dance companies in Scotland becoming established and full time along the lines of Scottish Dance Theatre?

That's a big question.  That's more of an Arts Council question because it's down to funding.  It would be fantastic if there were more of them in Scotland.  Speaking on behalf of the professional dance community it's a fabulous idea. 

In terms of Dance Base it would be hard for us to have one company in residence the whole time. Even if they were funded. Because I want to give everyone a kick of the ball as much as possible.  So if one company had a studio then we would have three studios, only.

Where does the funding come from for Dance Base?

The Scottish Arts Council backs the professional part of the programme only.  Then the Council give us a little bit of money which helps overheads of keeping the building going but the community programme is almost like a business of its own.  It kind of pays for itself.

Which is why it breaks my heart to do it when we have to cut a class that only has three people in it because we can't pay the teacher. Then we've got the Outreach Project, which is funded from trust and foundations and any fundraising we can do.
 

You say it breaks your heart to cut a class, is there no way it could be supported by other classes?

Not really, after a while.  I have run classes that have small numbers in them but it is soul destroying to be a teacher to teach a small class.  We do what we can but maybe it’s not the flavour of the month.

Do you support SAC funded health insurance for dancers?

Well I don't have any dancers. They are not my dancers! (dodge the question alert!! Ed!)

What about the teachers?

The teachers are freelance so they look after themselves.  Companies that come in residence, we have public liability insurance so is something happens while they're in the building, they are covered. But their own personal health it's up to them.  We're not the Arts Council and I don't have a company of dancers. 

How does Dance Base actively support dancers?

Dancers should be supported as much as possible which is why they don't pay to come here, why we pay them and offer free classes and studios to professionals, why I'm on the phone like a doctor on call almost to support dancers in any way I can.

How about psychologically?

It’s a huge part.  You are dealing with people in a pretty vulnerable state most of the time - because you are removing layers of yourself in order to create something from within you.  Dancers and choreographers especially are very vulnerable people and highly sensitive because they are artistic and creative so yes I put up with all sorts of mad behaviour! You have to be able to judge who needs what.

You take it on very personally but are there people that come in from outside to help?

We have a treatment room and invite physios and masseurs who are good with dancers to come in and use the room.  We give them the room free so they can offer a much-reduced rate to the dancers.  But we don't have a budget where we can say, "here's a free physio".  But we offer phone numbers and a free room.

How are you planning for the future?  Where do you go from here?

What I would like is for Dance Base to have a production arm so we are able to commission and produce dance work.. Because every fortnight, in the studio, I see a new piece of work and sometimes it's fantastic and it really needs some more money or time put into it, or I want it to be seen by more people and we can't take it any further. It's up to the dancers themselves to apply to the Arts Council.  Sometimes the moment is lost if you have to wait for two or three months to see whether you've got the money to take it any further. 

So I would like us to have a production house. I would like to start a big partnership with Nordic Countries, where Scotland is the southernmost point of a big Northern Continent with Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland.

They are all small countries and have a fairly similar set up to Scotland, which also means they also have the usual suspects dancing in each other’s work.  It would be fantastic if we could open that up into a really big pool of dancers and choreographers all working with each other under the banner of a northern vision for choreography.

Do you feel there is enough collaboration within Scotland i.e. with the Aberdeen and Glasgow dance agencies?

Of course!  We are always talking on the phone and there is something coming up that I can't talk about right now that is a definite collaboration.  Karen Wood of the Dance House (Glasgow) is fantastic; in fact if it wasn't for Karen, Dance Base wouldn't exist, she was one of the first artistic directors. She really brought it on and nurtured Dance Base. 

And it's a real jewel in the crown to have Ian Spink in Aberdeen.  Whether Aberdeen fully understands what they've got? - but we do! And the dance community is now responding to the fact that Ian's there.  I'd really like to see something happening in the Borders - there's not a lot of money for the Arts at all in the Borders.

How do you keep your finger on the pulse? (e.g. having a Dance Film programme just as there is a resurgence of popularity of films, such as Dirty Dancing)

This is sort of a general statement to anyone - which I say to myself constantly is to always be curious about what's going on, just because you think you know it all, you never do!

[ Dance Base ]

top image by Elnur Amikishiyev

by Neil Nisbet

Booking a tour for a dance company is an unnerving experience, especially for those new to the game. What better solution than to ask someone who knows the ins and outs for a little bit of advice then? Gwen Van Spijk has been working in dance administration for 18 years. After promoting and fund raising for Motionhouse Dance Theatre for five years she broke into freelance work, creating CUE in the process, and currently promotes New Art Club, Nigel Charnock, Charles Linehan , Russell Maliphant and many more.

Article19: What are the basic principles that you follow to begin booking a tour for a new piece of work?

The first principle is seeing the work and preferably live. I wouldn't take on booking a tour for a company whose work I had never seen. The next thing I do is take a cold hard look at the work and then think about the venues which are appropriate for that work. So it's really about doing research and identifying the right venues for that artist and their choreography at that point in time. Another thing is to do a feasibility study and test out if the venues that I think are appropriate are in fact likely to be interested because, of course, people's programming plans and policies change.

So research, then a feasibility study and moving on from that coming up with a tour strategy or deciding that it's not appropriate to try and book a tour for this work.

Everyone communicates really differently and I guess it another principal is knowing how different promoters work and having an ongoing relationship with them as much as possible so that you know, this person responds better to email, this person responds better to a phone call or this person I should go and try and meet.

What I don't do is a huge mass mail-out [ followed by ] a huge telephone campaign because, for me, that just doesn't work. So try to build a one on one relationship with a promoter in a way that works for them and for me and the company [I'm promoting].

Article19: Are the UK and mainland Europe different in terms of how you approach them?

It's becoming much more similar than it used to be because now promoters in the UK do want to see work before they book it. People used to book "on-spec" or they would see a nice piece of publicity and think "oh that looks good" I'll book it. They don't do that anymore, they want to see the work, they want to have a better understanding of the company and the their aspirations. So it goes back to that idea of having a relationship.

Certainly, for Europe, promoters really do want to see the work and have a real insight into how the company operates.

What you get in terms of [promoting] in Europe is the involvement of the British Council. The British Council can be incredibly helpful in terms of promoting a company internationally. They have a portfolio of companies that they regularly work with and if you are in that portfolio there are huge benefits in terms of getting your work distributed internationally.

Article19: What happens if you see a good piece of work but think it will be a tough fit for any venue?

It's pretty much the same process. It's saying to the company "why do you want to tour this work?" People have got to want to tour and they've got to understand that it's really hard work. It's a huge investment of resources for which there is very little return. So they've got to have a really clear interest in touring and it has to be a big feature of what they want to do, it's not an incidental thing [and] it's not a way of getting rich quick.

So if a company comes to me with a piece of work that I think is not appropriate for touring then my question is "why do you wan to tour it?" because it presents [certain] challenges in terms of touring. So perhaps we should look at doing a one off event, finding a partner to co-produce or [something else].

Article19: What are the common pitfalls for companies and administrators when they try and promote their first show?

I think one of the common pitfalls of younger companies or people who have not done touring is thinking that there are hundreds of venues out there so I'll send out my publicity and then [call] them all up and they are all going to want to book the work. That's really not how it works.

The other thing is people under-budget for touring and they overestimate the income they are likely to get. They are also not realistic about the financial equations on the promoters side because it really does cost promoters a lot of money to present a show and people under estimate how much that is and therefore they have unrealistic expectations of the kind of fee they can expect particularly in this country (UK).

Another problem is people not knowing what to speak to promoters about and using inappropriate language.

Article19: What do promoters really need to know?

They want to know what the show is about in really clear, simple English. They don't want the show to be over hyped. What kind of movement language is it? Is it athletic, is it slow [and so on]. Is there a set? Are there projections? Just a really simple description of the piece.

[They don't want to know] that this is the most innovative piece of theatre ever.

[Let them know] where else the show has been and what the company's history is. It's also good to let them know what kind of backup the company can provide in terms of marketing support and education work.

Are there any specific technical issues that need to be addressed! Promoters hate it if they book a show and then, all of a sudden, discover there are massive technical implications.

This goes back to the idea of doing research. If a show has particular technical requirements [don't] approach venues that are inappropriate for them.

Article19: What type of publicity materials do you prefer to use?

I send a two or three page document which gives a history of the company, description of the piece, technical requirements, what we're going to provide in terms of marketing, what our education offer might be and an indication of the fees.

If they ask for video material [or] if they haven't seen the company's work before then I would send a DVD.

Article19: In the internet age, are promoters referring to dance company websites?

I think they're increasingly using websites and it's great if you can refer a promoter to a really good website. You can say "please go to our website and you can download a PDF of our tech spec, a description of the show [and] there is a video clip on the website". So if you've got a good website it can be really useful. But, it's got to be a good one otherwise it becomes counter productive.

Article19: In your view, what makes an effective company website?

Really simple layout, a menu that's easy to navigate and re-appears on every page so wherever you are on the website you can get to where you want to go. Not too much information on the website itself but easy access to downloadable information. So, as I've said, technical specification as a PDF, perhaps, images that can be downloaded, copy that can be downloaded, all that kind of thing.

Visually uncluttered, easy to navigate with information that can be downloaded that is of use to the promoter.

Article19: What's the advantage of having a dedicated administrator/tour booker over doing it for yourself?

Some presenters prefer to negotiate financially with someone who is not the artist. They [the administrator] will be honest about the work or their feelings about the work. I think people feel they don't want to be compromised by having a conversation directly with the artist where they feel they can't say what they really think because they might offend them.

What I think is great for artists to bring to that dialogue is their passion and enthusiasm for their work! It's also great for an artist and the administrator to visit a venue as part of building that relationship. So, the promoter gets to meet the artist, sees them as a real person and gets enthused by the artist's enthusiasm. Then the administrator picks up the dialogue and gets stuck into the nitty gritty. So in an ideal world, both people are involved.

Article19: Have you noticed any specific trends over the last few years, what work is touring the most?

What has been interesting over the past few years is the consolidation of things like the Dance Touring Partnership (DTP) which has really sewn up middle scale [touring] and makes it difficult for companies that are not embraced by that consortium to actually tour.

DTP is really into dance theatre for instance. So I think dance theatre is what tends to be the main trend at the middle scale and companies like Siobhan Davies, who tour a much purer contemporary dance, are touring less and less. Promoter are finding it harder and harder to sell work that is not accessible, for want of a better word.

Dance theatre tends to be more accessible because there's a narrative. Also, there is a real trend towards one off, site specific projects. A number of artists seem to be moving away from touring and doing one off events, taking dance out of the theatre and into different places.

[ CUE Website ]
[ Top Image By Konstantinos Kokkinis ]

by Susan Cunningham

Phew! Now that the Edinburgh Festival is over for another year, it is time to reflect on what was new and exciting this year. There was a lot of buzz around a show called ‘Fuertabruza’ which was not so much a dance show but an “extravaganza of music, dance, acrobatics and theatre” (a circus then!?)

There was also a lot of comment and even criticism on how much street dance featured in the programme this summer (Zoo Nation, Ballerina Who Loves a B-boy and Hiphopscotch for example). Some of the opinions say it is not “proper dance”, not worthy of the theatre.

However, I feel that “breaking” is as worthy an art form as any other movement style. Look back 100 years when contemporary dance came on to the scene; “who are these mad people, prancing bare footed in wispy costumes?”, when ballet was the only accepted form of dance performance on the stage.

My eyes were really opened by going to see ‘Hiphopscotch’, and talking to Peter Maniam of Moving in Circles. He then encouraged me to come along to the breakdancing championships. I was struck not only by the skill but the passion and commitment of the dancers.

He had this to say about how breaking is a valid art form and how it can be an excellent way of encouraging young people in to the world of dance.

How did you come to this point?

I started dancing at about 17 or 18, around the time of Run DMC (the second coming!). Their video came on and a resurgence of breakdancing came about. I made a phone call to a dance company and said “do you know anyone that teaches breaking?” and they said Dance Base is the one and only place. It was Allan Irvine (of Freshmess) who took the classes and taught me for a good few years in Edinburgh.

Then I went traveling in 2000 to Australia and California and stepped up my commitment and training with some really good dancers, especially in California. When I came back there was a very small scene in Edinburgh, only about ten people, who really took it seriously and that was in the whole of Scotland.

We were from all over the place - Orkney, Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow. We decided to form a crew, to try to make things better and make opportunities for ourselves. So we formed Random Aspekts. We started off quite small (originally 8 members) going to competitions in London.

Because there wasn’t much happening up here, we could capitalise on any club work, charity work or fashion shows and promotional work. We were able to make a little bit of money and get more professional as a company and myself as a dancer to the point where we were performing in theatres.

Describe Random Aspekts dance style!

It’s straight up B-Boying. B-Boying is the true word for breakdance. Breakdance was the name of a movie based on the dance B-Boying or B-Girling. The dance element is B-Boying, the show as a whole is pretty hip-hop.

The references to Scottish Culture in the show are obviously old traditions - the ceilidh, the bagpipes, how does it represent modern Scottish culture?

I think everyone in the cast represents modern Scotland. I’m not going to kid anyone these guys are off climbing mountains (climbing mountains? Ed!) or singing Scottish songs but the point is, I think there is a lot of pride in young Scots people about their culture. Sometimes it is difficult for them to display that in any way, without seeming old-fashioned.

The concept was for us to be able to show our pride but also what we love doing as well. For example the ceilidh section, we didn’t want to take it too seriously because ceilidhs are fun. There is lots of raw energy and breaking has that too, so there was [a] parallel.

Who is your target audience?

Do you worry that the Edinburgh audience might be a bit staid for a breakdance show?

That’s Edinburgh through and through! Random Aspekts performed last year in the fringe - ‘Rock-a-bye B-boy’ and that was the same sort of thing, the audience were very quiet. We did the same show in London and it was like being at a pop concert! But as long as people are enjoying it and walking out with smiles, it doesn’t affect me much because I’ll be the in the audience cheering like a maniac anyway!

Where did you find your new dancers?

I taught some of them at Dance Base and at the various high schools that they go to. They are now making a lot of noise in the scene, winning competitions at a senior level, so it felt like the right time for me to give them a new challenge. The theatre context is completely different and foreign to them. They’d danced in clubs and competitions. This is a different ball game, but it seemed like a natural progression.

What’s more important to you, the competitions or the performances?

It’s hard to say- they are very different. I love them both. If you walk into a competition, the atmosphere is pure testosterone, like people getting ready to fight or battle. There is something very exciting about that. But putting hip-hop into a theatre context is a fairly new concept, but I think it deserves to be there. In my opinion it is an art.

It’s still developing as an art form so maybe its not as clean or crisp as contemporary or ballet, but it’s been around for nearly 30 years so it needs steps like this to be accepted in the arts world on a wider scale.

If you had a big bag of money to inject in to the dance world, how would you spend it to make a difference?

My focus has been getting males in to dance. There are very few ways of getting males in to dance - that’s no surprise to anyone. One of the ways is through breaking because it appeals - its quite masculine and cool to do. One of the problems in Scotland is you’ll get a pot of money to go and work in say Stirling or Orkney for 5 weeks.

You’ll get a group of boys who are really in to it, then you leave and there’s no one else there. That’s partly to do with the number of breakers in Scotland but there are ways to keep it going.

So many times I see kids who say “so where can I keep doing it?” and if you’re not in Edinburgh or Glasgow, you are going to struggle. So I would inject the money in to that side of things. I have friends and 2 of the boys from Random Aspekts that have gone on to do contemporary dance.

There are a lot of people that got in to contemporary dance, who would never have dreamed of it, if they hadn’t found breaking. So if people want to see more males on stage dancing then I think breaking is a very good way of doing it.

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by Susan Cunningham

Ross Cooper (Artistic Director of Curve Foundation) talks about building an audience for contemporary dance and his companies unique relationship with their venues.

You are performing at The Kings in Edinburgh, such a prestigious theatre. Is the venue important to you?

It’s necessary. Every company or artist should look to perform their work in the best possible conditions and The Kings Theatre presents that for us. When you go from small to large scale, there are more facilities to be sleeker with what you do and it‘s better for the audience. These are venues that are designed to watch dance. A lot of modern buildings are transformations as opposed to architecture conceptions for theatre.

In a previous review (The Scotsman 2006) it was said you deserve a bigger stage and bigger audience. Do you feel you are now getting the audience you deserve?

I don't know if we are getting the audience we deserve. But, for example, through familiarity people come to watch the shows in Musselburgh.

We do 2 seasons a year, 3 performances in each season. We sell out these pretty easily, which gives us a 750 audience. That‘s not such a big audience for dance but Musselburgh only has 20,000 people so thats 4% of the population coming to see us. If we were to do that in Edinburgh you‘d sell out 50 nights at The Kings. 

So I am hoping that even though we don‘t have massive audiences, we’ve now built up an audience that reiterates we can take on a single night at a bigger venue. Yes we are getting out to a bigger audience but that hasn’t been an overnight thing.

It’s a result of doing lots of educational work, talks, teaching everywhere and just being here; people get used to you being around. Through building awareness to what we’re doing has increased the audience.  Of the small-scale independent companies, we get the highest audience- significantly.  That’s come about through many ways, the feeling of Musselburgh.

The Brunton Theatre (where the company is based) is a brilliant building. You can get married there, divorced there, pay your Council Tax and electricity, get marriage counselling, theatre and dinner! Because of the nature of the building, the dancers meet the street-cleaners, the councillors, the old ladies who come in for tea dancing, the kids. 

That kind of municipal building is something you don’t get with theatre now.  They build these beautiful theatres but how do you get people inside?  We have that naturally in Musselburgh. I think that’s encouraged us to build a similar type of relationship with all our venues.  The Kings, for example, we’ve been working there for about 6 months developing the awareness to the work, through educational events, performance-related events and workshops.

Although Musselburgh has been successful we have to establish links with other places but I don’t want these to be whistle stop tours where you go, take your clothes off and dance. Now when we go to other theatres we try to emulate what we’ve done in Musselburgh.

Tell me the reasons behind your choice for the programme?

Money, artistry, technique, future, articulation of the dancers. Money; if I had enough money I would do a new programme every season.  But I don’t so I do some old work and some new work and some medium scale work - I wanted us to present a strong programme.

'Savaliana' is a strong piece and we have a good dancer who can do this. 'Cervantes', I didn’t want to show a female solo without showing a male solo. 'Under the Skin' because it’s kind of new to us.  When we did it before Under the Skin had 7 lights and it wasn’t enough really but now it has 180 lights.  The reason for doing Under the Skin was, it didn’t feel finished.

Did you make the changes because of the venue?

We made the decision originally to do it that way. I went to the technicians and said, "I want this, this and this and they went, "well give us £40,000 and we’ll do it” So we went from 180 lights to 7 lights to try to construe the idea.

'Violet' is part of a future project. 'Violet' is summer from the Four Seasons.  A future project that we are working on is to choreograph a full-length work of the Four Seasons and while we have people to do spring, autumn and winter we haven’t done them yet.  Although we’ve done this piece before we hadn’t done it with live instrumentation.  The Four Seasons project we are working on hopefully in 2008 will include a full orchestra so we need to try it out on one season - see how it goes and if it feels right.

And 'Duo': if you look at the development of the majority of repertory companies, it is important for them to work with certain pivotal choreographers. The more articulate your body becomes the more it can speak. This choreographer is quite specific within his articulation and I felt it was something that the dancers needed to be a more rounded, holistic. So 'Duo' was a necessary step in the development of the dancers physical vocabulary and it’s quite different to work that we’ve done. So that’s the reason for the programme - Money, future, dancers and physical vocabulary.

When we met previously you told me it was an ambition of yours to work with William Forsyth. How was this realised?

Through Video tapes - tapes got sent to Vancouver- the first lot got lost then the second got lost. Then I sent DVDs; I was like, " we’re a small, provincial group working in a fishing village and we’ve done ‘this’ already”. I got a response back, “yeh, good work, nice dancers, can we come and see you and spend a bit of time?” and so in 2005 Alison Brown came to Musselburgh for a couple of days, watching seeing how we work.  Then after that we got an email saying that he felt that this piece 'Duo' was going to be ok for us and he’d like to offer us it.

Did you get to meet William Forsyth?

Not yet, we’ve had lots of emails. I’m sure at some point that will happen.

Did you choose the costumes?

No it all came with it. Well there really isn’t a costume - well there is. (He smiles wryly: the very little costume that there is small shorts and some fishnet material for a top!)

It looks like a Curve Foundation piece then?

I think he thought it was something we could handle. One of the bits of paper that I’ve got about 'Duo' says, "the dancers were as god made them” and I think in that way it’s a “no frills” piece – there’s not 200 musicians, big projections or big bright colours, its simple.  It’s an ethos that I have followed - simpleness.  It’s due to all sorts of things including budget but to be economic with your work is important.  For example if I buy a coat, I’d rather have a really nice material than lots of fur.

Do you actively seek out firsts (as with premiering Merce Cunningham’s work in Scotland and now with William Forsyth in Britain)?

No if it happens to be, it happens to be.  I have a list in my drawer at work. It has some names on it of people I’d like to work with and I’m already in discussion for future pieces with some of these names. It depends who comes in first, Matsek or whoever we choose to programme. It has new people but it also has established people.  I choose people because I like their dancing and because it’s something we haven’t done before or the time’s been right.  Within a ten year period you have to give your dancers all these choreographers and then after ten years you have someone that is completely rounded.

Are you dancing yourself?

I do like three movements then walk offstage backwards - I don’t know if that counts as dancing. I better do them well eh? (giggles)

Is it still important to you to still be performing?

No, it’s not important to me.  I’d probably be better served not dancing but budgets being budgets I thought rather than hiring someone to do three movements I’d just do them. But I do feel it’s necessary at times to be outside of it and already I have a lot of responsibility and elements to deal with.  I think I’d be best served if my focus was on those and not on that (performing) and I get buzz off dancing in the studio just as good as I would from going on stage.

You are very much involved with the dancers.

Some of the time it's to keep an eye on them! It's not because I always want to be there! It's a thing I saw Merce do - in many ways it's been influenced by him.  He arrives every day in his wheelchair around 12, sometimes 10ish if he's teaching class, but all his paperwork is done in the studio and he's there on hand for any questions.

You have to be there for them to feel they're part of it and to form things the way you want them to be formed. It’s important for me to be with the dancers. Although we work on a project basis some of the dancers are here all the time so we have to look after them. I do everything with the dancers from playing tennis, going to the gym to going out, to being upset together, to being happy together.  The approach is holistic. That's with reference to how they are physically and mentally.

So the Curve Foundation sounds like your life? What do you do to get away and relax?

If I ever feel I have to get away, I have a lot of friends who are not dancers.  They don't know anything about dance so they don't go, “how did your piece go today?”  They go "my job today was crap, my girlfriend and I broke up, bla bla bla!” I suppose I swim, but I don't have a "hobby".

Are you planning to choreograph yourself in the near future?

Not this season. When we take a big step, I have a lot on. Especially like this, it's the first time in a bigger place so I didn't want to add one more thing. I already had technicians, an orchestra that we've never dealt with before and to deal with the instrumentation of the pieces. 

Had I been doing a piece as well it would have given me less time with these elements.  But I’ll do stuff again in the future.  I believe you can only build brick by brick - always try to go one step at a time.  It's a step, but I'm not yet at the top of the stairs. 

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