Ms Smith Goes to Leeds
Wednesday, 16 November, 2011 | Comments | Make A Comment
The Northern School of Contemporary Dance has announced that Janet Smith, the current AD of Scottish Dance Theatre, is to become to new principal of the school taking over from the previous incumbent Gurmit Hukam
Ms Smith has been the AD of the Dundee based contemporary dance company for the last 15 years overseeing its transition from the humble Dundee Rep Dance Theatre into something altogether different.
We last featured the company on Article19 during this years Fringe Festival where the company were performing works created in house by the company's dancers, a signature development project of the company.
Janet Smith will take the reigns of the school, one of only four in the UK that specialise in training contemporary dancers and the home of Verve and the Riley Theatre in February of next year.
Birmingham Jerwood Temporary Closure
Wednesday, 5 October, 2011 | Comments | Make A Comment
The Jerwood Centre for the Prevention and Treatment of Dance Injuries located in the Birmingham Hippodrome and run as part of Birmingham Royal Ballet has temporarily suspended access to dancers who are not part of the ballet company.
Until now any professional dancer was able to book appointments and receive treatment at the centre. The Jerwood Centre will form part of DanceUK's proposed National Institute for Dance Medicine programme that will launch in London early next year.
The Birmingham centre will, all being well, function in much the same way the London clinic. It is hoped that the NHS will provide some level of staffing for the centre so that treatment can be provided to dancers for free in consultation with the specialists who already provide treatment to dancers.
Any dancer with private health insurance will still be able to book appointments and receive ongoing treatment or pay for appointments individually.
As yet there is no firm date when the centre will re-open to all dancers but the London clinic, based within the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital in central London, is expected to open early next year.
The Clinic
Tuesday, 20 September, 2011 | Comments | Make A Comment
DanceUK, the national dance advocacy agency, has tentatively announced the creation of a specialist dancer's clinic located within the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital in central London.
The clinic is the first "practical" stage of the proposed National Institute of Dance Medicine that DanceUK has been fund raising to establish for several years now.
Although specific plans of operation have not yet been decided the clinic will house a part-time physiotherapist who will act to both triage and treat professional dancers suffering from the all too common injuries related to their work.
It is anticipated that referrals for treatments and diagnostics (such as x-rays and other scans) will be expedited by virtue of the clinic being located within an orthopaedic hospital. This can't be guaranteed however because it is still the National Health Service (NHS) and speed is not something they are well known for.
As the service is being provided within the NHS all dancers will have to be referred to the clinic via their current GP. DanceUK have not ruled out dancers being able to contact the clinic directly for advice or an appointment but the fine details are still being decided.
In order to get a referral GPs need to be made aware of the clinic in the first place (DanceUK will be running an awareness campaign) and dancers will have to convince their doctor that their job and their livelihood depends on them receiving specialist treatment.
DanceUK anticipates that should dancers run into problems getting referrals they will be able to provide some assistance alongside dance companies and other employers "proving" the patient is a professional dancer.
Initially the in-house physiotherapist will be paid using some of the funds already raised by DanceUK and their partners in this long running endeavour. If the service proves to be successful in its first year then funding for the physiotherapist will then switch to the NHS itself, thereby ensuring its continuation.
The agency are hoping to start the clinic in February 2012 but further details should be available, with more specifics, toward the end of this year or the beginning of next year.
Airborne Pork
Monday, 29 August, 2011 | Comment | Make A Comment
Take a look outside dear readers and see if you can spot any flying pigs! Except of course if you live on the eastern seaboard of the United States right now because hurricane assistance doesn't count, they must have their own wings!
You could also take a thermal reading of hell to see if it's a bit cooler these days because the unthinkable has happened. Arts Council England, otherwise known as The Big Bad, The Funding Monolith or "are you ******* kidding me?" has granted Article19, this pokey little website, some funding to help with the making of our video features.
Some of the more astute among you may have noticed their logo on the last nine videos we've published this week.
Now, this doesn't mean that we, here in TheLab™, are going to "go easy" on the Big Bad, not a bit of it, but it was awfully nice of them to acknowledge how awesome they thought we were in the notification letter......... we might be making that up!
To date we have produced eleven videos (three as yet un-published) with their funding assistance which is eleven more more than some other organisation produced with five times the amount of funding we applied for.
See, we can still throw a good punch when it's called for.
In a statement ACE admitted they thought Article19 was awesome and "all that!". At least they would have if we had asked them because who would say such a thing out loud?
Lots more video features to follow.
ACE NPO Stumble
Thursday, 14 July, 2011 | Comment | Make A Comment
Arts Professional (AP) is reporting that Arts Council England (ACE) may have assessed at least 66 funding applications for the recent National Portfolio Organisation (NPO) program without having access to all the required information.
The AP story says, based on information from confidential documents they have seen;
"... documents reveal that, as a result of a problem with ACE's application logging system, the "financial information that non-RFOs were asked to supply... may not have been taken into consideration during the assessment of these applications"."
ACE conducted an internal review of their application process and the handling of it over a three day period from June 20th - 22nd. The review did find that 66 of the NPO applications had encountered "human error" problems when uploading supporting documents to ACE's computer system. According to AP the ACE staff were told;
"... to treat the process "in the strictest confidence, informing only those who need to play an active part."
When asked by Article19 why the review was to be kept, essentially, on a need to know basis ACE told us that this was a normal procedure until they had actually discovered whether or not there would be problem. When the issue was discovered ACE did not consider it serious enough to warrant discussing the issue with the applicants affected.
Subsequently, ACE has contacted or attempted to contact each of the 66 organisations involved.
Additionally, ACE said they did not want to release this information publicly because they didn't want to undermine confidence in the NPO funding process. Here in TheLab™, we imagine that now the cat is out of the bag that may well be a forlorn hope.
After AP made enquiries, the funding monolith gave assurances that the funding applications were unaffected by the error because ACE was holding missing information "elsewhere".
ACE is currently reviewing 3 applications that failed the NPO test, although they declined to name them. If they are subsequently successful after review the other NPO funded organisations that were successful the first time through will be unaffected. None of the 3 are part of the 66 funding applications that were mis-handled.
You can read the full story here and here from Arts Professional.
Choreography Studies
Monday, 20 June, 2011 | Comments | Make A Comment
Dance East, the National Dance Agency for Ipswich and surrounding locales has announced the 'National Centre of Choreography' which is........ well it's a centre for choreography which is national.
Tortured grammar aside the centre aims to;
"Each LAB is designed as time for research in a highly focussed and intensive two-week period (three over 18 months) to explore movement and contexts in ballet and contemporary dance with full production facilities in the state-of-the-art Jerwood DanceHouse.The National Centre of Choreography will offer choreographers bespoke opportunities to explore their craft in a 'LAB' environment with mentors, dancers, choreographers and artists and guest from a range of other art forms."
Details are somewhat thin on the ground at the moment with no word on how you apply for the project, or even if you can. Dance East have told us that this project is in no way similar to the Work at ThePlace project being run by ThePlace at ThePlace.
Having an open application process would take it one step ahead of ThePlace's offering where participants were decided by a select group of their inner-circle gathering in an underground chapel in black robes incoherently chanting in iambic pentameter. We might be making that up though!
Our very own EvilImp™ was unavailable for comment about Dance East's use of the word "LAB" in their literature.
We'll bring you more details as we get them
Who's Doing What?
Wednesday, 8 June, 2011 | Comments | Make A Comment
Summertime is usually when dance companies go to sleep, at least that's how it appears from the outside, so we got in touch with a lot of them and asked what they are planning for the up and coming autumn season.
One thing that has emerged from our discussions with the companies is that touring is becoming very problematic. Funding cuts are making it harder to make touring financially viable. If it costs them more to do the performance than they can realistically expect to make back, never mind turn a profit, then touring isn't going to happen.
The companies want to show the work, the theaters want to take the work but the money isn't there in sufficient quantities. Solutions to this issue are thin on the ground and we could ask the usual suspects what they plan to do about it but we already know what they plan to do about it.
So, here's what the companies are doing at least.
Jasmin Vardimon Company
At the moment the company is moving into a new facility in Ashford, Kent from their current home in Brighton. Unusually the company will not be touring for the rest of this year after they perform 'Yesterday' at Sadler's Wells on the 9th and 10th of June. New touring is being plotted for Spring 2012 both in the UK and overseas with the current crop of work 'Yesterday', 'Justitia' and '7734'. Ms Vardimon will begin creating a new work in May 2012 for a late 2012 premiere.
Motionhouse Dance Theatre
The Leamington Spa based protagonists of all things jumping and bouncing will be kicking 'Scattered' into gear once again for more touring after playing out this season in Macau, China. New touring begins in the Autumn. Plans are also afoot for a large scale work for the 2012 Olympic Games but nothing is confirmed as yet. Motionhouse will also be running their smaller, portable shows 'Cascade' and 'Underground' throughout June, July and August.
Ace Dance and Music
The Birmingham based dance company is currently in the studio creating a new piece called 'Ice' with Japanese dance maker Akiko Kitanura and digital artist Akihiko Kaneko. 'Ice' will bow at the Riley Theatre in Leeds on October 1st. Continued touring will run alongside the company's current works 'Switch' and 'Listen' through into 2012.
DV8
The company have been MIA for about two years now but a new work is coming in the shape of 'Can We Talk About This?' which is all about censorship, freedom of speech and causing offence. Here in TheLab™ we know a thing or two about causing offence so this should be interesting. Bows sometime in the summer, no firm dates yet, with touring thereafter.
Hofesh Shechter [Company]
No new work to speak of for a while as the company continues touring both in the UK and internationally with a mix of new and old work including, of course, 'Uprising' and 'The Art of Not Looking Back' alongside the new work 'Political Mother'. There will also be limited performances of a "choreographers cut" of 'Political mother' at certain venues. Don't expect any new work work until late next year.
Shobana Jeyasingh Dance Company
Touring for the moment is done so the company will be focusing on two things. First of all they will be making a completely new, as yet untitled, piece and then the company will be recreating a work from from 1988 called 'Configurations'. Expect to see the company back on the road in the Spring of 2012.
Candoco Dance Company
Affectionately known as the 'Candocans' the company, now in its twentieth year, is pulling together a new triple bill as we speak with a new solo piece crafted by Matthias Sperling and a six dancer work from French dance-smith Rachid Ouramdane. The company are also re-making 'Set and Reset' a piece from the 1980's by avant garde dance maker Trisha Brown. The works are set to premiere at The Lowry Theatre in Manchester on September 14th.
2012 will also see the company taking part in the 2012 Olympics with two commissions that are part of the Unlimited project.
Vincent Dance Theatre
No touring coming up but the company is at the beginning of a creative period for a new work called 'Motherland' following a creative hiatus for the company's AD Charlotte Vincent. The work is set to debut next year, probably in the Autumn. 'Motherland' is aiming for a multi-generational feel. The company are getting rehearsals and development under way at The Point in Eastleigh over the next couple of months.
Akram Khan Company
A dance maker we refer to as 'The Little One' is debuting a new work called 'Desh', a solo, that bows at The Curve theatre in Leicester on September 13th. The larger company of dancers will continue with touring of 'Gnosis' and 'Vertical Road' predominately overseas.
Random Dance [Company]
Everybody's favourite twitch-smith will continue touring 'Far' and 'Entity' to theaters in the UK and overseas until at least the end of the year.
Retina Dance Company
A new work from the Belgian born dance maker and company AD Filip van Huffel in the shape of 'Layers of Skin' is currently in production and is set to bow at the Cultuurcentrum Berchem in Belgium on June 23rd. National and international touring will follow from September of this year.
Scottish Dance Theatre
The next major performance push for the company will be in the shape of a triple bill at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Zoo Southside from 23rd-28th August. Two works were created in-house by Sally Owen and Jane Cleville with a third from US dance maker Kate Weare.
Next year the company will continue to tour their 'Letters from America' series featuring two works one by the aforementioned Kate Weare and another by Benjamin Levy. Touring is set to resume in the spring of 2012.
Stop Gap
Surrey based integrated dance company are currently creating a new outdoor work with company dancer Lucy Bennet at the helm. The as yet untitled work will premiere at the Woking Dance Festival on May 23rd with continued touring through the summer. Following that the company will continue to tour their 'Trespass' programme once again in 2012, no word as yet on new works.
Phoenix Dance Theatre
Currently on a touring hiatus they will be back with more performances of their current rep 'Reflected' in the autumn starting on September 22nd continuing into the spring of 2012. The dancers are also creating pieces with dancers from Northern Ballet at the moment, no word as yet if and when you'll get to see those works.
Big Dance, Big Numbers
Wednesday, 8 June, 2011 | Comments | Make A Comment
Big Dance the ACE funded participation programme that encourages people of all ages to get involved in dance projects has agreed that the "1 Million Involved" number cited in press release material is based on an unknown/non-existent metric and includes estimated audience numbers.
A spokesperson for Big Dance could not immediately confirm how the number was derived only that it was an estimate. Big Dance could also not, immediately, provide hard numbers or even an estimate of how many people actually took part in their London activities.
The number was also repeated by Londondance.com a website run by Sadler's Wells Theatre, one of the "hubs" for the Big Dance Project.
The plot thickens somewhat because the official press release includes a quote from Moira Sinclair, London Executive Director of Arts Council England;
"In just 9 days in 2010, more than one million people were involved working with some of the most exciting choreographers and dance companies in the UK - marking an incredible achievement."
That would be more than 110,000 people per day working on a project which even for the most accomplished and patient dance maker would be quite an achievement.
We have asked ACE to comment on Ms Sinclair's statement.
According to their website Big Dance proclaims to be "the ultimate dance experience. The biennial festival features 9 days of dance in unusual spaces throughout London". Activities also take place across the UK.
The Results
Wednesday, 30 March, 2011 | Comments | Make A Comment
Arts Council England has released the numbers for the National Portfolio Organisation funding application process.
With regards to organisations that were cut from regular funding we do not know if they actually applied for NPO funding. They may have chosen to move out of the regular funding bun fight and concentrate on Grants for the Arts.
Additionally, we do not have access to the actual applications or the amounts requested so cuts may not tell the whole story at the moment.
First of all let's deal with who has lost out. There are 19 fewer NPOs in dance than there were RFOs. With the two biggest shocks being the loss of DanceUK and The Cholmondeleys & Featherstonehaughs from the regular funding list.
Also gone are Henri Oguike Dance Company and the spectacularly useless Portland Green Cultural Projects, an organisation that refused to answer questions about what it actually did with over £200,000 in annual funding.
Several of the smaller dance agencies are no longer in the regular funding stream including Dance Digital, Danceworks and Tees Valley Dance.
Big ballet companies have all taken a universal cut of 6.6% over the three year period starting in 2012 (Northern Ballet was 6.5%). The funding to these large scale companies does start climbing back up though over the same three year period.
The most drastic cut to the mid-scale was Ludus Dance suffering a massive drop of 66% over three years from £280,000 to an average of £95,000.
The largest uptick in funding went to Dance South West with a 123% rise over the period. In fact the large dance agencies (DanceXchange, Dance City, et-al) received almost universal increases perhaps mitigating larger losses from local authority funding.
Dance East now ranks as the second highest funded NDA with an increase of 39.6% to £835,000 for the final two years. ACE perhaps wary of the brand new building the agency recently opened suffering at the hands of too many cuts.
ThePlace in London (called The Contemporary Dance Trust in the funding list) took a 12% funding cut in real terms.
Dance Companies
Many dance companies have increased their funding levels fairly substantially. Candoco have an overall rise of 11% taking them to over £400,000, Retina take a 37.5% increase to just over £115,000 and Jasmin Vardimon Company jump 19.1% to £250,000.
DV8, Shobana Jeyasingh, Motionhouse and Phoenix Dance Theatre all take reductions in their funding over the long term.
Sadler's Wells and Rambert have received 4.4% and 5% upticks respectively presumably so the London theatre can commission more washed up pop stars and Rambert can pony up for the electric bills in their as yet un-built new home.
The Royal Opera House, the largest client of ACE and home to The Royal Ballet, takes a £1Million cut next year but, somewhat preposterously, the number rises back up again over the next 3 years to the original level.
TheImp™ will have more analysis later today but you can review the numbers for yourself below.
Update: Blue Eyed Soul, one of the UK's few integrated companies, have issued a press release stating their disappointment at ACE removing their regular funding status. They will hold meetings with the funding monolith concerning their immediate future.
Browser Wars
Monday, 21 March, 2011 | Comments | Make A Comment
It's time to upgrade your web browsers folks, you know, that thing you are using right now to look at the magnificent mess that is the internet.
If you are using an out of date web browser then you are potentially opening yourself up to serious security problems and you are missing out on all the new technologies that are available to make your internet experience just that little bit nicer.
The latest releases are all faster, safer and more efficient than their previous versions and they have the distinct advantage of being completely free.
Here in TheLab™ we try very hard to make Article19 look and behave consistently across all the various browsers but there comes a point when we have to move on. So if something looks weird, doesn't work or is just plain broken then we guarantee you that upgrading you browser will fix it.
Firefox 4 (RC) (PC/Mac)
It's not complete but the "release candidate" version is as near as makes no difference. Faster and less bloated than version 3 with a much cleaner user interface.
Safari 5 (PC/Mac)
Fast and very lightweight on your computers resources. Also comes with "extensions" that can add functionality to your web browsing like flash blockers and ad blockers.
Chrome (PC/Mac)
Uses the same engine under the hood as Safari. It's fast and lightweight and also has "extensions" to help you out with various aspects of web browsing.
Internet Explorer 9
[ Get it from Microsoft (PC only) ]
IE has long been the bane of web site developers and internet users. Version 9 is brand new and it's the closest the software monolith has come to a useable solution for PC users. IE8 and IE7 are rapidly becoming deprecated and many modern websites will abandon support for them over the next 12 months. Upgrade now, you won't regret it.
IE9 users will notice that the typefaces on Article19 become much clearer and smoother thanks to the browsers improved page rendering technology.
One final word. If you work in an office on a networked computer environment and some hack administrator won't upgrade the web browsers "just because". Complain to your manager and get the guy (it's always a guy) fired, "just because".
