September 27, 2004

Ex Rambert Dancer Wins Place Prize

Rafael Bonachela, formerly of Rambert, has scooped the £25,000 first prize in the Place Prize dance "competition".

Mr Bonachlea is perhaps best known, if you can call it that, for choreographing the world tour of some kind or another for Kylie Minogue!

We're saying nothing!

September 22, 2004

Rural Retreat Again!

Dance East the National Dance Agency for the East of England has announced that once again it will be organising a so-called "Rural Retreat" for ballet company directors from around the world.

The aim of the gathering is to have all of the directors in one place for 2-3 days to discuss the issues that are most pertinent to the staid classical art form in today's world of 24 hour cable television and an ever more energetic and sophisticated assault on the senses of kids by a media machine keen to grab their attention at any cost.

Assis Carriero, director of Dance East told Article19 via email that;

"The overall aim of the Retreats is to offer time away from the daily running of companies to look at key issues facing the art form and to discuss ways forward. The Retreat will have two facilitators, Prof. Christopher Bannerman and Sue Hoyle and two guest speakers, one confirmed is Nicholas Hytner, Director of the Royal National Theatre."

As the meeting is completely informal however and the directors are not members of any accredited organisation they are not required to sign any agreements to a commitment for change in the way they operate. One example might be that classical companies, particularly in the UK, undertake serious analysis of the world outside of their studios and come to the shocking realisation that we no longer live in the late 19th century.

Ms Carriero did state in her email;

"What the Retreat aims to do is create a consensual but catalytic space where differences exist and they respect each other's views and these can co-exist. It is about open minds for change."

So that's all much clearer then!

Article19 reported on the event when it last occurred in 2003 and at the time it was noted how completely noncommittal the statements released by the group were after the "retreat" was over. The whole event seemed to be little more that a very expensive PR exercise the main aim of which was to boost the public profile of Dance East in the dance world.

When asked by Article19 how much the event would cost to stage Dance East declined to provide that information. When pressed for a reason Dance East told Article19 that;

"The project is completely fund raised by DanceEast with no core funding going into the project. Otherwise, I don't see the need to make public the total cost as I am not sure what the relevance of this question is."

Article19 will attempt to secure the information under the Freedom of Information Act which comes into force on January 1st 2005.

The Rural Retreat takes place in Hertfordshire from January 7th to 9th 2005.

[ link ] Rural Retreat Editorial from 2003

September 16, 2004

Place Prize Entrants Announced

The Place Prize has announced the five finalist who will shoot it out, not literally which may have been more entertaining, for the £25,000 first prize. Billed as the "Turner Prize for Dance", although we are not sure by who (wasn't that us? Ed!), TPP is a competitive process with judges and audience voting machines and tearfull acceptance speeches no doubt.

Sponsored by Bloomberg, the financial services information giant, the five finalists have been whittled down from 198 original applicants. The winner need not spend the £25,000 prize on anything dance related, they could buy a new car if they wish or take the whole lot us out for a nice meal.

The finalists are; Rafael Bonachela's E2 7SD, Rosemary Butcher's Hidden Voices, Tom Roden and Pete Shenton's The Short Still Show, Hofesh Shechter's Cult and Bawren Tavaziva's Umdlalo KaSisi.

Now it would appear that some of these guys have not read our editorial "Dance Goes Insane" and learned of their impending future careers turning corn flake packets into amusing animal shapes! Ms Butcher's work involves a female soloist standing on the spot shifting from one foot to the other and not much else. Mr Bonachela seems to have woken up one morning under the misguided impression that he's William Forsythe. Anybody who starts talking about using "soundscapes" instead of music should be thrashed with a fish, put in a barrel and thrown over the most conveniently available waterfall and then we'll go to work on him. (you see, this is why we don't let you write reviews, Ed!)

The Place Prize website has provided us with short video snippets of each of the finalists as well as sections from the video submissions from a few of the other applicants. You can read more about the Prize in our interview with Theresa Beattie by Zoe Boden.

TPP runs at The Place from Wed 15 - Sat 25 September at 8pm.

[ link ] Interview with Theresa Beattie

[ link ] Place Prize Website

[ link ] Dance Goes Insane

September 15, 2004

Want To Be A Clowndoctor?

Arts Council England North East (ACE) is supporting a programme in conjunction with Hearts and Minds, based in Edinburgh to get nine (9) artists to take part in the programme in the North East of England.

Now many of you may already think that a lot of doctors in the NHS are clowns already but there is a serious point to this programme. The press release describes Clowndoctoring thus;

"Clowndoctoring is an established international arts in health discipline that aims to contribute to the emotional, mental and physical well being of children who are in hospital and hospice care. This is achieved through participation, distraction, communication and the demystifying of medical procedures. Performing arts are used as a starting point and activities include anything from clowning, improvisation and puppetry to dance, storytelling and music."

This particular programme is looking for performance artists that specialise in physical theatre or clowning (presumably dancers fall into those categories). Your work would involve working with sick children in hospitals and with "health care professionals".

Initially ACE North East is holding a seminar in Newcastle on Friday December 10th to provide further information for both artists and those working in health care.

For more information call Kate Roebuck at ACE on 0191 255 8542.

[ link ] Hearts and Minds

[ link ] Email Kate Roebuck

September 06, 2004

Mini-Features Are Here

Today we launch the mini-feature. It's not that a mini-feature is shorter than your average feature article here on Article19 but sometimes we get an idea for a piece or we need to answer some questions and none of the other portions of the site seem to fit the bill.

So we started a new section for no other reason than we can and we thought it was a fairly good idea. You can let us know what you think via the forum so don't be shy. If you don't speak then no one will ever hear you. We're fairly sure that was said by someone of great importance but we can't remember who it was.

[ link ] The Inaugural Feature

September 03, 2004

Yes We Do Have A Forum

Article19's forum was launched well over a year ago now. It was intended as a place to enable those who were interested to talk about the articles on this site, their own work, their thoughts, etc, etc.

It didn't quite work out that way sadly so now it is used mainly to post auditions information and other job info. There is a section for discussion/complaints and so on so if you want to use it it is right there you just have to click.

[ link ] The Forum