November 30, 2004

Bonnie Bird Award Winners

Laban has announced the winners of this years Bonnie Bird Awards. Presented at the Laban Centre by Lea Anderson on November 24th this is the 20th anniversary of the competition

Winners are from the fields of dance making and dance writing and were, in no particular order, Thomas Small, Kirsty Tap, Dylan Quinn, Rashpal Singh Bansal, Marguerite Caruana Galizia, Katie Phillips, Crystal Pite, and Thomas Lehman.

Awards ranged from £1,200 to £1,500 and they can use the money to further develop their work although not that much since £1,500 doesn't buy you a whole lot these days.

The awards are so-called because they were created in honour of Bonnie Bird, one time dancer with Martha Graham. She was also a teacher and one of the first to teach Graham technique in the UK. Ms Bird includes among her pupils Merce Cunningham, so we have her to blame for that one!

Anthony Bowne, Director of Laban, said the awards represented the “brightest and best new choreographers in the country.” We have no idea with what justification Mr Bowne makes such a broad sweeping claim but there it is anyway, hanging out there like a wet towel on a door knob.

We wish the choreographers well and if they want us to feature their work, we're right here, waiting and listening for your call.

November 19, 2004

No Bones!

We are the first to admit when we make a mistake and to vigorously defend our position when falsely accused but when we cock-up it's usually a good one

Most folk miss the start of a performance by a few minutes at most but we managed to miss one by a good 48 hours and in the process failed to bring you, our dear readers, what we have been told is some pretty good work from BareBones Dance Company.

Our intrepid correspondent had gotten into his head that their show in Newcastle was being performed over two days on Friday 19th and Saturday 20th November despite having a very specific conversation with the company manager during which it was made clear the show was on Thursday 18th and Friday 19th with a matinee show on the Friday being the only one. Alas the mistake was discovered too late and the mid-afternoon show was missed.

But never fear for we shall venture South at the end of this month to bring you video from the company's performance in Birmingham and our man in Newcastle will be given a sound thrashing with a salted haddock for his failings.

November 18, 2004

Culture Show Fails to Shine

'Culture' is the BBC's latest attempt to appease the country's art folk who for a long time have been complaining that the BBC has abandoned arts programming in favour of cheap soaps, Fame Academy and Michael Palin bumbling his way around far flung corners of the earth irritating the locals.

Sadly the programme is about as interesting to watch as the aforementioned trio of what passes for entertainment from the BBC. Tonight's edition, presented by Kwame Kwei-Armah of Casualty fame, covers the opening of the rebuilt Museum of Modern Art and the latest attempts by classical musicians to get 'young people' listening to their music (that's an old chestnut, Ed!) There are more features on the programme, including a patronising piece on internet music downloading that has been done to death, but we're only 20 minutes in and the Lab members are already scrabbling at the windows in a vain attempt to escape.

Culture seems to be unsure about what it actually is! Is it a news show? A magazine show? An 'art' show? We don't know and we don't much care because it is completely boring. Watching Robert Hughes, apparently a 'celebrated' art critic', wander around the expensively redesigned MoMA in New York is not our idea of an interesting hours viewing.

To be fair to the BBC making a news programme about the arts appear 'interesting' is pretty difficult but Culture is most certainly not the way to go.

Culture is on BBC2 on Thursday's at 7pm

November 16, 2004

Royal Contemporary Dance

On Wednesday 17th November Dance City, the National Dance Agency for the North East of England will play host to a touch of royalty in the shape of HRH The Countess of Wessex, more commonly known as, if we may use the word 'common' when referring to royalty, Sophie Wessex wife of Prince Edward

HRH will be watching a performance by kids who are part of the Dance City 'Academy', formerly known as the Lindbury Programme and touring the site of the new building as well as meeting various folks who have been privileged enough to be invited.

We actually have very little idea what will be going on during the visit because we are not invited for fear our scruffy correspondent may lower the tone and get mud on the carpet. We imagine that local TV networks are invited along with the local press, such bastions of support for the arts are they. We will try and scavenge some details if we can!

Sources tell us that the building will be 'locked down' for the duration of the visit for reasons that are not exactly clear at the time of writing. Security is not thought to be a major concern for a visiting Royal, particularly HRH Wessex. Al Qaeda could not be contacted for comment and the Department of Homeland Security's threat level remained on 'tangerine' meaning there is a significant risk of exploding small fruit sometime soon. You can call 1-800-BARKING-MAD-TERRORIST for more information.

Having worked with the Academy members on a previous occasion we, here in the Lab, hope they enjoy the experience.

This is Article19, reporting for the common man, in the gutter, Newcastle upon Tyne.

November 15, 2004

File Sharing Good For Music

An interesting story is on Wired News at the moment from the US music combo Wilco and how they think online music sharing over peer to peer networks is not hurting but helping the music business and how record execs. are just completely out of touch.

Band member Tweedy says;

"A piece of art is not a loaf of bread. When someone steals a loaf of bread from the store, that's it. The loaf of bread is gone. When someone downloads a piece of music, it's just data until the listener puts that music back together with their own ears, their mind, their subjective experience. How they perceive your work changes your work."

In light of the nonsensical actions by the RIAA and the BPI that involves suing individuals for using Peer to Peer network like Kazaa and Limewire this is a breath of fresh air. If like us you are sick and tired of hearing Madonna and Robbie Williams whine about only being able to afford 5 new houses this year then click and read on!

[ link ] Wired News Article

November 10, 2004

New Webloggs on Article19

Today we welcome two new bloggers to Art19 both from the Scottish School of Contemporary Dance [SSCD]

Bryony Mylroie-Smith and Sarah Blanc follow a fine tradition of blogging here in the Lab that was started by Catherine Bell back in the day (how we miss Catherine). Bloggers are free to write what they please and our two newest recruits should be bringing us the inside track on what's going on at the SSCD and just how their training is progressing.

If you want to blog on Article19 then all you have to do is drop us a line through the contact page and we will set it all up for you. We use the Movabletype system and everything is nice and automated for you so you don't need a PHd in Quantum Mechanics to figure it all out. Not that a PHd in Quantum Mechanics would help you with blogging we just ike writing the word Quantum.

You can access the new bloggs over to the right, although give them time to start their entries.

[edit: we can also add Jack Webb to the list, also from SSCD]

November 09, 2004

hang fire!

excuse our mess, the news page database is being rebuilt, sorry for any confusion or delay

November 04, 2004

Capture 3 No Reviews Required

Arts Council England yesterday declined Article19's request for a review copy of the Capture 3 dance film series stating that a review at this time would be 'inappropriate' since the series was released in February of this year.

Following our reviews of the Capture2 film series, Capture is Arts Council England's dance film programme, we contacted ACE for review copies of Capture 3. After a series of phone calls to various agencies and much confusion as to who was actually dealing with the films we were eventually led to ACE in London and were told that review tapes would only be released to selected publications, implying but not stating that Article19 was not one of them.

Initially Article19 was told by South East Dance that the films had not yet been completed and they directed us to call Portland Green, ACE's partner for the Capture 4 series. Portland Green then informed Article19 Capture 3 was not yet available for review and sent us a copy of the Capture 2 series and those films were reviewed by Jordan Kinsella and published two weeks ago. In that review only one film scored five stars out of ten and in concluding one review Jordan wrote;

"In the final scene when the man lights his flare we can only lament his failure to set the camera on fire and destroy this nonsense, sparing the world this miserable diatribe on the human condition."

Article19 put it to ACE in London that it appeared they did not want to release the tapes for review because Capture 2 had fared so badly. An ACE representative from the dance department said that this was not the case and declined to discuss the matter any further. We were told that Capture 3 was released some time ago with much fanfare and publicity, so much so that Article19 and everybody else we have spoken to missed it completely.

We will continue pressing for the release of review tapes or DVD's from ACE in London and if that fails a request will be made under the Freedom of Information Act which sadly does not come into force until January next year.

Stay tuned.