March 30, 2005

O'Toole Tells It Like It Is!

Veteran actor Peter O'Toole has ripped into British contemporary theatre in good style calling it, in no particular order, "badly done shit performed by smart-aleck twats"

Speaking in the Radio Times and reported in The Guardian the 72 old actor and star of film classic Lawrence of Arabia, went on in great detail about the paucity of new writing talent in the British theatre scene. To be honest though we preferred him in the long forgotten comedy High Spirits with Steve Guttenburg! (you're fired, Ed!) There is nothing like a comedy ghost movie! (you're fired again! Ed!)

With regard to young actors he stated;

"There are always promising young actors, and today the sensible ones fuck off from what calls itself 'the theatre' as soon as they can because it's such badly done shit."

Andrew Leigh, formerly of the Old Vic, said O'Toole's comments "did not warrant a detailed response". We have no idea who he is but that sounds just like the kind of thing some old boy from the Old Vic probably would say.

Here in the Lab we have little or no idea about theatre and could probably care less about the lack of new talent in the writing stakes but we do like his style. O'Toole that is not the boring guy from the Old Vic.

We do have a slight problem with Mr O'Toole saying that young actors would be better off in Film and Television, especially in the UK. We have to wonder if he has ever seen Eastenders, Casualty or any British film made in the last 20 years!

March 28, 2005

Dance Crumbles on TV

The BBC buried the Dance Film Academy on BBC4 and didn't tell anyone about it, ITV ran the South Bank Show about a couple of ballet dancers who were 'overworked' and the BBC once again illustrated the need to have their broadcasting licence revoked by screening the utterly contemptible Strictly Dance Feaver.

The Dance Film academy was a reality project whereby several dance makers gathered in Wales and slugged it out to win money so they could make a 30 minute dance film. The last we heard the show was scheduled to run out in November of this year. The BBC however pushed it out on the channel that just won't die (BBC4) last Saturday with a repeat on the 26th at 1.40am (no, that's not a typo).

Long standing arts programme The South Bank Show hosted by Melvyn Bragg, the man with the most improbable hair in the world, ran an hour long show on Alina Cojocaru and Johan Kobborg of the Royal Ballet. It was fairly standard fair with production values to match.

Instead of sending a professional camera crew on tour with the dancers or to their numerous guest engagements the dancers were furnished with their own cameras giving the whole thing a feeling of the 'Rough Guide to Ballet'. Punctuated with some shabbily filmed sections from famous ballets performed in a dusty room in a place of no consequence it was all completely forgettable. Listening to old dancers lament about the old days and young dancers lament about 'being tired' is just not very interesting.

We would also like to point out to ITV that using a voice over stating that the dancers are about to fly to Germany from South Africa as they board a small, twin propeller plane is a little stupid to say the least.

The icing on the cake had to be Strictly Dance Fever hosted by Graham Norton on BBC1 this past Saturday. SDF follows the familiar theme of using people with questionable talent, an overly supportive host and panel members slaughtering the unfortunate participants/victims on live national television all in the name of entertainment.

While the show is certainly not meant to be high art or technically sophisticated the horrendous costumes, dire 80's pop tunes and the participants looking for all the world like they have feasted on bitter lemon for a week makes you want to lay down and cry.

Article19 would like to send its heartfelt thanks to our national broadcasters for once again making a complete arse of dance in the space of just two days.

March 24, 2005

ACE and the 3 Year Stretch

Arts Council England (ACE) has announced its three year spending plan for the Regularly Funded Organisation's (RFO's) in England. Following the announcement late last year from the government that arts funding will be frozen for the foreseeable future ACE has removed 121 companies from RFO status whilst increasing funding for other organisations

Describing the cuts as 'hard choices' ACE stated in a press release that;

"In order to deliver those priorities the Arts Council, among other things, is cutting back its budgets to develop new opportunities for the arts and its budget for the Creative Partnerships programme for young people, and reducing the number of organisations receiving regular funding"

The funding body has also agreed to freeze its own, considerable, administration budget of over £46.5million across the UK.

Among the companies coming out on top are BalletLorent with a 100% increase in core funding levels taking them to £80,000 for next year and Motionhouse Dance Theatre who will receive the biggest cash bump next year by over £65,000 to £249,574. Overall most of the 23 contemporary companies in the RFO scheme will receive modest increases in funding

Both Adzido and Badejo Arts have lost their RFO status but both BareBones and Sakoba move under the slightly more secure funding blanket that regular funding provides.

You can read the full editorial by clicking the link below.

[ link ] Editorial: ACE 3 Year Stretch

March 13, 2005

Dance on Film in London

If you have an interest in dance on film then you may want to check out the Constellation Change Screen Dance Festival in London this week.

The press release tells us;

"The 5th Constellation Change Screen Dance Festival takes place in London 16th-19th March 2005.

The Film Talk panel takes place at NFT on Friday 18th March 2005 moderated by Donald Hutera featuring Cynthia Newport (Dance Cuba) and Isabel Rose (Anything But Love,which also screens at the festival). The hugely popular Dance,Camera,Action1, 2 & 3 programme includes Award wiining films from John Albanis(Distemper), Dance to This (Simon Dekker) , B-Girl -The Movie (the extended version by Emily Dell) , Dance With Me (Devon Chavvis)
Case Studies from the Groat Centre for Sleep Disorder (Mitchell Rose)."

You can find out more information by checking out their website.

[ link ] Festival Website

March 05, 2005

Dance in London Survey

We had to laugh here in the Lab when we noticed a question on the Londondance.com user survey on their website relating to the other dance websites that you may read on your travels around the world wide web.

Question number seventeen lists a number of websites for you to choose from none of which is Article19 but it does manage to include Lastminute.com the famous/infamous travel website. A quick scan of the Lastminute website revealed a paucity of information or news about dance based in London or any where else for that matter.

We think they may be a little bit miffed with us down in Londondance towers after we revealed what they do or rather don't spend their considerable ACE funding on.

The survey is somewhat marred by the designers not understanding the difference between a 'checkbox' and a 'radio button'. One is for selecting multiple options and one is for forcing the user to select only one option. In its current state it's fairly easy to make a complete hash of filling the thing in.

[ link ]The Survey on LD.com