May 23, 2005

Tees Valley Dance Gain Academy!

Tees Valley Dance have been awarded the princely sum of £76,740 by the Northern Rock Foundation to establish a Youth Dance Academy in Middlesbrough in the North of England

The press release tells us this;

"The Youth Dance Academy aims to provide a dance programme for a highly diverse range of children and young people which also offers a real progression route. The proposed project intends to create an infrastructure, which coordinates and links projects and support mechanisms within the youth dance sector."

Here in the bitter north there has been an veritable avalanche of dance academies being set up for young people (there is one other Academy, hardly an avalanche! Ed!)

Essentially an Academy is a big step forward from the usual set up of youth oriented projects. Dancers normally have to audition for a place and be very committed to the project in order to stay a member of the company/group.

Tees Valley Dance are a soon to be independent dance company based in Stockton and if you are a professional dancer interested in working for them, and taking part in the academy then check our audition pages for more information.

You may or may not know that Middlesbrough was the inspiration for the opening sequence in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner movie! Don't let that put you off though as a dancer you will be mostly working inside away from the flame towers and flying cars!

May 09, 2005

Khan Goes To Brussels

A recent audition posting for the Akhram Khan Company raised a few eye brows not because an audition for the company is anything out of the ordinary but because of its location, Brussels, Belgium. This seems odd if for no other reason the company is based in London so why travel all the way to another country to run tryouts for new Dancers?

Farooq Chaudhry, the company's producer told Article19 that the reasons for holding the audition overseas were;

"Akram Khan is extremely busy in rehearsals at the moment and is only able to give one weekend of his time to the audition process. With this limitation in mind we decided that to make the process accessible to the whole of Europe that it would best be held at the European hub of Brussels.

Dancers outside of London will find it cheaper to travel and stay in Brussels than to spend a weekend in London. Train and flights to Brussels is extremely cheap nowadays (less than British Rail) and hotels in Brussels can be found for around 50 euros."

Following our research however we discovered this to be far from the truth. If we used a dancer living in Newcastle upon Tyne as an example, it's where Article19 is based, we discovered it was much cheaper to travel from here to London and stay overnight than to either fly or travel by Eurostar to Brussels. Train fair plus accommodation in London would cost just £90 if booked far enough in advance whereas air travel and train travel plus accommodation would cost £196 and £184 respectively. Costs would rise for all destinations if booking closer to the event.

We also raised the issue of whether or not a contemporary dance company funded by Arts Council England should be auditioning overseas in the first place to which Mr Chaudry responded;

"Absolutely not! Since our company was founded in August 2000 our subsidy from the UK has never exceeded more than 25% of our turnover. This in turn reflects the breakdown of activity that we do both in the UK and abroad. I believe that this gives us the right to determine where we hold our auditions as long as they are accessible to UK dancers."

Indeed for the year 2003/2004 the company did apply for £98,235 from ACE and production and touring costs far exceeded this amount. However the funding from ACE is used to actually create the work for touring that generates that income stream. What this means is, no funding from ACE no work to tour with. Currently Akram Khan Dance Company receives £180,000 under ACE's 3 year funding agreement for Regularly Funded Organisations.

DV8 Premiere Delayed

The premiere of DV8's new work "Just for Show" in Brighton has been cancelled due to the illness of one of the company's dancers.

Mikel Aristegui was diagnosed with Cellulitis which the Mayo Clinic describes as;

"...a potentially serious bacterial infection of your skin. It appears as a swollen, red area of skin that feels hot and tender, and it may spread rapidly.

Skin on the lower legs or face is most commonly affected by this infection, though cellulitis can occur on any part of your skin. The infection may only be superficial, but it may also affect the tissues underlying your skin and can spread to your lymph nodes and bloodstream.

Left untreated, the spreading bacterial infection may rapidly turn into a life-threatening condition. That's why it's important to recognize the signs and symptoms of cellulitis and to seek immediate medical attention if they occur."

Mr Arisregui is expected to make a full recovery and the company will premiere the new work in the UK at Warwick Arts Centre on May 28th and 29th.