Arts Council England (ACE) is usually very good at getting itself into trouble but the latest debacle, not necessarily of its own making, is a stark illustration of just how blundering the funding monolith really is. Particularly when it comes to dealing with problems. As the BBC tries to untangle itself from the 40 year […]
It’s been a few years since we last, here in TheLab™, featured a work by Charlotte Vincent and the company that bears her name. As the company moves ever closer to its 20th year of making ‘Motherland’ takes to the stage with a multi-generational cast. An all out choreographic assault of none stop movement this […]
DanceXchange, fresh from creating a massively expensive film that could have been made for coppers and a free lunch for TheSpace, is at it again with another massively expensive website project. The “spec” for this online portal of doom, a remodelling of the website westmidlandsdance.com (snappy, Ed!), describes it as; “digital platform that will showcase […]
If an alien species were to visit this planet looking for information about arts and culture to take back to their own world then said alien would be forgiven for thinking that the arts, in the UK at least, are nothing but an unmitigated success 100% of the time. No project ever goes awry, no […]
Over the last few weeks the remaining dance elements of the Arts Council England/BBC online arts channel, The Space, have finally come online. ‘Come Dance With Me’ (stop laughing at the back) created by Dance East and ‘Spill’ created by DanceXchange, both National Dance Agencies, are now online for your viewing pleasure. The first video […]
After what seemed like 145 years of preparation and build up the Olympics kicked off this past Friday with the opening ceremony at the Olympic Park in East London. Debates will be had, probably for the next 145 years, about the relative artistic and creative merits of the show itself. Was it a “spectacular” illustration […]
During the summer months when dance, for the most part, is very quiet and not a whole lot is happening, we, here in TheLab™, like to exercise our imagination and recently we did some exercise about dance buildings. You all use them at some point or another during your working day whether it be for […]
For the most part it would appear that a politician’s job is to come up with crazy ideas and then let somebody else deal with the resulting mess. Whether it’s storing petrol in jerry cans or deciding that a colossally expensive “digital arts channel” should become a permanent fixture of the culture scene. During a […]
Phoenix Dance Theatre’s latest quadruple bill features four works from the past and present from as varied a set of dance makers you are likely to see in the wacky world of dance. They have ‘Signal’ from Henri Oguike, ‘Catch’ by former company member Ana Luján Sánchez, the tongue twisting ‘Maybe Yes, Maybe No Maybe’ […]
Phoenix Dance Theatre’s latest quadruple bill features four works from the past and present from as varied a set of dance makers you are likely to see in the wacky world of dance. They have ‘Signal’ from Henri Oguike, ‘Catch’ by former company member Ana Lujan Sanchez, the tongue twisting ‘Maybe Yes, Maybe No Maybe’ […]