Oxford Dance Writers

Café Reason’s 10^th  Diamond Night.   24th November 2012

Six different works covering dance, poetry, projection, live music, film and voice in Café Reason’s 10^th Diamond Night  organised this time by Paola Esposito and Fabrizia Verrechia.  There was a good turn out for the cosy space of Oxford Brooke’s drama studio.  Good to see this support for new work.

The first piece by Anne Ryan was a short vignette in which a face peers out from a frame.  A soundtrack of recorded voice traces a range of emotions expressed in the subtle changing nuances of the framed face. Simple, elegant and strong. (more…)

Cafe Reason presents Diamond Night 10

The tenth in Cafe Reason’s series of bi-monthly arts evenings, bringing ‘uncut performance gems’ by members of the group and guests into the spotlight.  Conceived by Jeannie Donald-McKim, Diamond Nights – Explorations in performance is an informal platform for sharing new performance ideas, choreographies, experiments and collaborations. (more…)

Dead Man Dancing and other Tales is a collection of three pieces created by Anamorphic.  Formed at the beginning of 2012, AnaMorphic is the love child of Emma Webb and Georgina Dean.  Simultaneously based in Oxford, Amsterdam and south Poland, the aims of the company are to make work that straddles not only the borders of geographical location but also those of dance, theatre and live art. (more…)

Frederick Ashton’s Ballets:  Style, Performance, Choreography, by Geraldine Morris, Dance Books, 2012

Original, informed and scholarly, this book could transform the way in which Ashton’s ballets are performed today.  On p.60, Morris quotes Nijinska’s complaint:  The dancers turn everything into what they can already do and consequently ‘falsely transmit the choreographic score …’.  Morris addresses this problem with regard to Ashton’s work, which, she argues, we are in danger of losing if we fail to recognise the individual style that is intrinsic to his choreographic output. (more…)

Another performance of work featuring Oxford artists, this time at Roehampton University…

In May we presented an evening of dance exploring dance and ageing at the Ivy Arts Centre in Guildford. Here’s the project website:
http://www.surrey.ac.uk/dft/research/currentprojects/dancingtheinvisible/

The first piece on the programme, Late Work, gets another outing on 21st November at Roehampton University as part of the event The Mature Performer, organised by Dance Diary at the Michaelis Theatre.

Late Work is for four performers – dancers (us) Susie Crow and Jennifer Jackson with musicians Malcolm Atkins and Andrew Melvin –  and interweaves set and improvised dances.  At the heart of the work are questions about how the individual artist is in dialogue with her/his own body or ‘instrument’ and the body of shared disciplinary knowledge – and how improvisation practices and collaboration might give artistic shape to this dialogue.  It is performance as research – so we need an audience who will enjoy engaging in the ideas and challenges that dance and ageing presents. (more…)

‘One spring morning in AD 203, a young woman by the name of Vibia Perpetua, about twenty-two years old, well born, liberally educated, honourably married, went joyfully to her death before a great crowd in the amphitheatre at Carthage.’

From the impressive Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, Cantata Dramatica presents the world premiere of Perpetua, a new dramatic cantata composed by Nick Bicât to a libretto by Nick Pitts-Tucker. Nick Bicât is an award-winning theatre and film composer, whose music is both contemporary and accessible; whilst director Pete Champness is an established film-maker and director. The solo singers and the instrumental ensemble come predominantly from Trinity Laban Conservatoire and will be conducted by Andrew Parrott.  Video projections will feature dancers from Trinity Laban. (more…)

Viscera/Infra/Fool’s Paradise Royal Ballet Mixed Bill, Saturday 3rd November 2012

This triple bill opened with Viscera, a work originally created on Miami City Ballet and presented for the first time by the Royal Ballet. Choreographed by the newly appointed Artist in Residence Liam Scarlett to Lowell Liebermann’s Piano Concerto No.1 this was a thrilling, exhilarating ballet. (more…)

Can’t miss an opportunity so close to home to study and admire the choreography of the legendary Bob Fosse…

‘Murder, greed, corruption, exploitation, adultery and treachery…all those things we hold near and dear to our hearts’…so begins the international award winning musical, Chicago, starring Ali Bastian as Roxie Hart, Stefan Booth as Billy Flynn, Tupele Dorgu as Velma Kelly, and Bernie Nolan as Matron ‘Mama’ Morton. (more…)