Oxford Dance Writers

Something fresh and thought provoking to put in those new 2013 diaries – Oxford based choreographer Joe Lott sends word of her new work Chemistry, which will be performed at The Place in London as part of the annual Resolution! season, but which is also the subject of a photographic exhibition here in Oxford… (more…)

Royal Ballet Nutcracker, broadcast live to the Phoenix Cinema, Oxford. Thursday 13 December 2012

This was the most enjoyable ROH – to- cinema transmission that I’ve seen. The children among the regular ballet audience gave the auditorium the buzz that’s sometimes lacking, and it was fun to be able to see detailed acting in the party scene close-up (not to mention Drosselmeyer’s magic tricks, which for the slightly myopic work better on screen than from the back of the Amphitheatre). (more…)

Writing about the Female Choreographers’ Collective performance in October whetted my curiosity as to what might be discernible differences between the work of female and male choreographers; I approached other performances viewed recently with my antennae thus attuned…

To the Old Fire Station on 20^th October to see Cecilia MacFarlane’s reflection on the tragic accidental death of her son “I’ll leave you to yourself then…”.  A small, pugnacious figure with cropped white hair, Cecilia began encased in a fragile egg of white mesh with blood red ribbons, painfully hatching, her face contorted as she slowly emerged.  (more…)

Diamond Night 24^th November 2012 – Writing for the first time for Oxford Dance Writers, Lizzy Spight gives us a different perspective on a stimulating evening…

Another very enjoyable evening full of little gems and diamonds being worked on. The space is intimate enough for the audience and the performers to get close to each other and for sensing the exchange between both. It creates an atmosphere of openness and being involved with the work in progress of each artist. (more…)

Paco Peña Flamenco Dance Company in Quimeras.  Sadler’s Wells, Sunday 25 November 2012.

Despite superb individual performances, the concept behind this production failed.  A cross between a recital and a narrative drama, the desire simultaneously to explore the early sub-Saharan African musical influences on Flamenco and the interaction between African and Spanish culture today did not result in an artistic unity. I found the musical integration more successful than that of the dance:  Flamenco dance, with its intensely contained emotion seems to me to be the antithesis of African dance, which was exhilarating to watch for exactly opposite reasons.  (more…)

If you missed the chance to see her at the recent Flourish Dance Scratch Night at Pegasus, Oxford based dance artist Marina Collard will be showing her recent work Small Boat at Forward in Motion 2012, Coventry University’s annual festival of contemporary dance and performance this week on Thursday 6th and Friday 7th December. (more…)