May 2016
Monthly Archive
May 31, 2016
This forthcoming DANSOX event offers fascinating examination from a range of perspectives of a great work by a world leading choreographer, Mark Morris’s L’Allegro ed Il Penseroso ed Il Moderato. DANSOX brings together distinguished lecturers from the disciplines of literature, music and dance to share their knowledge; Dr Jonathan Williams on Handel’s music, Dr Margaret Kean on the poetry of John Milton which inspired it, and Guest Lecturer Professor Stephanie Jordan from Roehampton University on Mark Morris’ uniquely musical choreographic invention.
Date: Thursday June 9th 2016, 5.15pm followed by Drinks Reception
Venue: Jacqueline du Pré Building, St Hilda’s College, Cowley Place, Oxford OX4 1DY
Booking: Free and open to all, but book your place via Eventbrite here
Find out more about Dance Scholarship Oxford (DANSOX) here
Or contact Dr Susan Jones here
May 28, 2016
Posted by susiecrow under
Dance and Academia,
reviews | Tags:
Ancient Dance in Modern Dancers,
ancient Roman pantomime,
Arts at The Old Fire Station,
Dr Helen Slaney,
Emily May,
Jacqueline du Pré Music Building,
Le Marchepied,
Ovid's Metamorphoses,
St Hilda's College Oxford,
tragoedia saltata |
[2] Comments
Ovid’s Metamorphoses – an epic poem exploring myths of transformation, love and loss – is the inspiration for a new work created by young Swiss dance company Le Marchepied. Their latest work – forming part of their tour of the UK – is the result of their collaboration with Ancient Dance in Modern Dancers (ADMD). ADMD is a TORCH (The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities) funded project that seeks to investigate the Roman dance form tragoedia saltata (Roman pantomime) and to “develop ways of articulating the knowledge derived from kinaesthetic engagement with ancient material.”
The performance itself was preceded by a free workshop in the Jacqueline du Pré Music Building, at St. Hilda’s College, Oxford. The workshop was open to anyone who wanted to learn more about the form of trageodia saltata and how it may be used in a contemporary setting to generate movement material or interpret ancient texts. Helen Slaney (Classics Fellow at St. Hilda’s College) of ADMD kicked off proceedings with an intriguing, informative introduction to the form of Roman pantomime. Referencing texts by ancient satirist Lucian, Slaney detailed the necessity of narrative precision in the dance form and also stated particular movements – such as freezing, falling or reaching – that would have been used by performers to physically recount the mythological tales. (more…)
May 16, 2016
Posted by susiecrow under
What's happening | Tags:
cinema transmission,
David Finn,
Federico Bonelli,
Frankenstein,
John Macfarlane,
Laura Morera,
Liam Scarlett,
Lowell Liebermann,
Mary Shelley,
narrative ballet,
Royal Opera House,
Steven McRae,
The Royal Ballet |
Leave a Comment
The Royal Ballet’s Artist in Residence Liam Scarlett has become known for ballets that marry highly expressive movement, sophisticated musical response and dark psychological depth – in such works for The Royal Ballet as Asphodel Meadows, Sweet Violets and The Age of Anxiety on the main stage, and Hansel and Gretel in the Linbury Studio Theatre. Now he creates his first full-length work for the main stage with Frankenstein, a period adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Gothic tale of morality and our craving for love, companionship and understanding. Wednesday 18th May’s performance will be relayed live from the Royal Opera House to national and international cinemas, including Phoenix Picturehouse and Odeon Magdalen Street in Oxford.
For this new work Scarlett has assembled a number of regular collaborators. American composer Lowell Liebermann, whose First Piano Concerto provides the music for Scarlett’s Viscera, composes a new score. John Macfarlane (Asphodel Meadows, Sweet Violets, The Age of Anxiety) creates the designs, while David Finn provides lighting design. Dancers include Federico Bonelli, Laura Morera and Steven McRae.
Performance: Wednesday 18th May 2016, 7.15pm
Phoenix Picturehouse, 57 Walton Street, Oxford OX2 6AE: Tickets £8-£20 bookable online here
Odeon, Magdalen St, Oxford OX1 3AE: Tickets £12.50-£15 bookable online here
Find out more about the production here
May 16, 2016
Myths of transformation, love and loss are brought to life the way the ancient Romans would have seen them danced. In collaboration with Oxford University researchers, Swiss company
Le Marchepied have created their version of the popular Graeco-Roman dance form
orchēsis, also called
tragoedia saltata, or tragic pantomime. Their performance
Metamorphoses is accompanied by an open interactive workshop on orchēsis taking place at St Hilda’s College in the morning of Saturday 20th. Audience members are warmly invited to participate or observe in advance of the evening’s performance (for more information on the workshop or to book a place, please contact
helen.slaney@st-hildas.ox.ac.uk).
Since 2013, the Ancient Dance in Modern Dancers research project has been working with groups and individuals, including the Oxford-based Avid for Ovid, to develop a range of conjectures for how orchēsis might have appeared. In their experimental reconstruction, Le Marchepied will present a series of individual interpretations based on mythological scenarios from the Roman poet Ovid’s Metamorphoses, known to have been used as a libretto for orchēsis. They bring to life Ovid’s vibrant tales of gods, mortals, passion, loss, and transformation in a way that has not been seen since antiquity. This performance will form part of Le Marchepied’s 2016 tour of the United Kingdom.
Performance: Saturday, 21 May 2016, 6.00pm
Venue: The Old Fire Station, 40 George Street, Oxford, OX1 2AQ
Tickets: Free, available from www.ticketsoxford.com or 01865 305305
You can find out more about Le Marchepied here and about Ancient Dance in Modern Dancers here
May 8, 2016
Last night I saw Juju Alishina perform Red Night in Stroud, a mesmerising and compelling evening, with three contrasting pieces showcasing different aspects of Alishina’s style. First a mysterious creature, in textured layers of kimono, looked out at the world from beneath a red veil, tasting the elements with her tongue. This was a wonderful play of power and rebellion, a dark liturgy mixing the religious fervour of a demented nun with the sweeping turbulence of a torrent of water. Next Alishina transformed into a dynamic martial figure, a Japanese anime heroine, moving with direct impactive choreography to an impressionistic soundtrack of Japanese street sounds. Viol player Thol Mason brought frisson to the final piece, Desire for infinity, in which Alishina’s red dress and a white sculptural costume conjured images of sea life, the moon and the goddess: the frills of a cuttlefish and the clouds of heaven. Alishina created starkly beautiful images, moving with elegant precision and flow, leaving a feeling of an encounter with some beautiful profound inner truth. (more…)
May 7, 2016
We know a great deal, yet very little, about Nijinsky. The traces of his life, his dancing and his choreography have been used to create biographies, reconstructions, plays, films, novels and documentaries, but we can never, of course, recreate the experience of watching him dance. Kally Lloyd-Jones’ work addresses a very specific aspect of Nijinsky’s life; his tragic descent into madness. Nijinsky’s Last Jump asks what happens when someone loses touch with what the rest of the world considers to be reality.
At the start, we encounter Old Nijinsky (James Bryce), confined within a set that represents both the asylum and the theatre (the flowers, the dressing table, the posters), before his younger self (Darren Brownlie) leaps through the window stage right and collapses panting on the floor. We know from Old Nijinsky’s ports de bras, the costume and the music that this is Le Spectre de la Rose, and throughout the work Lloyd-Jones uses musical references to conjure up instantly the ballets that shaped and punctuated Nijinsky’s life. (more…)
May 6, 2016
Tac-au-Tac‘s young dancers directed by Joëlle Pappas present Spring Into Dance, two entertaining programmes specially choreographed for the stage at the Old Fire Station. These talented and creative performers, aged between 3 and 14 years, share their love for dance in this ideal family show. An unforgettable introduction to contemporary dance!
Performances: Saturday 14th May, 2.30pm and 4.oopm
Venue: Arts at the Old Fire Station, 40 George Street Oxford OX1 2AQ
Tickets: £10, £8 (concs)
Buy online here via Tickets Oxford, or over the phone 01865 305305
or in person at the Oxford Playhouse Box Office, 11-12 Beaumont St, Oxford OX1 2LW
See what’s on at OFS here
Find out more about Tac-au-Tac in the community here
and about other recent Tac-au-Tac performance projects and activities here
May 6, 2016
CoEXist – An exciting evening of new work curated and created by John Darvell’s nocturn.
The company invites you to an intimate sharing, the first live performance of an extract from our new work ‘… And They Have Escaped’. This will be an extraordinary opportunity to see the work up close in the first week of creation, before the professional artists and media partners transcribe the live work into a digital experience.
CoEXist will also feature work from ILLUME, a group of recreational adult dancers, who have worked intensively over five days in collaboration with nocturn to create a dance piece of their own in response to the ideas and themes of the professional work.
A key element of nocturn’s work is our passion for delivering high quality dance to young people across the Thames Valley. Two of these groups will be performing as part of this event, a curtain raiser from Norden Farm Youth Dance presented on one evening and from New Greenham Arts Youth Dance Company on the other.
Performances: Saturday 7th & Sunday 8th May – 7.45pm
Venue: The Gallery, South Hill Park, Ringmead, Bracknell RG12 7PA
Tickets: £12.50, Conc £11, Schools £9
Book in person at box office, online here, or call 01344 484 123.
www.nocturndance.co.uk
@nocturndance
www.southhillpark.org.uk
May 2, 2016
Saturday afternoon at the New Theatre (5.00pm performance) was an extremely happy occasion, with an auditorium full of little girls (and one or two boys) mostly accompanied by their mothers. ENB’s cut-down version of The Sleeping Beauty is pitched somewhere between a pantomime and a ballet, the story narrated by an actress playing the adult Aurora as she watches the rest of the cast dance, mime and act out the fairy tale. An advantage of this approach is that it restores to prominence the nineteenth-century mime scenes.
The cast consisted of very young dancers from the English National Ballet School, and it is frustrating that although the programme gave their names with photographs, there was no cast list included. One of the great pleasures of the afternoon was to see so much energy and emerging talent, but I am unable to name individual dancers with any certainty. (more…)
Oxford Dance Writers 