First Stage Dance Scratch Evening Pegasus Theatre Friday 24th January

Oxford dance artists making and presenting work for Dancin’ Oxford 2014 invite you to join them at Pegasus Theatre this Friday 24th January, when they will be showing new pieces in preparation at the First Stage Dance Scratch Evening presented by Pegasus & Oxford Dance Forum.  This free event is a fabulous opportunity to get a really close look at new pieces as they are being made.  Audiences have the chance to talk to the artists about the work, share thoughts and influence progress towards the final productions.  As in previous years, most of the pieces will be presented in completed form at the Moving With The Times showcase later in the season.  Artists include: AnaMorphic Dance Theatre, Sole Rebel Tap, Mamé Yansane, Unlock The Chains Collective, Marina Collard & Joe Lott Dance, and the works are suitable for all ages.

Friday 24th January 7.30pm

Pegasus Theatre, Magdalen Road, Oxford OX4 1RE
Full details and tickets from http://www.pegasustheatre.org.uk/shows/dance-scratch/

Box Office:  01865 812160

 

Decreasing Infinity, Moving with the Times, Freedom – Thomas Stell reviews Dancin’ Oxford 2013 events

In my opinion the most remarkable of this year’s Dancin’ Oxford festival events, out of those I saw, was Decreasing Infinity, an evening of classical Indian dance and contemporary work at the Pegasus Theatre. First came two pieces for a solo male dancer in the Bharatanatyam dance form of the Tamil Nadu region in South India. It is very energetic and virile, with a lot of stamping, turning, and flexing of the hands. The stamps especially show great power, as if the force of the movement goes right into the ground below the dancer. Legs are held bent at the knee for long periods. The strength held in the thighs seems quite superhuman. In the jumps the dancer’s torso remains at the same height, moving only horizontally. He seems held up by the energy he has taken from the ground, while the legs move from stamp to stamp independently.

 

Moving with the Times, Pegasus Theatre, Friday 1st March 2013 – Lizzy Spight reviews

Having seen commissioned works in progress at Scratch Night in January, Lizzy Spight returned to see the finished pieces in Moving with the Times, the annual showcase for works by Oxfordshire based dance artists.  Here are her responses to them…

STONE’S THROW – AnaMorphic Dance Theatre

On stage two musicians in the back left corner, with horn and keyboard; pebbles spread all over the stage, on a big screen two children walking through a green landscape, eating sandwiches and leaving markers on the ground.  A man and a woman enter; they dance, talk, share childhood experiences and sandwiches, play with “markers”/ pebbles on the ground, run along pebble paths.

 

Dance Scratch Night at Pegasus Theatre 25th January 2013 – Lizzy Spight views works in progress

Lizzy Spight attended the January Dance Scratch Night at the Pegasus Theatre to see works in development by local dance artists, including some for Moving with the Times, the Dancin’ Oxford platform.  Audience feedback and discussion was facilitated by Fiona Millward.  Lizzy writes:

The first work in progress was Ellyfish & Things by Elly Crowther and Emma Goodwin; a colourful piece with playful elements around the subject of “Happiness”.  Little nuggets of wisdom are framed by playful short dances which bring up the memory of childhood, including some of its darker sides.  This was originally made for a children’s show, and the artists think that to present it as a duet rather than a  solo brings more out of it by enabling it to represent various relationships, maybe mother and child, or two children?