Late Work at GOlive Festival 25th September 2013 – Rebecca JS Nice reviews

We reprint this review with kind permission of the author on whose blog Rebecca Nice: Dance Writer it first appeared.

Jennifer Jackson and Susie Crow (BIG Ballets), Late Work, opened Wednesday 25th September’s show sitting well within a billing of several collaborations between artists. This emphasis on collaboration was reiterated by dancers Crow and Jackson who invited musicians Malcolm Atkins and Andrew Melvin on stage by opening two side doors for their entrance. This introduced them as performers and set a precedent for the rest of the night. Built on improvisations between musicians and dancers, Late Work questioned the function of ballet and rebelled, albeit creatively, against its structures.

 

Oxford dance artists at GOlive Dance and Performance Festival September 2013

September promises to be an exciting month for Oxfordshire based dance artists, several of whom are performing at the new GOlive Dance and Performance Festival curated by dance critic Donald Hutera (the Times) at the Lion and Unicorn Theatre in London.  Part of the Giant Olive Community Theatre Company, and now going into its twenty-fifth year, Kentish Town’s only theatre has firmly established itself as a cultural centre for high quality and innovative theatrical productions.  Resident Company Giant Olive have produced over twenty of their own productions at the venue, including classics, new writing, musical theatre projects and contemporary ballet productions and have also played host to over 300 visiting companies in the last five years.

London will get a chance to see work by the following Oxfordshire dance artists: Paulette Mae, Marina Collard, Nick McKerrow of Anjali, Cecile Feza Bushidi, Ana Barbour, and Susie Crow with Jennifer Jackson as BIG Ballets.

 

Late Work at Roehampton University, 21st November

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.

 

Dancing the Invisible – Late Work

University of Surrey Dance Studies presents

DANCING THE INVISIBLE – LATE WORK

A live dance and music event that interweaves set and improvised dances and engages the audience in discussion about maturity, aging and dance

Tuesday 1st & Wednesday 2nd May at 19:30

Ivy Arts Centre , University of Surrey, Guildford

“of all the oppressions, the one that hits dance the hardest is ageism and it is the
last to be explicitly addressed.”
Jackie Lansley and Fergus Early in The Wise Body (2011)

Does the dancing stop when the body ages?
How does the older dancer draw on sensory memory and the imagination to make dances?
What does “mature ballet” look like?
‘what IS a mature dance?’

Jennifer Jackson (Senior Lecturer and ballet choreographer) leads a group of mature dancers with rich careers in companies such as the Royal Ballet, Rambert and Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet in dance performance that investigates these intriguing questions.