Oxford Dance Forum presents Dance Scratch Night, at the Old Fire Station (OFS), Oxford, 5th October 2022 – Maggie Watson reports

The Oxford Dance Forum (ODF) Scratch Night was an opportunity for four choreographers to try out newly created dances in front of an audience.  Nathan Grassi introduced each work on behalf of ODF, and skilfully moderated the feedback discussions that followed each performance.

The evening started with a fragment from Andy Solway’s extended work 66 Dances, with which he plans to mark his sixty-sixth birthday over the course of two days at Littlemore Church in December.  Eight dancers, alongside musicians Malcolm Atkins and Paul Medley, presented an improvisation that included danced responses to haikus by Erica Ison, which were written on pieces of paper that were pinned to the back curtain and selected at random.  Imagery from the first haiku inspired a duet in which the dancers circled each other like birds.  Solway and Jenny Parrott responded to the second haiku with movement that conjured up the sense of dripping water; I could almost feel the rain splashing onto Parrott’s head and neck.

 

Oxford Dance Forum presents Dance Scratch Night, Arts at the Old Fire Station 5th October 2022

Oxford Dance Forum (ODF) hosts another stimulating Dance Scratch Night at Arts at the Old Fire Station, an evening of new works in progress by local dance artists, with time for audience feedback and discussion. Oxford artists showing work in this edition are Andy Solway, Ayala Kingsley, and Ségolène Tarte, and ODF is also delighted to welcome visiting company Dew Dance from High Wycombe. Further details about the works in progress they will be sharing:

Andy Solway: Six from 66

Andy Solway has been creating improvised performances since the 1980s. The pieces in this Scratch Night are fragments from a two-day performance planned for later this year. 66 Dances is a challenge, a taking stock, an artistic collaboration, and a reflection on the world over the past 66 years. On 2 December, Andy will be 66. Over 2 days, 2 and 3 December, at Littlemore Church, he will perform 66 dances, supported by an amazing group of dancers, musicians and other collaborators.

Ayala Kingsley: Intermediary

This piece came out of Café Reason’s Starting from Zero lockdown project, where Ayala experimented with using everyday materials and objects to explore states of relationship, restriction, and transformation. It was then developed for Café Reason’s Virtual Diamond Night in March within the theme of Hidden.

Ségolène Tarte: Peregrine Suite (Excerpts; work in progress)

Different times, different places, different states of minds… There are so many ways to travel! Dedicated to all who yearn for travel, and particularly to those who find themselves constrained to traveling in their imaginations, Peregrine Suite is an evocation of travels in time, in space, and in minds; it spins a tale of connections with others, with the self, and with the wondrous. Let yourself be carried along this semi-improvised ambulation across ballet, butoh, and, contemporary; follow the spinners of tales…

Dew Dance: Under the treetops

Under the treetops is a contemporary dance performance, celebrating nature and the significance of trees, intertwined with stories of the community. Performed by Dew Dance, we explore how trees signify growth, sustain life and are a place of shelter. Trees are home. Originally choreographed for bespoke outdoor spaces, Under the treetops is undergoing further development and adaptation for stage.

Date: Wednesday 5th October, 7.30pm

Venue: Arts at the Old Fire Station, 40 George Street, Oxford )X1 2AQ

Tickets: £5 book here

Find out more about Oxford Dance Forum here

 

SpinDrift: Helen Edwards and Oxford Improvisers, Arts at the Old Fire Station 22nd February 2022

Spindrift is a special early evening event in the cafe of the Old Fire Station combining free improvisation by musicians of Oxford Improvisers and dance with special guest Helen Edwards.

Helen Edwards is an Oxford based dancer, artist and arts psychotherapist. She has studied Butoh and Amerta Movement in Indonesia, Japan, Europe and the UK. Helen will perform a solo piece of her own devising (Finding Stone) and also dance in duo with fellow Oxford-based dancer Lizzy Spight.

The evening will present a new piece for improvising musicians and dancers devised by Lawrence Casserley, a larger group piece by Paul Medley, and a piece by Bruno Guastalla using maqam techniques, for loutar and sinewaves.

Programme:

Siròc for loutar with sine waves performed by Bruno Guastalla

Finding Stone solo dance by Helen Edwards with musical accompaniment by Martin Hackett, Philipp Wachsmann, Paul Medley

HIPPO devised by Lawrence Casserley. Dancers: Helen Edwards and Lizzy Spight. Musicians: Lisa Reim, Chris Stubbs, Pete Watson. The five greatest threats to biodiversity can be summarized by the “HIPPO” acronym: (1) Habitat loss, (2) Invasives, (3) Pollution, (4) Population, and (5) Overexploitation. The score consists of five graphic images, which are drawn from some of the most endangered environments on earth: grasslands, oceans, broadleaf forest, arctic regions, Aral Sea.

Spindrift devised by Paul Medley for solo players and small groups

Squall, a text piece devised by Mark Browne for improvisers, that considers some of the many and diverse aspects of large bodies of water.

Performers:

Dancers: Helen Edwards, Lizzy Spight
Musicians: Andrew West, Chris Stubbs, Bruno Guastalla, Lisa Reim, Martin Hackett, Lawrence Casserley, Chris Dammers, Mark Browne, Pete Watson, Philipp Wachsmann, Dan Goren, Lizzy Spight, Paul Medley.

Date: Tuesday 22nd February 6.30pm

Venue: Old Fire Station Cafe, 40 George Street, Oxford OX1 2AQ

Tickets: on the door.

Find out more about Helen Edwards here

Find out more about Oxford Improvisers here

Find out about Lizzy Spight here

 

ODF presents Dance Scratch Night, Arts at the Old Fire Station, 9th February 2022 – Maggie Watson reports

Wednesday 9th February saw the first Dance Scratch Night at the Old Fire Station since the start of the pandemic.   Three local makers, Pragna Das, Susie Crow and Helen Edwards shared new work with an audience, and invited feedback and suggestions during discussions moderated by Jenny Parrott on behalf of Oxford Dance Forum (ODF).  Although they work in different dance and movement genres, all three artists draw on a vast corpus of knowledge and understanding: for Pragna Das and Susie Crow, the heritage of Kathak and ballet; for Helen Edwards, Asian movement traditions including Butoh, and the ancient materiality of the natural world.

 

Café Reason Butoh Dance Theatre present TIPPING POINT: Our World in Crisis, Al Jaber Auditorium Corpus Christi College, 11th & 12th January 2020

With the clock ticking for the world to take action on climate change, Café Reason’s timely and provocative new work offers a creative response to the threats facing our fragile planet. Eloquent dance and eclectic live music express the vulnerability of the earth and our own responsibility for it, past and future.  Tipping Point: Our World in Crisis weaves together surreal physical theatre, vocal improvisation, original video, bizarre costume, and found objects, to shine a slantwise, shifting light on our complex and evolving relationship with the Earth. At once beautiful and disturbing, it presents an absorbing, challenging, and moving audience experience.

Café Reason is an Oxford based experimental performance company specialising in butoh – a radical dance form that originated in post-war Japan. Its work has aways enjoyed a synergy with other disciplines, combining dance with original music, poetry and other texts, installation art, and video. Constantly innovating, the group seeks to extend the boundaries of perception and the interpretation of what it means to be human.

Performances:  Saturday 11th & Sunday 12th January, 7.30pm

Venue:  Al Jaber Auditorium, Corpus Christi College, Merton Street, Oxford, OX1 4JF 

Tickets: £12 book through Eventbrite

Find out more about Café Reason performances and classes here

 

ODF Presents… works by Ségolène Tarte, Ajos Dance and Scarlett Turner at The Old Fire Station, 14th July 2018

ODF Presents… at The Old Fire Station is becoming a crucial annual fixture in Oxford’s dance calendar, showing new works (in-progress) developed with the support of Oxford Dance Forum.  In this year’s edition Ségolène Tarte, Ajos Dance and Scarlett Turner invite you into their world of movement, music and storytelling, offering a preview of eclectic and mesmerising new works:

Ajos Dance & Company‘s Payson is inspired by the Philippine traditional art of chanting epic poems about the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Fusing Filipino arts culture with western contemporary dance, the work is a cross-art collaboration between dancers and live musicians.  Payson is a colourful and dramatic new celebration directed and choreographed by JJ Formento with dance artist Samantha Harper-Robins and musician Gendy Nicolson and her Oxford-based Filipino band members.  Ajos Dance is a social enterprise fighting poverty in the Philippines through education, arts and local community projects.

Scarlett Turner‘s Come as You Are is a solo piece exploring gender neutrality, obscure sexuality and personal identity.  Scarlett Turner identifies the self struggles of gender stereotypes, non-binary and pan sexual identity through personal experiences from childhood to adulthood.  This solo investigates statement of social identity through contemporary dance, spoken word and live imagery.

Imagine an intimate mythology unfolding through classical form and everyday objects. In her new piece Body-No-Body, set to an excerpt of Simeon ten Holt’s hypnotic Canto Ostinato, Oxford based dance artist Ségolène Tarte invites audiences to take a fresh look at ballet and butoh, and at their emotional eloquence.  With this poignant performance meandering between mystical reverence, angst and enlightenment, the dancer shapes a strange universe and is shaped by it.  Let yourself slip into this mysterious yet familiar world… be transported, charmed, moved by a constellation of delicate hesitant steps, balletic grace and pure expressive movement

“ODF Presents…” is part of a three-year Arts Council England funded professional development programme ‘Evolution’ – which aims to support artists in the development of their own artistic practice and the creation of new work.

Performance:  Saturday 14th July 7.30pm

Venue:  Arts at The Old Fire Station, 40 George Street, Oxford OX1 2AQ

Tickets:  £10, £8 concessions

Call 01865 263990 or book online here

Find out more about Oxford Dance Forum here

 

Juju Alishina performs Red Night, Stroud 7th May 2016: Butoh Dance Training by Juju Alishina – Jeannie Donald-McKim reviews

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.

 

Café Reason Butoh Theatre present Dolls’ House, Pegasus Theatre 15th-16th January 2015

Café Reason Butoh Theatre is an experimental performance group specialising in butoh, the iconoclastic dance form that originated in postwar Japan.  Established in Oxford in 1997, Café Reason is the only permanent butoh company in the UK outside London and has achieved a fine reputation for its innovative theatre, site-specific and improvised performances.  An abandoned dolls’ house and an unclaimed bag of costumes were the unexpected starting points for the group’s enigmatic new show Dolls’ House which premieres at the Pegasus Theatre on Friday 16th January.  Through the compelling medium of butoh, with live music and film, it explores the dream symbol of “the House” and reveals the inhabitants’ secret lives and eternal dilemmas.  Dark, moving and humorous, the physical performance is underpinned by live music from a trio of multi-instrumentalists, complementing their compositions with digital effects and found sound to create a haunting soundscape.

Dolls’ House is a collaboration between Café Reason, film maker Dariusz Dziala, and musicians Malcolm Atkins, Bruno Guastalla and Pete McPhaill.  This truly original theatre experience has lighting design by Josh Tomalin.  Dancers are Jeannie Donald McKim, Ayala Kingsley, Fabrizia Verrechia, Ana Barbour and Cath Blackfeather: also appearing are Alex Donaghy, Andreia Paixao, Alan Frank and Paula Esposito.

Performances:  Friday 15th, Saturday 16th January 7.30pm

Venue:  Pegasus Theatre, Magdalen Road, Oxford OX4 1RE

Tickets:  £13, £9 concessions, £6 under 18s

Book online here or call 01865 812150

Find out more about Café Reason here and follow them on Facebook here

Twitter:  @CafeReason #dollbutoh

 

Oxford Dance Forum presents: Dance Scratch Night, Old Fire Station, Tuesday 21 July 2015

On each Scratch Night at the Old Fire Station, local and regional theatre performers, comedians or dance artists perform works in progress for audiences to watch and give feedback on.  This month, DANCE SCRATCH takes place, supported by the wonderful organisation, Oxford Dance Forum (ODF) on Tuesday 21st July.  Dancers get a chance to try out works-in-progress in a safe space; for audiences it is an opportunity to see new dance work and give feedback.  Artists presenting on this occasion are Butoh group Cafe Reason, Paulette Mae, Anuradha Chaturvedi & Meena Anand, and Roosa Leimu-Brown & Anja Meinhardt.

 

Café Reason in The Heart’s Desire at The Old Fire Station 13th-14th June 2014

Café Reason Butoh Dance Theatre and voice artist Anne L Ryan join forces to create a highly original and eccentric piece of physical theatre, combining butoh dance with an extraordinary vocal landscape, for forthcoming performances at the Old Fire Station.  A woman is searching for meaning and balance in her life, moving between the sensory, material world of the Lion and the spiritual realm of the Unicorn to find her one, true desire.  Inspired by the intriguing medieval tapestries The Lady and The Unicorn, The Heart’s Desire uses both voice and movement to present a quirky and playful exploration of our five senses – taste, touch, smell, hearing, and sight – and their rôle in our lives.