Joëlle Pappas Projects presents Nocturne, New College Ante-Chapel 12th December 2019

Nocturne is a unique collaboration between classical musicians and Joëlle Pappas Projects which fuses unusual French music and expressive contemporary dance, in a way that enhances and enlarges the audience’s experience. The music is far more than a backdrop for the dance; and the dance is far more than an enactment of the music.  See this first in the Ante-Chapel of New College, with further performances in and around Oxford scheduled for early 2020.

A solo dance piece accompanies lyrical live music and song, exploring the dynamic relationship of movement and sound.  Joëlle Pappas performs a new contemporary dance work to Fauré’s Nocturne No 1 and Takemitsu’s Rain Tree Sketch II. She takes inspiration from the life and sculptures of Camille Claudel (1864 – 1943) who, after being Rodin’s talented assistant and muse, spent the last 30 years of her life interned in a psychiatric institution.

Tenor Rory Carver (winner Le Jardin des Voix 2019) performs a sequence of 19th-century French songs with pianist Diana Hinds. The songs include Fauré’s much-loved Clair de Lune (set to poetry by Verlaine), Debussy’s magnificent Le Jet d’Eau (Baudelaire) and finishes with a lovely French gem  L’heure exquise (Verlaine) by Reynaldo Hahn.

Performance:  Thursday 12th December 7.30pm

Venue:  New College Ante-Chapel, Holywell Street, OX1 3BN

Tickets:  £12/£10 available on the door

Find out more about Joëlle Pappas Projects here or on Facebook here

Further performances of Nocturne in 2020:

16th February, 7:30pm (£15) The Abbey in Sutton Courtenay

24th February, 1pm  St Michael at the Northgate, Oxford

1st March, 3pm (£10)  St Nicolas Church, Abingdon (Abbey Chamber Concerts)

 

Fertile Ground and Quatuor Voxpopuli: Twilight Dances at Jacqueline du Pré Music Building, 23rd October 2019

Hosted by Dance Scholarship Oxford (DANSOX), Fertile Ground visits Oxford for the first time with a dynamic programme of dance, film and live music. Twilight Dances is a dance and music collaboration between Fertile Ground and Montréal based Quatuor Voxpopuli.  Fertile Ground’s current cohort of four young female professional dancers from the North East take to the stage in a new work created by Artistic Directors and former Rambert dancers Malgorzata Dzierzon and Renaud Wiser.  Performed to Schubert’s String Quartet No.14, Twilight Dances explores the eternal quest for the one thing that we cannot have – immortality.

The evening opens with a new musical performance composed by Voxpopuli’s Artistic Director Patrick Mathieu and a new film commission Trying to Make Sense – Make Sense of It by celebrated movement and theatre artist Wendy Houstoun.

Performance:  Wednesday 23 October, 7:30pm

Venue:  Jacqueline du Pré Music Building, St Hilda’s College, Cowley Pl, Oxford OX4 1DY

Tickets: £15 regular/£5 students.  Book online here or call the Playhouse Box Office on 01865 305305

Find out more about the work of Fertile Ground here

Find out more about Wendy Houstoun here

 

 

Pilgrim: Lucy Suggate with James Holden, Burton Taylor Theatre, Oxford, 6 January 2017 – Maggie Watson reviews

Lucy Suggate and James Holden’s performance of Pilgrim, an investigation into what it is to lose yourself in music, is unforgettable. The theatre was dimly lit, the light diffused by a tinge of pink and blue, with chairs arranged around the edge of the room to leave as much performance space as possible. It was a wet night, and our shoes left damp patches on the dance floor as we edged around it to our seats, but fortunately Lucy Suggate is a ‘terpsichore in sneakers’ – literally – wearing tracksuit bottoms and a long dark shirt buttoned to the neck, which in time she removes revealing a gleaming mosaic-encrusted evening top.