66 Dances: A series of fortunate events. Andy Solway reflects on process, production and performance, Littlemore Church, 2nd-3rd December 2022

Dance is for the young. That’s what the world says. Dance companies are full of young dancers with incredible physical skills, and choreographers are funded to make spectacular performances with their young companies. But this view is belied by the huge numbers of older people who dance into their thirties, forties, fifties and beyond. I have always loved to dance, but I often think that I’m not a ‘real’ dancer. I’ve never been in a big company, I only danced seriously for about 12 years, then I more or less gave up until my late 50s. I don’t talk about dancing to my work colleagues, or in my kayaking club. But still, at 66, dance remains a core part of who I am.

66 Dances began, like many things, during lockdown. My friend Steve Batts, who is director of Echo Echo Dance Theatre Company in Derry, put on November Dances, a series of 21 live streamed performances in November 2020. It was a great event, Every weekday night a community of people from all over the world gathered to watch for about 15 minutes. Each night Steve created a space in our imaginations where he could dance for himself and for us. This summer, I was involved in several dance workshops and projects that I enjoyed immensely. However, I was also feeling afraid. I have had several small ailments that were quite worrying at the time, and many friends have quite serious ongoing health problems. Would I be able to dance in a year’s time? In a week? 66 Dances arose out of these feelings. The idea was to make a two-day event in which I would perform my age in dance.

 

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.

 

Dance in Littlemore presents Dances for Peace and Planet: St Mary & St Nicholas Church Littlemore, 22nd May 2022

Dances for Peace and Planet is a collaboration between Oxford dancers, singers and musicians with St Mary & St Nicholas Church Littlemore, programmed by the church’s Musician in Residence Malcolm Atkins. This diverse programme, reflecting concerns of the current times and responding to the church’s beautiful space, will include performances by Nuzhat Abbas, Susie Crow, Helen Edwards, Jenny Parrott, Andy Solway, Lizzy Spight, Ségolène Tarte and Tingting Burnham Yang, as well as MUE, (dancer Macarena Ortuzar and musician Bruno Guastalla).

Performance: Sunday 22nd May 6.00pm

Venue: St Mary & St Nicholas Church, Cowley Road, ​Littlemore, Oxford OX4 4PP

Tickets: Donations on the door

Find out more about the arts at St Mary & St Nicholas Church here

The development of some work in this programme has been supported through the Oxford Dance Forum programme Creative Labs. Find out 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

 

Unfolding Gesture: Movement, Inscription, Music: DANSOX Summer School 2021. 10, 11 &12 July 2021 at St Hilda’s College, Oxford – Maggie Watson reports

The third annual DANSOX summer school was a scholarly investigation into the relationship between dance and inscription.  It treated both concepts in the broadest sense: ‘dance’ encompassed Western movement styles ranging from the Baroque to the contemporary; ‘inscription’ embraced not only the written word and notation, but also the traces preserved in art, photography, film and the dancing body itself.  The format was hybrid, with a small socially distanced audience present in the Jacqueline du Pré Music Building, and a recorded live stream for external participants.

Alastair Macaulay’s opening lecture looked at literary sources of inspiration for dance and the role of notation in protecting, preserving, and challenging our perceptions of works.  Macaulay’s wide ranging discussion, liberally illustrated with film clips and photographs, raised themes developed in the subsequent lectures and dance workshops.  He noted the subtle ways in which choreographers such as Merce Cunningham have drawn on a literary sources, and cited Pam Tanowitz’ interweaving of dance, music and poetry in her Four Quartets.  Macaulay also discussed the ways in which dances change over time; the problems and inadequacies of recordings; the significance of context, and the readability or otherwise of notation, whether that of Vladimir Stepanov or Vaslav Nijinsky.

 

Dance at Oxford’s Offbeat Festival 22nd-27th June 2021

Oxford’s annual theatre festival Offbeat hosted by Oxford Playhouse and Arts at the Old Fire Station is back after a year’s absence. The brand-new, socially distanced festival brings the best of thought-provoking, entertaining theatre to in-person, online and outdoor audiences from 22nd to 27th June. Here are details of some dance and physical theatre events to watch online from 10.00am Tuesday June 22nd to 9.00pm Sunday June 27th, and a live streamed performance by Drishti Dance on Saturday 26th June at The Old Fire Station.

Kattam Katti transports you to Uttarayan, the world-famous festival in North India where millions of people fly kites together to mark the transition from winter into spring. Tapping into the competitive chaos, creativity and colour of the event, this film brings life to kite flying with lyricism, drama and exquisite technique. Kattam Katti is created and Choreographed by Artistic Director, acclaimed dance artist, Urja Desai Thakore in collaboration with Award-winning Screendance production company, The Motion Dance Collective. Featuring a new generation of Asian British dancers and musicians.

By Pagrav Dance Company

Duration 19 minutes: watch online, on-demand for free: please book online here

Ina Ama is a dance project with the goal of showcasing and facilitating a space for Filipino artists. Jason Mabana writes: As a choreographer with a Filipino heritage, I felt it was necessary to provide a safe space where the dancers, the collaborators and I could exchange and share a few aspects from our culture.

The project started from one of the many articles which mentioned that 20% of the NHS Staff that died during Covid 19 were Filipino. We were all astonished by this shocking number and wanted to help in our own way. The piece is looking at a few subjects such as mental health which is not talked about widely in our culture but also have an approach which is more educating people to some facets of our culture such as Tinikling, The Bayanihan Spirit, family bonding…

We have worked with different collaborators such as The British Filipino Choir (HARAYA) who are a group of singers as well as nurses, Mikayla Teodoro who is a Filipino Set Designer specialized in Puppetry, Troy Cabida, a poet from London who shared his texts for our creation.

By Jason Mabana

Duration 30 minutes: watch online, on-demand, price £5, please book online here

Unfurl – A gallery of dance films without a choreographer. Three dancers from around the globe were invited to film themselves improvising on themes of connection, joy and kindness. Director Joe Lott edited their improvisations to create a portrait of each dancer. Join Bonnie Simons, Tingting Yang, and Karni Ishai, as they gently release their limbs, unwinding like ferns in the breeze. Moments of movement are playfully layered, interwoven and dissolved.

Joe Lott is a Brighton-based choreographer, film-maker and arts and education marketing professional. Follow Joe Lott on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joe_lott_ @Joe_Lott_
Explore Joe’s work: www.joelottdance.co.uk

Tingting Yang is a dance artist and language teacher based in Oxford.

Bonnie Simons is currently completing her Masters in Performance at Chichester University.
Follow Bonnie on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bonniesimonsdance_/ @BonnieSimonsDance_

Karni Ishai is a movement therapist and Jungian analyst.

Watch these films here

Through Our Eyes is a powerful, thought-provoking dance film by Shaquille Brathwaite-Blaggrove, inspired by Black Lives Matter protests. There are many people who still believe racism does not exist. There are many people who believe that systemic oppression does not exist. There are many people who think white privilege does not exist. We invite you to come and see what life is like for us. We want you to see things through our eyes.

Watch the film for free here

Color Me Rainbow

I colour myself a rainbow…
A full spectrum of the shades of yore…
I am embraced in their true brilliance-
From this day to the days of long before! ..
Theo Onken

A collection of short Kathak works from Drishti Dance, each exploring the nature of intricate bond that connects colours with human consciousness and nature. Colours are the outer manifestation of the elemental moods of inner world, joy, sorrow, grief, desire and above all love, and the collage of works is a joyful celebration of these complex emotional connections and their interplay through a combination of movement music and poetry.

Suitable for ages 6 plus. At the Old Fire Station Theatre – and livestreamed. Tickets £10, book online here

 

MUE: improvised performance, St Barnabas Playground Saturday 25th July

Another atmospheric summer evening happening from the Oxford based group MUE:

dance light music at dusk with

Macarena Ortuzar (dance)

Dariusz Dziala (light)

Bruno Guastalla (music)

An improvised performance will happen at the St Barnabas Playground, at the corner of Hart Street and Great Clarendon Street, in Jericho, Oxford

SATURDAY 25th JULY  9:00PM (FREE)

 

DEC Group in Luminous Shadows at The Old Fire Station 23rd May 2013 – Rebecca JS Nice reviews

Luminous Shadows, saw a collection of nine dances teamed with a combination of live music and art. Three visual artists, Clare Bassett, Kassandra Isaacson and Susan Moxley sat at a table in the audience with their paper and inks on display. The marks that they made were simultaneously projected onto the backdrop of the stage by a camera suspended above their table. On stage between the projected image and the artists making it were two dancers, Ana Barbour and Susie Crow and to one side, the musicians Malcolm Atkins and Bruno Guastalla.  Luminous Shadows was created from a concoction of improvisations made in response to each artist’s work; some pieces more structured, others more spontaneous, drawing the audience into a conversation with the artists at play.

 

DEC in Luminous Shadows at the Old Fire Station 23rd May 2013 – Paul Medley reviews

The intimacy of the auditorium combined with the technical range of the Old Fire Station theatre make it an excellent venue for the DEC Project. DEC’s unique combination of dance, music and real-time visual art, with significant elements of improvisation, make heavy demands on set-up and technology. In their performance at the Old Fire Station on Friday all three elements of the performance worked together from the audience perspective. The musicians, Malcolm Atkins and Bruno Guastalla, were visible but not imposing on any sight lines, the three artists, Clare Bassett, Kassandra Isaacson and Susan Moxley, were sitting centrally, visible but not within the performance area thus leaving the stage free for the two dancers, Ana Barbour and Susie Crow.

 

Diamond Nights 28th January 2012

Diamond Nights at Brookes Studio Theatre 28^th January 2012 – Susie Crow writes:

The seventh edition of Café Reason’s regular “Diamond Nights” was an intimate evening of poetic experiments in theatricality.  Introduced by Ana Barbour and lit by Pete Green, the performance began with Ayala Kingsley’s Trunk.  In near darkness assistants drew aside a black velvet curtain to reveal a trunk which began to creak and twitch, its lid tentatively ajar to reveal slivers of torchlight; then streams of bubbles, followed by two grey clad hands as exploring creatures.  Gradually the trunk opened to reveal Ayala as an enigmatic siren bathing and ultimately paddling off on a sea of fabric with her bath-brush… a succession of winning images worth developing.

Flavia Coube’s solo Child juxtaposed her insightful portrayal of childishness with a haunting song by Joanna Nielson which gave an edge of darkness.   In a baggy dress with oversized checks, and hair held by an unruly pink bow Flavia’s comical persona was communicated through wide eyes and ungainly limbs.  Admirable articulation in the fluid and expressive detail of every part of body and face gave this solo clarity and touching authenticity.

A powerful opening to Ségolène Tarte’s Splice as her shadowy figure found its agitated way to a central hanging rope and pool of light.  This work in progress has expanded since previous performances, building its emotional resonance as Ségolène has developed a vulnerable and shifting relationship with the rope, almost lending it life and a character of its own.  She is finding a personal dance language which integrates her balletic grace and vocabulary with strongly defined expressive movement.

Cellist Bruno Guastalla and Macarena Ortuzar continued their fruitful collaboration with Slate.  Sophisticated software allowed the live and recorded cello to be fragmented and randomly fed back and layered, creating an atmospheric sound world into which Macarena crept down the stairs.  Bent back with a layer of skirt over her head, she felt her way into the space with tremulous fingers.  At times she seemed headless, I lost the sense of which was her body’s back and front.  Once fully revealed the image conveyed by her demure cream frock was subverted with movement of delicacy and anguished grotesquerie, suggesting deep and painful stories.

Dariusz Dziala’s video short Cabbage was a lighthearted and surreal collage of images set to a Polish folk song, dazzling in its witty unpredictable invention and inclusion of dance footage both historic and of Café Reason dancers.  Here was editor as choreographer, making surprising combinations of literal and abstracted images dance.

Finally A Walk, a structured group improvisation by Jeannie Donald McKim, Fabrizia Verrechia, Flavia, Ségolène and Ayala with Bruno on cello and singer Janna Ferrett, triggered by Ivor Cutler’s Life in a Scotch Sitting Room, with playful interaction and exchange of a variety of hats.  Hats off to the Café Reason team this evening for conjuring up such arresting dream worlds…