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

 

balletLORENT in Rapunzel at Oxford Playhouse, 5th April 2013 – Lizzy Spight reviews

Opening picture – adults and children playing with big white and red balls, a big metal tree, white long ropes, children dancing a maypole dance.

The stage set for Rapunzel of tall iron railings is dominant throughout the whole piece with clever variations of the same set to create different scenes and atmospheres. That concept is introduced right at the beginning. Aesthetic to look at one moment, restricting and dark the next, there is effective play with black and white shades of the metal by the lighting design.

 

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?

 

Diamond Night 24th November at Brookes Drama Studio – Lizzy Spight reviews

Diamond Night 24^th November 2012 – Writing for the first time for Oxford Dance Writers, Lizzy Spight gives us a different perspective on a stimulating evening…

Another very enjoyable evening full of little gems and diamonds being worked on. The space is intimate enough for the audience and the performers to get close to each other and for sensing the exchange between both. It creates an atmosphere of openness and being involved with the work in progress of each artist.