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

 

 

Motion & Meaning, St Hilda’s College Oxford Friday 6 July 2018 – Maggie Watson reports

Motion & Meaning presented by DANSOX and the Liveness, Hybridity & Noise Series has been an exciting multi-disciplinary collaboration between dancers, choreographers, composers, instrumentalists and audio-visual artists facilitated by a week-long residency at St Hilda’s College. The project culminated last Friday in a ‘showing’ of the work in progress, alongside an exhibition by artist Simon Klein and sculptor Guillaume Klein. Open rehearsals on Wednesday and Thursday last week revealed some of the opportunities and challenges intrinsic to truly collaborative work: the importance of grace and generosity in allowing other artists in different media sufficient time and space; the need for mutual respect, and the courteous adjustments to be made to accommodate different etiquettes and conventions.

 

Motion & Meaning: Ensemble Klang & Leading Contemporary Dancers Residency, St Hilda’s College, 6th July 2018

DANSOX and the Liveness, Hybridity & Noise Series join forces for this multi-disciplinary presentation of three new works that stretch the synthetic possibilities of music and dance. Over a four-day residency at St Hilda’s College, one of Holland’s leading contemporary music groups, Ensemble Klang, will be working with three composers from Oxford and a team of leading contemporary dancers and choreographers (Malgorzata Dzierzon, Estela Merlos, Patricia Okenwa, Liam Riddick and Piedad Albarracin Seiquer). ‘Open’ rehearsals will take place each afternoon on 4-5 July (15:00–17:00), as well a fully-staged performance at 19:30 on Friday 6 July (tickets required for all sessions and spaces limited so booking early advised).

CUE by Anna Appleby (Rambert Music Fellow and St Hilda’s alumna) is a quirky and comical piece that plays with the audience’s perceptions of the boundaries between dance and music. Grim’s Ditch by composer Joel Baldwin (St Hilda’s) explores melancholia, politics, artistic expression and meaning through the layering of multimedia, sound and physical motion.  Joel’s work features the talented Austrian vocalist Michaela Riener, whose recent solo engagements include works by Steve Reich, Michael Gordon (with dance company EmioGreco|PC), Louis Andriessen (La Passione, TAO) and Hanns Eisler (with the Asko|Schönberg Ensemble).  Her soloistic capabilities, as well as her experience with Ensemble Klang and numerous early music ensembles, make her the ideal candidate for this central role of Grim’s Ditch.  Joseph Currie (Wadham) investigates different kinds of time in movement, motivated by the structural difference of heartbeats and breaths, alongside ideas about gendered breath and the expressive apparatus behind screaming.  A new instrumental piece for the ensemble, written by former Oxford composer, Sophie Sparkes, will also be premiered at the main performance on Friday evening.

Anna Appleby – CUE
Joel Baldwin – Grim’s Ditch (feat. Michaela Riener – mezzo soprano)
Joseph Currie – How many eyes do we have then, being two…
Sophie Sparkes – new work

Both open rehearsals (3-5pm on 4th and 5th July) and the performance at 7:30pm on 6th July will be livestreamed.

Date(s):  Friday, 6 July 7:30pm

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

Tickets:  £25 (+£5 per open rehearsal session); £15 students (free entry to open rehearsals) Available online here

St. Hilda’s Alumnae Ticket Offer:  There is a 20% discount offer available for the alumnae of St. Hilda’s College to mark the 125th Anniversary of St. Hilda’s College. Please email the Development Office for more information.

You can find more information about this event here