Ana Dance

Author Archive

On Friday, I went along to The Pegasus Theatre to the intimate question and answer session marking the end of Euton Daley’s Artistic Directorship of The Pegasus Theatre.  (and the beginning of his new Artistic journey)  Entitled An interview with Euton Daley: Pegasus, politics and poetics the evening was the opportunity for guests to hear Euton’s thoughts on his time at Pegasus – the changing cultural and political contexts, the joys, frustrations and  inspirations of the job and the various ways in which the theatre itself and his role have changed over the years.  Interviewed by Jane George, Senior Lecturer in Drama, University of Worcester Euton’s soft spoken replies showed the easy going, positive attitude together with commitment, focus and a respect for each individual that characterises Euton’s approach.  When asked, for him the essence of  Pegasus was passion and team work.

Two new discoveries about Euton: – His love of football-  he had wanted to be a professional footballer and his interest in performance poetry.  His parting present was an example of this in rap.  A piece which, while mentionning social inequality appeared (perplexingly) to accept these differences – ‘don’t shed a tear,’  before delivering a final and ominous last laugh with a reference to the invasion of privacy that will be affecting everyone.  I’m looking forward to seeing where Euton goes next and hoping that both Euton and Pegasus continue to fly (with their feet on the ground) – even if they are no longer travelling together.

Yesterday I went along with Anjali to The Southbank for their press launch at The Royal Festival Hall. The group showed two finished pieces – a solo and a duet, along with the two work in progress company pieces (‘The Birds’ and ‘Beethoven’ ) choreographed during separate research and development weeks with Lea Anderson and Gary Clarke. As ever the personality, skills and commitment of the dancers shone through. Each piece had a different quality and combined precision with humour, energy and humanity. The Feedback session facilitated by Donald Hutera offered another opportunity for the individuality and confidence of these dancers to speak. In the audience was Peta Lily who has also recently worked with the company developing their skills in physical theatre and comedy. This was the first time she had actually seen the company dance and she spoke for many audience members when she praised the quality, energy and audience connection they achieved.

I have only admiration for this company and the sustained hard work put in by the dancers, Artistic Director Nicole Thompson Stuart, Dance Artist Aya Kobayashi and Project Manager Sian Goldby. At the end of a long day, tired and arriving back late to unload props and costumes the group responded to the final irksome mysteries of filling a van with diesel -with a pump that turned out not to work- with banter and supportive comraderie. A lovely quality evident throughout the day which makes this group so special.
I sincerely hope that continued support for the company will be forthcoming and match the generosity and faith expressed by their ‘angels’ as Anjali launches itself ever higher in these fragile and difficult times.

On Saturday I joined other members of Cafe Reason and Anne L Ryan of ‘Moving Tone’ at the Ashmolean in Oxford. We were meeting to plan and begin preparations for a work in progress performance there on August 26th. This forms part of our preparation towards a new collaborative work entitled ‘The Heart’s Desire’  which we aim to perform next March and June.
We had been allocated the Randolph Sculpture Gallery, a long symmetrical space lined with Classical sculptures and busts, many with missing body parts.
What began as an intention to try out a couple of ideas to see how they would work in the space became a 40 minute improvised performance as intrigued gallery visitors stopped to watch or sometimes even joined in.
Combining movement and voice work in such a space opened up lots of possibilities and we are excited about the prospect of developing these further.

Today was the Oxford Dance Forum meeting at The Old Firestation.  Great to see so many faces.  We had feedback on the homebed programme from Claire Thompson and Kyla LuckingBooth, an opportunity to brainstorm and make suggestions for the next rounds of professional development training, a presentation with film showing from Film Oxford with Gary Shenton, an update from Swindon Dance by Helen Ganberg and a presentation by Miranda Laurence on the homebed pilot project working with crisis members which produced a film ‘pulse’.

As ever,  seeing, meeting and catching up with the other dance artists was a valuable and enjoyable aspect of the meeting.    I am looking forward to seeing the members’ suggestions materialise into the Autumn and Spring professional development programme.  I am also encouraged to organise a new series of choreocollective for the autumn.

Today I went to the third of Anjali’s recent work in progress sharings.  The last week they have been working with theatre director Peta Lilly.  Nicole, Anjali’s director has long admired her work and invited her to develop and build the group’s skills in physical theatre including audience communication, use of voice and timing.  The presentation saw a series of Peta’s dark clowning techniques employed by the group as they introduced themselves and their body parts and asked what we were afraid of.   Spiders? Snakes? Death? Dead people? Speaking in public?  Timing , mime, choreography and word were all used and I found myself grimacing, holding my breath and laughing at several points in the sharing.

Yet again Anjali had risen to a new challenge and had clearly taken on new devices and approaches with enthusiasm and commitment expanding even further the range of their performance techniques.  This work will be built on by Aya Kobayashi and Nicole over the coming weeks with a press launch and showing due at the Royal Festival Hall on the 9th July.

When the sun shines I feel brighter.  Even before I woke up this morning the effects of the sun outside had somehow translated themselves to my body.  I was stirring before the alarm with a restless energy, a need and desire to wake up and do something coming from my body and my mind before the functional duty necessity of getting up in time for school.

Today I felt the grass between my toes, the breeze on my skin, smelled the damp of earth and the green of leaves, lay looking up at the blue sky through gently swaying branches and studied the detail between the long stalks and grasses.  I could breath and feel peaceful and ready to do something.  I didn’t quite get on to the ‘something’ but it is lurking and may be a few more sunny days will see it finally come out in to the light.

Just over a week ago I went to another Anjali sharing of work in progress. This time with choreographer Gary Clarke supported by Anjali’s Aya Kobayashi and artistic director Nicole Thompson. The group had had a great week being challenged and inspired by Gary. Taking as their starting point the title ‘Genius’ they focussed on Beethoven in a series of great sketches and ideas with strong images, elements of humour and ensemble work. I am looking forward to their development of this piece. The Anjali dancers just get better and better. They will be taking this alongside other new works in progress to the Southbank very soon.

More and more of my time seems to be spent on the computer and on grappling with learning new programmes or applications -whether it’s to learn how to update website blog, put together some kind of graphic image, edit photos, videos or sound, do administration consult people’s availability, etc. Now with music I have finally begun to embark -belatedly- on transferring onto computer to be able to play through an ipod. I had barely moved from tapes to CD and now I finally have a few CDs they have become redundant as the man in the shop told me when I enquired about the possibility of buying a machine which would play CD’s and IPOD. In fact I was shown speakers that don’t even plug into anything and can be activated remotely. I can see in writing this I am revealing my extreme backwardness in embracing new technology and my general slowness in moving forward. These are all amazing developments. But at the same time I can’t help feeling that this relentless renewal and upgrading of everything around us actually prevents us moving forward as we are so busy running to stand still. I must be getting old…

Here are a couple of images shot by Judie Waldman during rehearsal for DEC’s ‘Luminous Shadows’.

photo: Judie Waldman

photo: Judie Waldman 2013

How to be still?  Different qualities of stillness – relaxed, alert, tense.  How many degrees of tension or body quality can be employed while standing in the same neutral position?  What substances fill the body frame to give it a particular quality?   This term Cafe Reason are exploring contrasts and this was my opening class.  Can you contrast one stillness with another type of stillness?  Can you read your partner’s stillness and respond with a contrasting reflection of it?  As a more obvious contrast I put on the loudest, fastest, most upbeat music I could find.  I loved walking around watching the pairs fighting to stay still.    Part of Butoh is so much about being able to pause or be quiet so the smallest movement can be appreciated and expanded.  This was an attempt to help us find a way of being still which was not about ‘not moving’ but being still in different ways.

I’m looking forward to exploring more senses of contrast from darkness to light,  sound and silence.