Via a tweet from Shaun McLernon.
It’s part of the preparations for Wings of Desire, the big outdoor dance/visual spectacular as part of International Dance Festival Birmingham. Happening in Victoria Sq tonight and running until Saturday. It’s free and I bet it’ll be ace.
Encompass is an online project encouraging people to upload films of themsleves dancing, with dance tutorials in various styles created by professional dance artists.
Some of the submissions will be used in:
a 360 degree dance film performance in a huge digital igloo, which will take place on 19-21 July 2012
There are all sorts of other aspects to the project too. It’s part of the Dancing for the Games programme and is led by Toby Norman-Wright with involvement from all sorts of others including Sonia Sabri. More info, with details of how to get involved, on the Encompass website.
Because nothing says ‘I went to a thing’ quite like a blurry photo. The chap on stage is very probably Stuart Griffiths, Hippodrome Chief Exec and Co-Artistic Director of International Dance Festival Birmingham, announcing the launch of that very same festival.
There’s plenty of good stuff on over the next little while. There’s the free Breathe the Beat roadshow at the Bullring today with contemporary dance legend Louise Lecavalier in this evening.
Also tonight is the last night of Un Peu De Tendresse Bordel de Merde at Warwick Arts Centre – a show that’s had a lot of people talking and was the reason this guy was wandering around wearing nothing but a sandwich board the other day.
There’s a load of dance films being shown around town, curated by Flatpack (a nice little partnership, I thought). Birmingham Royal Ballet are doing a Three Short Works at the Crescent Theatre later in the week and next weekend there’s a whole load of family events going on.
There’s more too. Here’s the full line-up.
This pic showed up on the Facebook Page for International Dance Festival Birmingham last week.
On the left: David Massingham, Artistic Director of DanceXchange and co-director of IDFB. On the right: Goldie.
It’s for Wings of Desire, a big outdoor spectacular that’s taking place in Victoria Sq in mid-May, that will also feature:
Basically, if this is anything less than incredible I’ll eat my hat.
Back in July, Rosie Kay Dance Company performed The Great Train Dance on the Severn Valley Railway between Kidderminster and Highley:
The Great Train Dance performers; dancers and students from throughout the region, transformed the Severn Valley Railway into a magical experience with a puzzle to solve. In a Hitchcock thriller designed for families, this fascinating performance drew all ages on the train into the world of the absurd and seduce everyone into hunting for clues.
I missed this – I got stuck in traffic on the way there and just missed the train – so it’s good to see a film’s been produced (by Louis Price). It can’t have been easy to shoot though, there’s all sorts going on and was only performed once. It looks like it was a lot of fun.
David Bintley’s the Artistic Director at Birmingham Royal Ballet. Give that man a donation.
Also, BRB are doing The Nutcracker which opens at the Hippodrome tonight.
Hat-tip to @Robintheoffice
Yesterday lunchtime I went along to the launch of International Dance Festival Birmingham 2012. For the uninitiated, IDFB is a massive festival of dance organised by Dancexchange and the Hippodrome.
There’s a good round-up of what’s being planned over on West Midlands Dance.
There’s plenty of good stuff lined up, but the bits that made me nudge the person next to me and go ‘huh, that’ll be interesting’ were:
I like IDFB. It was probably the first one, back in 2008, that got me interested in dance in the first place. I then worked on the 2010 festival and managed to pack in 18 shows over the course of its month-long run. This one looks like being another good one.
DanceXchange have been at the Hippodrome for 10 years and are having a bit of a celebration. If you’re not aware of them, they bring touring contemporary dance companies to the city, put on classes and act as a focal point for other regional dance activity. They’re also a partner on International Dance Festival Birmingham and… well, they do all sorts.
Their new season features quite a few returning companies as well as some new faces, with Hofesh Shechter Company, 2faced Dance Company, Company Decalage, Rosie Kay Dance Company and Bare Bones among the ones performing. There’s a special season offer for this lot too:
Book for 3+ shows at once, get 20% off, and book for 5+ shows at once and get an amazing 50% off! That means you could come to all 10 shows in the season for just £50!
Ten shows for £50 really is a ridiculous bargain and no, I’m not on commission here.
They’ve also brought in Supercool to sort out their website, which is a relief because the previous one was pretty awful.
Today from 5pm Leaps and Bounds are putting on a performance at the Mushroom Green Chain Shop in the Netherton/Dudley Wood area. And you can watch it HERE! LIVE!
Leaps and Bounds are the ones that did Ballet Hoo (screened on Channel 4 in 2006) and, given that the chain shop is one of the oldest in the country, this could be quite a special thing. Here’s some blurb from the Dancing for the Games website:
Making Links is an exciting new dance project inspired by the industrial heritage of the Black Country. Over 2,000 young people are working with regional artists to explore the history of their local area. In Summer 2011 and 2012 you can see large exciting dance performances in unusual places throughout the Black Country
The livestream will be available below from 5pm. (Hopefully, if not head over to Dancing for the Games).
The order of play is:
The latest from Rosie Kay Dance Company is The Great Train Dance.
On 23 July 2011, The Great Train Dance will transform the Severn Valley Railway into a magical family experience with a puzzle to solve. With dancing at each station and in the train itself by a host of bizarre characters, this totally unique work will reveal all in a finale at the Engine House in Highley.
I’m going to see this on Saturday and if, you’re quick about it, you can win a pair of tickets to it yourself over on the Dancing for the Games website - the deadline for entries is midday today. Or you can book tickets here.
There’s also quite a well-stocked blog about the development of this project.
Good to see showings from Dancexchange, International Dance Festival Birmingham and Birmingham Royal Ballet in Dance! The Most Incredible Thing about Contemporary Dance which was on BBC4 recently.
It’s on the iPlayer for… well, the next couple of hours. Hmm.
Chris Keenan had some of his footage used and has written about that.
Incidentally, if you’re into dance then you should most definitely follow the West Midlands Dance website.
sampad have done a pretty nice video to round off their sampad dancedub project, (although the bit at 1.50 looked like an accident waiting to happen).
From sampad’s blog:
On 27 March, over 70 dancers of all ages, styles and levels of experience descended on The New Art Gallery Walsall for sampad dancedub, a new digital dance project, part of the Arts Council’s Arts Nation campaign.
5 SOLDIERS: The Body is the Front Line by Rosie Kay Dance Company is a contemporary dance piece that was commissioned for last year’sInternational Dance Festival Birmingham. It toured to good reviews and was especially well received by the military.
Rosie Kay received funding through the Arts Council’s Digital Content Development programme to do something interestingly digital with it and 5 SOLDIERS – Interactive Film is the result.
Head to the website and you can watch the ‘director’s cut’ of the piece the whole way through or, at any point, you can click the name of the camera angle to continue watching the piece from one of 13 different viewpoints (including each dancer’s point of view).
Have a play with it and, if you reckon it’s interesting, please use the Twitter and Facebook buttons at the bottom of the page to let others know.
I should say that this is something that Meshed Media (my company) has been involved in, along with Aquila TV and Rosie Kay Dance Company. I’ve written more about it on the Meshed Media blog and freelance web developer Daniel Davies has written about his involvement in the technical side of the project too.
sampad launch their residency at The Barber Institute on 16 February, with a free performance of Dancing About Sculpture at 1.10pm.
In the first of a series of performances and discussions, Devika Rao will present a unique and free performance, responding to key pieces of work from the Barber’s collection of European sculpture, encompassing everything from classical marbles to bronzes by Degas and Rodin.
‘Four artists from sampad, with the artistic direction of Piali Ray, will be in residency between February and June 2011. My opening performance, through sequences of movement and poses, will complement the sculptural works of art contained within the exhibition Carved, Cast and Modelled. The residency will be able to make creative connections between ancient Indian myths, legendary epics and stories and the mythical characters of the Barber collection.’
- Devika Rao
For more information on the residency, take a look at sampad’s website.
Earlier today Alex Jones and I popped over to an aircraft hangar at Coventry Airport. Rosie Kay‘s in there at the moment with Aquila TV, filming a version of her most recent work – 5 SOLDIERS: The Body is the Frontline.
Some of Alex’s photos are on Flickr here.
In the spirit of full disclosure I should mention that we’re involved in this project too via Meshed Media (that’s our day job, in case you didn’t know).
