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.

Via Dancing for the Games.

Also, BRB are doing The Nutcracker which opens at the Hippodrome tonight.

Hat-tip to @Robintheoffice

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:

• Wings of Desire (the big dance spectacular in Victoria Sq), with Circa and 2FaCeD DaNcE Company
• Dave St-Pierre Company – Un peu de tendresse bordel de merde! (which generated a tonne of controversy in London a couple of months ago)

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.

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.

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:

• 5pm Stream goes live
• 5.45 Performance starts
• 7.15 Finish

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.

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.

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.

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.