Pitch Dramaturgy: Skye Reynolds and Jo Fong @ Edfringe 2016

PITCH

Performed by Skye Reynolds, made in collaboration with Jo Fong

17th- 21st August, Dance Base Venue 22

6.45pm 

A double bill with A:Version by Indepen-Dance

Pitch is a realisation: how are we living our lives? The act of selling oneself, selling an idea. One woman: a provocation. Trying, winning, failing… however ridiculous, something has to change. Maybe the world? Do something! Pitch is fresh, funny, honest dance theatre.

What was the inspiration for this performance?
Skye 
I wanted to explore the concept of pitching - selling oneself or selling ideas… 

Having gone through that process to promote creative ideas for development, I found it challenging to present this particular ‘face’ – something artificial about it, almost painful! How to fit 'myself' into the 'sell'...what am I selling, what is of value? Then I stared thinking ‘How are we living our lives?’ How am I living MY life?

 Inspired by people and artists who make powerful, funny, insightful work, especially in this time of global turmoil, I wanted Stand Up, take responsibility. Then the question was how to turn these ideas into performance!

credit: Lucas Kao

I really wanted to work with Jo Fong, I love her work and I decided to create my first a solo - a woman coming of age at 44… 

Jo 
Standing up – get my act together. But actually getting Skye’s Act together.

For me – its about coming to an age where I have opinions and for some reason I haven’t not put them into the world. I vote but I suppose on some level I find it difficult to stand up and say what I think. To do something that implicates positive change. Somehow through the making it has also been revealed how powerful we are as individuals but also how powerless and futile the act of standing by what you believe can be.

The idea that things can be better and to make a work that could actually implicate change.



How did you go about gathering the team for it?
Jo and I met performing in Wendy Houston's Stupid Women and after that I was a Guest in Jo’s show An Invitation. I wanted to work further and dig more deeply into Jo’s process so I asked if she would mentor me to create a solo. 

We began with a couple of research weeks supported by Creative Scotland and Dance Base, not knowing what would come. We had a great time and discovered PITCH, a work that we believe in and have enjoyed creating so we are continuing to develop it together. Other team members gathered en route. 

Lucas Kao, filmmaker and photographer, has captured some lovely visuals and we share an aesthetic sense of humour. Sarah Buckmaster is creating lights (we met at Yorkshire Dance, when PITCH was presented as work-in-progress) and Anna Cocciadiferro made the costume. My daughter Lula makes an appearance on vocals whilst practising the piano…and I’ve been talking with producers about future possibilities. 

Jo 
We met doing a show by Wendy Houstoun for Yorkshire Dance’s Juncture Festival and then again through my work An Invitation…
where Skye played a guest role. 

I think Skye was somehow interested in my work and how working more together would help her to grow this new solo.


How did you become interested in making performance?
Skye
Things clicked for me in Sydney in the 90’s when I discovered experimental dance – performing in drag acts, jazz improv, art galleries, night clubs, site-specific. 

It was thrilling, I decided this was what I wanted to do and traded in a law degree. I loved the creativity, the complicity, the people. Performance is like an act of heightened reality that requires a focused thinking and an honesty that I find transformative.

Jo 
For me, it’s about having a voice, after years of being “just a dancer” a clay for someone else to create with. Reaching the age of 29 / 30, suddenly it was time to start working out what I think and how to articulate this to audiences. 

Was your process typical of the way that you make a performance?
This was a new process for me, and my first solo. Using spoken word with movement, humour, a ‘live’ conversational style – I’ve been exploring these approaches to find a voice with my own work and within that of different choreographers over the past few years. 
Jo and I have discovered and created this piece en route. It’s about truth, made from authentic life material. 

The performance has to be alive and fresh, I'm addressing the audience, playing the score. It’s a real challenge to both ‘play’ and ‘be’ myself. I’m still working that out, uncovering layers and finding textures - how to make a ‘dance action’ within a performance frame?

Jo 
My process always changes with each show I make and in addition of course with each new collaboration. Skye and I have had fun making this show, I tried to lay out improvised experiences from which to draw material. Tried to support her in what is not an easy task. We discussed what we think about how we could create an artwork that is also an action. 


What do you hope that the audience will experience?
I hope the audience will feel a sense of connection with the performer, recognise moments within themes and material –trying, winning and failing. Can the work provoke thoughts about action, positive change? I feel there is a currency right now in terms of the search for values and place, it’s something we are sharing as a society and beyond. PITCH looks at this – How are we living our lives – it’s a question we are exploring.

Jo - Through the pilot showings we’ve had at Dance Base and Yorkshire Dance, people have noted how they have enjoyed the show, been touched, laughed and literally end up thinking about how they personally could change or do something to make the world a better place for everyone. 


What strategies did we consider towards shaping the audiences experience?
We wanted to present the work in a conversational frame, it’s live and it’s happening right now. It intentionally exposes the vulnerability of the performer as she explores how to ‘Be,’ taking confusing, impossible aspects of human existence and opening them up to the possibility of connection and laughter. 

We want to raise issues that we think are important, both individually and collectively. The audience are not asked to do anything but there is space in the show for reflection and perhaps the feeling of shared possibility for action.

Jo –
I suppose audience interaction is a big part of the work. Not that we ask an audience to actually do anything but the way the show is set up gives the idea that audiences feel very much a part of the show. Its funny, Skye does an amazing job of lightening the space almost the idea that anything could happen, she’s like a politically informed cartoon talent show optimist.

I suppose a super uber ambitious aim has been to influence audience members so that they actually start to think about what it is they could do. What action in their own lives either small or large would they be able to initiate towards positive change. 
We’ve been thinking about the end of the show a moment where it shifts from the personal to the collective and we hope to try out different endings. I’m interested in a promise, a pledge or even just a consideration, but maybe if I’m honest what I’d really like is through the humour and the seriousness of the show that there is a resurge of energy and hope. 


Do you see your work within any particular tradition?
New Scottish work!

Over the past few years I've been influenced by dance work that uses direct address, is multi-artform, humourous, ironic, approaches performance-making in new ways, addresses contemporary personal and politic themes. Communicates on different levels. 

Vestigial Dramturgy: Wayne Parsons @ Wilton's Strike

DANCE FESTIVAL FOR EMERGING ARTISTS ‘WILTON’S STRIKE!’ RETURNS TO WILTON’S MUSIC HALL FOR A SECOND YEAR

Six promising choreographers and performers will be invited to showcase new work
Works have been developed on the theme of ‘memory’, with the help of professional mentors
The artists have all been carefully selected by a distinguished panel of dance experts including Viviana Durante, Jonathan Goddard and Lee Smikle


After successfully launching the pilot festival in 2014, Wilton’s Strike! is back for 2016, inviting six emerging artists to showcase their exciting new works at East End gem Wilton’s Music Hall. 

Using this year’s theme of memory, the six selected choreographers have been commissioned to develop their work to performance level, with help from professional mentors.

The festival will be running from Tuesday 3 May to Thursday 5 May 2016.


A Vestige
Choreographed by: Wayne Parsons
Performed by: Katie Lusby and Clemmie Sveaas

Do you see your choreography in any particular tradition?

A Vestige is a dance theatre work. It tells a story through movement and text.

What inspires you to use dance as a medium, rather than another art form?
I came to dance quite early in my life. I began dancing at the age of 14 and I’m still dancing now at the age of 35. I have always used movement as my predominant medium as it feels so natural for me to do that. That being said, I think there are limits to what movement alone can say, so I seek to work with practitioners from different disciplines to bring my ideas to life. 

For A Vestige I am working with Theatre Director Pooja Ghai who is acting as Dramaturg, writer Ankur Bahl and composer Angus Macrae who has worked as sound designer on the project. 

What was the foundation or inspiration for this piece?

A Vestige takes posthumous fame as its starting point. It examines how we reconstruct the lives of the dead by looking at what they left behind and how the memory of the dead lives on in the living.

The audience will meet a portrait artist, played by Katie Lusby, and the ghost of a woman, played by Clemmie Sveaas. We hear of how the portrait artist tries to capture the essence of the woman through her artwork; all the while, the woman’s ghost is compliant in fulfilling the artist’s incomplete and subjective constructions of the ghost’s living self.

I’m fascinated with the question of how the narratives of our lives will be manipulated once we’ve passed. A Vestige deals with the subjects of memory, subjectivity, our fascination with the famous and our universal desire to understand one another.


Was the making process typical of your usual approach?

No. My work is always narrative led but this is the first time I have worked with a script. I commissioned Ankur Bahl to write a 9-minute monologue for the work and it is heard in its entirety. This process for me has been all about focusing on the co-existence of movement and text. I’ve found contextualising movement within a script quite freeing actually. There are so many possibilities. I think it’s the start of a lengthy artistic search for me.   

What do you hope that the audience will experience?

I’m playing with a sense of the real and the imagined, the present and the past, the fictional and the fact. And I hope the audience goes with this. Above all, it’s a theatrical work that tells a story and when you’re telling stories you hope that it’s a clear narrative. It’s a dense work that incorporates text, movement and set, so some concentration is need, but I hope there’s a pay off for that concentration. 


Are there any strategies you have developed to help this experience happen?

Dance is a largely abstract medium. It’s able to connect viscerally with its audience. In contradiction to that there is something very concrete about words. What I have tried to do with this work is use the movement to exaggerate the subtext within the script or to contradict what we are hearing in the script. I have crafted something that sees the movement and text in dialogue with one another in hopes of presenting a multidimensional way of storytelling.

Wayne Parsons was born in St Albans, England and graduated from London Contemporary Dance School with a first-class Bachelor’s Degree (Hons) in Contemporary Dance and a Postgraduate Diploma in Performance. Straight out of this training, Wayne earned an apprenticeship at Richard Alston Dance Company (RADC).

From this launchpad, Wayne has gone on to work for some of the biggest names in contemporary dance. He has performed major roles in choreography by Mark Baldwin, Hélèn Blackburn, Stijn Celis, Kevin Finnan, Itzik Galili, Jacopo Godani, Wendy Houstoun, Martin Lawrence, Stephen Petronio, and Stephen Shropshire.

Wayne’s long-term engagements as a performer include five years of domestic and international touring with National Dance Company of Wales (NDCWales), and a return to RADC for four tours, including Richard Alston’s 40th Anniversary Season, which was hosted at Sadler’s Wells. In 2011 Wayne moved to Australia on an invitation by Artistic Director Rafael Bonachela to join Sydney Dance Company.

Wayne has also worked with Motionhouse Dance Theatre, Yorke Dance Project, SmallPetitKlein, The Van L Dance Company, Joe Moran Dance, Kim Brandstrup, and Oguike Dance, and was part of DanceLines under the direction of Wayne McGregor. Waynehas also been the recipient of an Arts Council of Wales grant and the Lisa Ullmann Travelling Scholarship.

Throughout his performance career, Wayne has also developed his choreographic practice. In April 2013 he was selected by the National Centre for Choreography to attend the LAB at DanceEast, Ipswich. Here he spent two weeks looking at narrative in dance under the direction of Jonathan Lunn. His most recent works include the duet Meeting, which was premiered at The Place Theatre, London as a part of Resolution! 2013. Meeting was also chosen as the only representative from the UK to compete in the 6th Copenhagen International Choreography Competition in March 2013. In summer 2013 Wayne will make a short work for students at London Studio Centre for their end of year show, Dance Overture 2013. This work will be performed at The New Wimbledon Theatre in July. In 2012 Wayne made Assemble for Monmouthshire Youth Dance Company and this work premieres in June 2013 and tours throughout Wales. In 2008, Wayne created and danced the solo Visiting Then for NDCWales. Preceding this commission, he choreographed Publicly Private Me and Chrysalis, which were both toured by NDCWales in 2007 and 2006, respectively.


Wayne teaches classes and workshops to students of all ages and abilities. Recent teaching includes undergraduate technique classes and choreographic workshops at London Contemporary Dance School, Trinity Laban and London Studio Centre, and professional company classes for Motionhouse Dance Theatre, DV8 Physical Theatre, NDCWales and Ballet Cymru

Jumping Dramaturgy: Kally Lloyd Jones on Nijinsky

credit:Susan Hay

Nijinky’s Last Jump
Spring Tour – April/May 2016

Company Chordelia is delighted to announce that a tour of their theatre/dance production Nijinsky’s Last Jump is planned for Spring 2016. Premiering during Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2015, the show gained wide acclaim amongst critics.

Nijinsky’s Last Jump combines theatre and dance to evoke the legendary 20th Century dancer’s journey from global success to the desolate isolation of mental illness. 

As the passionate obsession of the young Nijinsky comes face to face with the searching inner life of the older Nijinsky, this sharp and tender show portrays a poignant intimacy of genius and madness, youth and age, both the performing and private self. Inspired by the rhythmic obsession of Nijinsky’s diaries, Young and Old Nijinsky consider their life together, on and off stage, trying to make sense of the loss of self.

What experiences drew you towards choreography?
I’ve been dancing since I was two years old (I was shy and too young for play group ...) and very lucky to have been taken to a wide variety of performances from around that age too. Looking back, I was very influenced at a very young age by, in particular, Peter Darrell and a bit later, Christopher Bruce. 

 Their work was narrative in different ways and I think that just seeped into me and is my natural mode of expression. I suppose being drawn to choreography was almost inevitable (though the route was circuitous!) but these days I think of myself equally as a director.

What was the inspiration for this particular work?
I won a school prize when I was a young teenager - and got given a book token which I spent on Richard Buckle’s biography of Nijinsky. I am not sure exactly why it made such an impression on me but I felt then, as I do now, an affinity or connection with him. I think I always felt that if I didn’t dance, or make work, I might have been a very different, possibly depressed, person. 

I suspect that I have had some kind of narrow escape and the flip side of this sense of what might have been is, I think, what I ended up wanting to show. There is always a funny alchemy of events which make me want to embark on making a piece, and on this occasion, meeting Michael Daviot, (who wrote the text) and his shared passion for, and knowledge about Nijinsky set the train in motion. And I was ready.


Did the process differ from your usual approach - did the subject matter make any surprising demands on you?
I am not sure I have a usual approach! I think my approach is determined largely by the subject, the demands of a particular show and what kind of performers I am working with. 

 Many of my decisions are made from a kind of instinctive feeling, or thoughts and images that arrive in my head and I have learned to trust those. I also work regularly with designer Janis Hart and this relationship has produced the work I am most proud of We have a communication which enriches my thought processes and she has a wonderful way of absorbing the things I say and the images I describe and turning them into exactly what I wanted without knowing it.



  Nijinsky's Last Jump Trailer from Company Chordelia on Vimeo.

In the case of Nijinsky’s Last Jump, it was necessary (and very enjoyable) to do quite an extensive amount of research during which I made notes about ideas, images, scenes and afterwards I began a storyboard. I wanted to focus in really tightly on Nijinsky’s mental state and so decided very early on to peel away everything else. I didn’t want to make a biographical show - it is not linear or narrative in that sense.

I always arrive in rehearsals with a storyboard and a very clear sense of the show, which might then change along the way. What probably doesn’t change is my sense that I am setting out to create something I can already taste.


What are you hoping that the audience will experience when they see the work?Well, I suppose I want the audience to experience something individual and personal. To ponder this man, his life and work, what might have been, and the nature of mental illness - its causes and treatment. I hope they will experience deep empathy or feel something which is about the need for people to be allowed to be not like everyone else.

Are there any particular strategies you use to put this across?There are two Nijinsky’s in the show - an old Nijinsky, nearing death, and a young Nijinsky at the peak of his career. Having these two Nijinsky’s allowed them to have different perspectives on his/their life and events and for them to have the opportunity to talk to each other. It’s as if the show helps them to work out what happened to them. 

Old Nijinsky is played by an actor, James Bryce and Young Nijinsky is played by dancer and actor Darren Brownlie. There is actually a third Puppet Nijinsky who represents the performing Nijinsky, who was treated like a puppet. The use of text, movement, dance, puppetry and music are all key elements in the way the show is woven together.

Do the potential venues provide any challenges to your work?The work was created to be performed at Dance Base as part of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. It’s a lovely big performing space and the audience is very close up so it is extremely intimate which worked well. In touring the work to venues of different scales, there will be some technical and practical challenges but the big challenge will be to make sure the work can meet and stand up to being done in a less intimate space. 

I will tour with the show so that I can tweak it a bit for every venue. Which is actually really enjoyable because the work stays very alive in this way.

Are there any questions you feel I ought to ask to understand your approach and work?
They were good questions! It’s quite hard because I just get on with it and don’t think that much about HOW I do it. I get immersed. Occasionally I have looked at something I made and wondered how it got there.

KAM-RI DANCE THEATRE: The Typist

天邊外劇團有限公司

Can I have some more of that fish, please?

天邊外劇團有限公司

I am so charmed by this show, it makes me hate the Fringe. In an under-appreciated venue, The Lu Tings is being performed to an audience too small.

I don't want to indulge in orientalism, but this show comes from a tradition I don't really understand. Brecht wrote about oriental theatre and western critics have been misunderstanding it ever since then.

The show has a story-teller, two live musicians and a cast capable of exquisite physical theatre-style choreography.

The umbrella becomes a sword, a symbol of tyranny. The fish-headed heroes of this mythical tale become a symbol of all victims of tyranny.


There are moments of beauty - when the Lu Ting swim in the sea. Then tragedy, when they are massacred. There's even some fun, when the fish headed outlaws try to learn the language of their oppressors.

Please go and see it. It is a political parable and has the energy of a ritual, or a community performance reminding the audience of their own heritage.

They begin by offering the audience a traditional fish dish. It tastes amazing.

The music rattles and howls and drives the action. Sometimes the actors preen, sometimes they battle.

'The story is told clearly and with passion, a charming introduction to a style of theatre that is equal parts poetry and dance: the political subtext is present but is never allowed to overwhelm the immediacy of the plot.'

The VileArts doesn't do stars. Sorry.


4-9 August 2014 11:30am (£9.00 full, £8.00 concessions)

Greenside @ Nicholson (Venue # 209)
Methodist Church, 25 Nicholson Square, Edinburgh EH8 9BX

Do You Nomi?

Morag Deyes is the Artistic Director of Dancebase in Edinburgh. If she's saying that Do You Nomi is "one of the most refreshing, dark, funny, erotic and original new works it’s been my pleasure to see," I am interested. Deyes sees a great deal of work - she books a season during the Fringe that has kept the dance fires burning amidst the chaos of comedy, and if Alan Greig's team up with Grant Smeaton has her attention, it deserves mine.

It's got some team, too: it's about one of the 1980s' more fascinating characters (Alan Miler, Glasgow's DJ Hushpuppy and my go-to man for matters of alternative culture insisted that he came on the radio show to discuss him). Apart from Smeaton and Greig, it stars Jack Webb, most recently spotted with David Hughes Dance and soon to perform at Buzzcut, Drew Taylor, last seen dropping science at Open Art Surgery, Laurie Brown (The Arches' Christmas show, The Ugly Duckling, a show with a subtext) and Darren Anderson. 

Here's a snippet from the press release.

It is the story of Klaus Nomi, a man with a unique singing talent and his rise to fame in the New York avant garde scene of the 1970s and 80s. It is also the story of a world which would be transformed by the new and much misunderstood AIDS virus.

An interdisciplinary performance weaving together dialogue, dance and theatre, Do You Nomi? will take its audience on a humorous, dark and sensual journey. Four male performers will shine a light on the life of Nomi, combining an emotionally driven narrative with the power and athleticism of dance.

And here's the transcript of an interview I did. A version of this can be found on The Skinny website, or in print.


Gareth K Vile: Throughout your career, you seem to have been fearless and eclectic in your choice of subjects - and Nomi is yet another exciting personality to explore! Is there any abiding philosophy behind the work that you make, and the subjects that you cover, or the way that you approach them?

Alan Greig:: Fearless and eclectic that is a great quote! My personal philosophy is that the company is a platform for me as an artist to create, to be expressive and explore my own idiosyncratic approach to movement and dance. I try to approach each new project in a different way and that might be in working in film or a site specific context or like this project by finding a collaborator. 

Working with Grant, who is coming from a acting/theatre background makes me as a choreographer work in a completely different way. For example, in dance I would normally arrive in a large empty room with some ideas and the show would slowly evolve. For this show we have a script and a clear sense of a narrative and a beginning, middle and ending. We have the characters and the dialogue and I am creating movement from the scenes to link them, expand them and to meld the two mediums of theatre and dance. 

Dance, however expressive, does have an abstract quality and theatre gives story and emotion. I find trying to combine these two opposing qualities really challenging and interesting. And there is perhaps a long winded way to say that my philosophy is to keep challenging myself, to keep the work interesting and fresh otherwise there would be no point, especially after twenty three years of running the company!

Grant Smeaton: I think the last few years I've been looking back at some of the events I've lived through and the personalitlies that populated those events and trying to put them into some sort of perspective. Living through something and the emotions and experiences you have at the time can be very different to how you look back to them. Even trying to remember exactly how you felt about something can be difficult but I like that challenge.

This team up is something of a power duo - both of you have worked in some impressive collaborations in the past - and both of you bring a wealth of experience and success to the project. How did the Greig/Smeaton supergroup come about?

AG: Grant and I met years ago through mutual friends and in 2008 I was looking for an actor for a promenade performance to take the audience on a journey through the Freemasons halls in Edinburgh (other voices other rooms) and thought of Grant. That collaboration was so successful I brought him in to direct me in a solo show I was making for the Shanghai Dance Festival in 2009. I needed an outside eye and someone from theatre rather than from dance. 

We then searched for an idea to work together on a more substantial project and found Klaus Nomi to be an ideal subject. Exactly two years ago Dance base gave us a small fee and two weeks rehearsal space to research and develop ideas for this show. A year later Creative Scotland, Dance House and again Dance Base supported us to this time pay ourselves and to work with actors and dancers for a four week R and D session. I really think this slower and long time approach to making the work has paid off and given us a show with depth and power.

GS: We'd both seen each other's work through the years when I was working a lot at the Arches and Alan was touring with X Factor dance. I was always impressed by the fact that Alan would always like to use text in his dance shows. Usually larger than life comedy characters which Alan had created and performed himself. And let me tell you - I think he is a very fine comedy performer! He makes me laugh! And I think this collaboration is a giant step up from a dance show with little bits of spoken material.

Again, you've both done work that sits in an undefined place between dance and theatre, although I would argue that you are both associated with particular performance arts, which means that you'll be pulling in slightly different audiences to each other... forgive me for being typical, and asking whether you'd be willing to define what sort of work Do You Nomi is? Does it sit somewhere on the continuum of dance theatre?

AG: This is the difficult one to answer because sometimes a company may describe themselves as dance theatre but it is 95% dance. This is a theatre show with actors and dialogue but it is also a dance show with athletic, fluid dance. We are trying to make it half theatre and half dance and we hope that audiences from the different arts we represent will understand and respond to what we are creating. It is a risk that the dance audience for example say 'it wasn't dancey enough' 

However I like that risk I welcome it and hope that before the audience arrive we have been clear in our publicity that it is a theatre and dance show and that the audience will be open and responsive to that.

GS: It's actually very difficult to describe. Even from the inception of the project and trying to pigeonhole what we're doing from a marketing point of view has not been easy. I've never done a show like this before and neither has Alan. 

I've never seen a show like this so it certainly doesn't fit easily into a category. Unlike most dance shows it has a strong narrative story. And unlike most theatre shows it has a strong abstract element. And we think both these elements sit very comfortably with the spirit of the man himself - Klaus Nomi.


Nomi the Man seems to sit at a nexus of different concerns - cabaret, activism and, as much as I hate to say it, a vibrant period of historical change. Although his attraction is clear, what specific details of his life made him ideal for this collaboration?

AG The details that you mention are what attracted us to him, his unique singing voice, his melding of pop. rock, opera, fashion, caberet, and theatricality make him an ideal subject as we too are trying to bring in lots of different styles and approaches to the show we are creating.

GS: Klaus Nomi took his incredible operatic voice, his unusual and unconventional look, his penchant for new wave and pop music and his cartoon like costumery - threw them together and created an irresistable character which still fascinates people today. Alan and I both felt that dance and theatre were the perfect combination to tell this man's story.

In a predictable move, can I ask which artists have inspired you over the years, and what work do you currently find exciting or share an affinity with?

AG: Artists we have inspired me include Alwin Nikolais, Pina Bauch, David Lynch, Hitchcock, Bernard Herrman, Kate Bush, Gore Vidal, Truman Capote, Bette Davis and Meredith Monk. An artist I currently find exciting though I am not sure we have any affinity would be Pedro Almodovar.

GS: Oh God - Kurt Weill, Sarah Vaughan, Bowie, Luis Bunuel and nature.

The last few things I have seen Grant Smeaton perform he's taken on iconic characters (including Benny Hill, which led to one of my more bizarre reviews, mainly because you made me feel sympathy for a man who was actually banned from the TV in my parents' house). I did miss Ch Ch Changes, to my regret, which might have skewed my perspective, but do you have a preference for making performances about these huge presences?

GS: Yes, at the moment, I do.

Do you ever stop working? Isn't this the third major piece you've done in the last twelve months? What keeps you enthusiastic about dance as a medium for expression?

AG: Never! I need the money darling! Seriously, I am self employed so when I am not working I am not earning. Also this is my life, I love being involved in projects and the fact that I teach, perform and choreograph gives me lots of variety and possibilities. 

Some are high profile like choreographing 'Ulysess' for the Tron theatre, or reworking my show Echoes for Jin Xing Dance Company in China. And some work the public never see but are special to me like working in Livingston with young school kids and older people on an intergenerational project that was so creative and so much fun. 

I think this is what keeps me enthusiastic about dance, working at all the different levels: how can I work with actors or with people with special needs? How can I challenge myself or other professional dancers or encourage people in there late seventies to be expressive? I think if I just had one focus I would not be able to be enthusiastic especially after working for twenty seven years in this business!



Nomi came from a more cabaret style environment, while I associate you with a more "high art" background (the first time I saw X-Factor, it struck me that you were all about classical forms filtered through a contemporary format... admittedly, later work disabused me of that notion, but it kind of remains...). Do you feel any affinity with the sort of work Nomi was making?
AG: 'High art?' I have never thought of myself in that context and I certainly would never describe myself as such. I suppose artists make work and it is other people who catergerise them. I just make work and don't really think too much about 'am I a post modernist?' or am I 'physical theatre' I feel a huge affinity for Klaus and the work he was making. 

I think in the present pop scene there are so few innovators or people pushing the boundaries. The TV show X factor claims it is looking for this elusive 'x factor' but it seems to me that they are actually looking for the complete opposite and just want pretty, docile puppets that they can mould and manipulate to make money. 

Climbing off my soap box, I think Klaus was all about experimentation, expression and a sense of 'lets see if this works' or 'lets give this a try' So in that sense yes I feel a great affinity for him as someone prepared to look and sound different and to stand out from the crowd.

Biographies
GRANT SMEATON is a Herald Angel Award winning director and performer. He was an original member of the Arches Theatre Company and was founder and artistic director of Tangerine Productions and Hopscotch Theatre. He is a regular collaborator with the Glasgay! Festival, most recently performing and directing the critically acclaimed Ch Ch Changes at the Citizens’ in Glasgow. Other recent productions include Bette/Cavett and Whatever Happened to Benny Hill?


ALAN GREIG formed Alan Greig Dance Theatre in 1990 (formally X Factor Dance). The company has toured Scotland’s leading venues on a regular basis for nineteen years and has performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, London, Cologne, Nuremburg, New York, Hong Kong and Shanghai. The company is a platform for Greig’s choreography and has also showcased the talents of New York’s, Stephen Petronio and French luminary, Phillipe Decouffle. Alan is known throughout the UK as one of the leading educators working with a diverse range of talents from youth groups through to professional companies, specialising in improvisation and choreography. He has performed with Common Ground, Off Kilter, Theatre Du Pif (Hong Kong) and David Hughes Dance (The Red Room).



Listings:
Fri 8 Feb at 7:30pm
The Brunton (Musselburgh) £11/£9/£6.50 (under 18s)
0131 665 2240 /


Thu 14 Feb at 7pm
The Lemon Tree (Aberdeen) £7.50 (+ booking fee)
01224 641122 /


Fri 15 Feb at 7:30pm
Byre Theatre (St Andrews) £10/£8
01334 475000 /


Wed 20 and Thu 21 Feb at 7:45pm
Tron Theatre (Glasgow) £12/£7
0141 552 4267 /


Sat 23 Feb at 7:45pm
Cumbernauld Theatre £9/£6
01236 732887 /


Fri 1 Mar at 7:30pm
The Beacon (Greenock) £10/£8
01475 723723 /


Tue 5 Mar at 8pm
An Lanntair (Stornoway) £10/£9/£8
01851 708480 /


Thu 7 Mar at 8pm
Macphail Theatre (Ullapool) £8/£6 (schools: £2)
01854 613336 /
(part of Ullapool Dance Festival)

MEITHEALand Worst Case Scenario

The double album is a notoriously hard beast to appreciate: with four sides of vinyl to cover, it is difficult for any artist to maintain any initial vitality and the irony of an art form that begun in the sprightly single (three minutes of buoyant youthful energy) stretching over a length more suited to the weighty themes of opera is often enough for the critic to reject the project out of hand.

The dance double bill battles with the opposite problem. Choreography evolved, in both western and eastern traditions, into a long form: the use of specific gestural languages to fill in plot (a feature of both Bharatanatyam and ballet), the set formats of pas de deux or solo, the emphasis on large companies and spectacular costume all evolved in the context of an art form that would fill an evening. Yet the pairing of max.IMEALLdance and Taciturn Dance Company suggests that the shorter the piece, the sweeter the impact.


Billed together under Dance Base's overall theme of a journey around the world, this is not an attempt to contrast Scottish (Max.IMEALLdance) and English (Taciturn) approaches. Rather, they are connected by the youth of dancers and choreographers, the quirky use of music - ranging from Alvo Noto to Henry Mancini, this is a fine example of post-modern eclecticism, where high and low art, the populist and the experimental rub shoulders and find community - and a dedication to staking out the edges of dance and adapting the past's techniques to contemporary dynamism.

Perhaps Max.IMEALLdance's MEITHEAL could be read as a comment on the mechanisation of the dance process. The emphasis is on precision partnering, patterns revealed through the group's collective movement and the sparse, yet imaginative use of lighting that draws attention to the dancers. The focus and seriousness of the company ensures that the intention to represent the way that the group functions as a unit prevents any sense of the individual dominating the whole: the choreography responds more to the discipline of the corps than the spectacular show of the soloist.

Worst Case Scenario, however, emphasises the individuality of the three Taciturn members. They trawl through a series of disasters, explaining, in dance, how to best survive them. It's witty, playful, each episode a  brief burlesque of the logical advice given to those caught without a parachute or about to punched in the guts. The three women come across as likeable characters - when they work together, perhaps to attempt a saving hold, they never meld into a unit, like Max.imeall, but seem to resist the lure of merging by emphasising their individual physicality and identity.

If this double bill is more than a pleasure, or a linking between English and Scottish dance (I would call it contemporary but since Fringe 2011, the phrase has been rendered meaningless), it reveals current experiments within UK dance. Both are easy to define by critical jargon, although this would be far from a total explanation of their works and process: Max.IMEALLdance are a collective, disciplined unit emerging from the technical schools of dance discipline, while Taciturn are Dance Theatre with a dash of comedy and Live Art.

Of course, that last sentence says nothing about the actual pieces. It simply signifies that there is an interest in these works for certain audiences. Like star ratings, it flatters to deceive, an attempt by the critic to hide the fundamental problem of assessing dance (is it a totality that cannot be deconstructed into words without losing its essential meaning or the experience). For the record, both pieces give pleasure: MEITHEAL for the quality of dance, Worst Case Scenario for the personality and style.

The rock double album, however, remains a really bad idea, for the most part.

Dance Base, 16- 25 August 2012