It has been programmed as part of EnterVention a week long residency with Jean Abreu Dance at Rich Mix, East London and will be open [...]]]> I have recently received funding from the National Lottery through Arts Council England to produce an interactive photographic installation. The piece, Fractured is a collaboration between myself and choreographer Jean Abreu.

It has been programmed as part of EnterVention a week long residency with Jean Abreu Dance at Rich Mix, East London and will be open to the public between 9-11 June 2011.

to find out more about the residency www.jeanabreudance.com.

Thanks to Geraint Davies for his photography..

Images from Performance Matters, October 2010; Photography and copyright Hugo Glendinning.

Yes that is me!

The company is a performance and education company, based in Chicester.

I have to say these two were a delight to work with, they are so in tune with one another’s movement, that most of the time we [...]]]> Replica Dance Company is run by a friend of mine from Laban, Hannily Bendell and dance partner Tom Pickard.

The company is a performance and education company, based in Chicester.

I have to say these two were a delight to work with, they are so in tune with one another’s movement, that most of the time we only needed one attempt at the shot (although me being the way I am, we always need to do it a couple more times)

They are also so technically amazing that is was quite easy to get them to do anything!

To find out more about the dancer’s and their company, check out the website. www.replicadance.co.uk

You may have noticed the change in the weather as the Autumn chill starts to settle in.  I am using this opportunity to cling on to the unusually warm Summer we experienced, and reminisce on the success of the dance events that occured over the Summer period.

My Summer started with Laban’s Children Show, [...]]]> Autumn is coming!

You may have noticed the change in the weather as the Autumn chill starts to settle in.  I am using this opportunity to cling on to the unusually warm Summer we experienced, and reminisce on the success of the dance events that occured over the Summer period.

My Summer started with Laban’s Children Show, which I have always enjoyed being involved with. This is my third year of working on this spectacle. It is always a delight to see children enjoying dance, especially from such a young age. It is also nice to see familiar faces, grow older and continue their enjoyment with dance.

A couple of weeks later, I returned to Laban for the CAT performance. Last year was the first time I worked on the CAT project, and I was surprised by the high quality of performance and professional standard of these young dancers. This year was no exception.

BIG DANCE

I worked for the Arts Council covering Big Dance events. This took me outside  a lot (nice to be in the sunshine) and I spent a considerable amount of time in Trafalgar Square for  Slow Dancing, Big Tea Dance ( which is a new world record for the biggest tea dance. Over 500 people participated) and World Big Dance on Saturday 10th July.

Big Dance kicked off with The Opening Pledge at East London Dance, followed by the Dance Picnic in the afternoon.

I also worked on a site-specific project produced by East London Dance, called Awakenings. This was set in Eastbury Manor House, a National trust, Grade 1 listed Tudor Mansion in Barking. The building itself is a spectacle and a welcomed delight in a relatively deprived area of town. I would definitely recommend a visit. It was nice to see the building brought to life through the narrative of the choreography.

The piece was performed by young people from a local school. It was sympathetic to the building in its use of choreography, use of space, audience relationship and costume.

Site specific work throws up its own challenges for me as a photographer, especially when I’m working with an audience present. It is common to work like on this on site-specific projects, because the audience/performance relationship is integral to site-specific work and needs to be documented. However it needs to be done with some sensitivity, so as not to inhibit the performers or the audience from enjoying a performance, they have paid to come and see. It is these challenges, which make the process even more interesting for me.

Over, Under, Through was an event organised by Siobhan Davies Dance. The performance took place over two days in Jubilee Market, Borough Market. The piece was created by Dance artists Pari Naderi and Catherine Bennett in collaboration with visual artists Ruth Gibson and Lucy Cash. The pieces were performed by children from a local school from years three to five.

I also made a visit to the Churchill Theatre in Bromley. This was a really great night, with such a wide and varied mix of dance styles and ages. The night kicked off with a performance by Magpie Dance, an intergrated dance group. Other performances included salsa, an older persons company and several local dance groups of various ages.

It was a well programmed night, that celebrated dance going on in the local area. It held a certain vibrancy and it was clear to see that it was going down very well with the audience.

http://www.londondance.com/news_details.asp?NewsID=8022

http://www.londondance.com/content.asp?CategoryID=3692

REVOLUTION

Shoreditch Youth Dance Company is directed by Lee Smikle, who works on the Laban education & community programme.

Revolution at Richmix, Shoreditch, was a youth platform that showcased the company’s work, alongside other dance groups working in and around the area. There was a fantastic Bollywood performance, a performance by Cando2 and a  solo performance by Simon Williams, a dancer with Michael Clark Company and New Adventures.

LONDON LITERATURE FESTIVAL

London Literaure Festival runs for nearly three weeks, throughout July. This years highlights included Slavoj Zizek ( a slovenian philosopher)  A.C Grayling, Maggie Gee, Slyvia Earle ( an oceanographer who set a world record for solo diving to a depth of 1,000 meters) and finally,Socrates, Brazils legendary footballer.

A series of more interactive events were programmed by the Young Curators in the Front Room at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. This was an opportunity for people of all ages, but especially children to take part in and be a part of a writing event.

FOUNDATION FOR COMMUNITY DANCE: NATIONAL COLLEGE OF COMMUNITY DANCE, SUMMER SCHOOL.

The National College of Community Dance’s Summer School is aimed at developing skills in professional dancers in the education and community sector.

Workshops are led in Dance, health and wellbeing, Dance and disabled people and age inclusivity. Workshop leaders included,  Joe Moran, Kate Gant, Diane Amans, DJ, Isabel Jones and Lisa Simpson.

The morning session started off with a lecture demonstration by Rosemary Lee. Rosemary showed a video excerpt from Common Dance, which I photographed as part of Dance Umbrella. The video footage still had such a profound impact on me, almost stopping me in my tracks. It is such a beautiful piece, a testimony to unity and trust. It certainly inspired me to undertake a more active role in dance again.

The latter half of the morning session, was a more practical session led by Cecilia MacFarlane. This was a interesting session looking at how to inspire and get the most out of people using improvisation. What I mean by inspire, is to create an environment that is not intimidating, but allows people of all ages and abilities to explore their own movement/create possibilites.

I started off in Blackheath at an [...]]]> I had a great day out by myself on Wednesday pottering around a few exhibitions. At the risk of sounding grumpy, I prefer to go by myself as I am easily distracted and tend not to concentrate on what I’m looking at if I’m in the company of others.

I started off in Blackheath at an exhibition of work by a friend  of mine, visual artist Liz Atkin. Liz’s work has always been appealing to me, she started off using flat bed scanners to create beautiful and striking  images  that are somewhat haunting. Thats why I liked them!  Her work at Blackheath Halls is more about an exploration of textures on the skin, shadows and distortions.

Liz is far more ariculate with words than I am, take a look at her website for examples of her work and why/how she creates it.   www.lizatkin.com
Blackheath is a really lovely area but it feels like it is on the other side of the world, especially when you travel there by bus. Do not ask me why I thought that was a good idea?!

The afternoon, once I had undertaken the epic journey in this wonderful heat back up into central was spent firstly in the Hayward gallery with the work of Ernesto Neto and the New Decor, another exhibition on downstairs.

If you have children, you must take them to Ernesto Net,o it is perfect for them! They can touch, smell, sit on lovely cushions play drums. It really is a perculiar wonderland, something mildly reminiscent of telly tubby land. If you’re feeling really adventurous and have some cash to splash there is also a pool outside.

I always avoid exhibitions on a weekend, but this is one that needs a lot of people in the space, there was hardly anybody there when I went, which made it a little boring. It needs the vibrancy of booming voices, laughter and enjoyment.

The new decor was neither here or there for me. A few of the pieces were interesting, taking a functional object and making it unusable. One piece was quite funny, a floating table. But apart from that it didn’t really do much for me.

However not as disappointing as the Saatchi Gallery which I had visited a couple of weeks prior. I was eaves dropping into other people’s conversations and the general consensus was that the floor was nicing than the art work! Maybe it’s just me, maybe I’m not getting it but it wasn’t to my taste.

I digress. The highlight of my exhibition day was the Sally Mann exhibition on at The Photographers Gallery. Beautiful! I recommend you go, but make sure you give yourself plenty of time as there is a fantastic documentary film in a tiny room. I unfortunately didn’t get to watch the whole thing and I was sitting there for at least 45 minutes.

I have come across her work before, but in all honesty until this exhibition, I really didn’t pay much attention to it. Her work is exactly what I wish to create, beautiful, grand scale collodian prints, using a plate camera first designed in the 1850’s. Go and find out about her, in an age where everybody is using digital photography it is really refreshing to see this.

I could talk for ages about her and her work,but I just want to leave it here. You can make up your own mind!

I also had a FI ( Functional Intergration) session, which really gave me an insight into what it is I was photographing!

Some people suggest it is similar to Alexander technique, purely because it is [...]]]> I have recently been working on providing publicity shots for a friend of mine    (still editing) who is a Feldenkrais practioner.

I also had a FI ( Functional Intergration) session, which really gave me an insight into what it is I was photographing!

Some people suggest it is similar to Alexander technique, purely because it is a method of looking into improving posture and better well being. However Alexander technique was developed by an actor, who found it difficult to sustain his voice over long periods of time. It looks into how to improve the posture, in order to improve the voice. Because of this it is very popular with actors and singers.

Feldenkrais was developed because of  a knee injury. It is about looking at how we move and how we can possibly change it for the better. I believe he actually cured his own injury, by using this method.

This is a very basic outline, I learn’t this one afternoon at a picnic in Regents Park with a few Feldenkrais practioners. So I hope I’m right?!

I also had a FI s( functional intergration) ession, and I would say I am very interested in continuing along this path. I felt like a newborn baby, my eyes were more open than they have ever been, I could hear sounds I’ve never heard before, and I felt very light on my feet. However, for a few minutes I think I looked very peculiar as it felt very bizarre!

I have included the links to a couple of London based Feldenkrais practioners.

Melinda Glenister and Bennie Bartels. www.body_equilibrium.co.uk

melinda@body_equilibrium.co.uk  bennie@body_eqilibrium.co.uk

Rainer Knupp is a choreographer and dance teacher as well as a Feldenkrais practioner.

www.meetup.com

rainerknupp@hotmail.com

These images were taken for a friend of mine who I have known since Laban. Pei Jen now lives in Taiwan, but was here on a short visit. It was lovely to see her.

http://www.feldenkrais-taiwan.com

feldenkrais.taiwan@gmail.com

What a great afternoon. I didn’t want it to end, there was so much more to explore. We started off looking at what makes a good dance image and why, before playing a couple of improvisation/observation games. This was really educational for me, as it highlighted the difficulty of looking. It sounds quite [...]]]> University of Bedfordshire.

What a great afternoon. I didn’t want it to end, there was so much more to explore. We started off looking at what makes a good dance image and why, before playing a couple of improvisation/observation games. This was really educational for me, as it highlighted the difficulty of looking. It sounds quite odd to say that, but there are boundaries which need to be crossed in order to get the angle you want.

I am meeting the students soon to edit and show the pictures. I’m looking forward to seeing what they come up with.