Ruth Mills Dance Spring Intensive

This wasn't my first experience of dancing with Ruth, but it was my first time at one of her intensives...and my girls weren't telling me lies...it was everything I needed and more!

The technique classes were exhilarating  exhausting, inspiring, energising, demon-butt-building, side-stretching hours of bliss. Starting with Mills' own technique and then moving onto release gave a great start to each day, my body soon remembered where those muscles were that I only use when I dance.

The afternoons were themed on duets and partnering, and this is where I felt out of my depth. I have danced my whole life, but apart from rock n roll, I have always been alone. Working with someone else, with my eyes closed, feeling them move with and against me was a strange but amazing experience. At times it really didn't feel like we were dancing at all, I worried that I was moving awkwardly and nothing felt like it flowed. I believe that the satisfaction of contact will come with time, I just need to relax into it and respond creatively as I feel.

At the end of the intensive, Ruth gave a lecture on some things that have been interesting her, one being the Fibonacci sequence of numbers. My two worlds felt like they were colliding...finally someone who was living in dance was also saying they were fascinated by maths and physics. I get fed up defending myself to people who don't understand how you can be creative and scientific all in the one brain. So now I won't...if they don't find both intriguing and don't want to believe that they are interconnected then it is their loss.

The dance/science lecture set me up for the sharing which followed. Having missed the final morning, I didn't have a lot to share, but everything I had learned technically and mentally during the intensive allowed me to enjoy every second. I felt connected to the material myself and my partner had created and I felt confident that if one of us forgot what came next that we had each other to explore and figure out where to go next. I have never had that feeling before, in any previous sharing or performance.

The final icing on the cake was that a friend actually came to see the performance. None of the friends I have known for years seem interested in dance, so when my lovely artist friend Sarah said she would love to come I was so so excited. Having her there was amazing, and I learned about how she can work as an artist while I danced, using gesture drawing as her focus. The drawings were nothing like anything I've seen before. They were dynamic and intricate and I felt like they radiated the energy we gave when dancing.

This intensive opened my eyes to a new way of moving, thinking and feeling. I can't wait for more.

ARENA: RSAMD CPP2 Students 24th June 2011

ARENA: an explicit expose of process, generated by the body and from the practice and study of movement.

As with each piece from the contemporary performance practice students of the RSAMD, I had no idea what was in store as I entered the Chandler Studio Theatre. Arranged in the centre of the floor, the performers explored the space around them, keeping in contact with the floor and transferring weight slowly between themselves.

A fun-filled, exciting performance piece followed, including exciting extracts of dance, physical theatre, art, parkour and acrobalance. I was inspired by CPP2's use of contact and improvisation and enjoyed seeing the progress of these amazing young artists from their performance the previous year. Particularly, duets between Aby Watson and Kim Donohoe, Emma Nutland and Amy McLahlan Sayer stand out for me, their strength and beauty stealing my attention from everything else that was happening in the space. I must commend Ellie Dubois and David Banks on their work with contact and parkour. The control in their movements had me holding my breath, I was completely captivated.

CPP students are more than the much talked-about 'triple threat'...they use voice, dance, physical theatre, parkour, yoga, contact, acting, improvisation, art and more to create innovative relevant performances that everyone could relate to on some level. They capture the essence of every individual, personality and natural charisma oozes from every performer.

Congratulations on a fantastic end of year show CPP2. Your performances are real, engaging and inspiring.

Richard Alston, Theatre Royal, Glasgow

I was so excited to have got a 2 for 1 offer on tickets plus free pre-show talk with Richard Alston at the Theatre Royal. I hadn’t seen any of his work before but had heard really good things and knew he was the artistic director at The Place in London too, so he must be good?!!!

I took my boyfriend and we went to the pre-show talk which was very educational for me in terms of Alston’s choreographic processes. He appealed to my other half too as a musician due to most of his ideas and decisions for movement being influenced by music.

When it came to the performance itself, however, I have to admit I was slightly disappointed and don’t really have much to say. One more mature female dancer stood out as excellent amongst a fairly un-expressive company. I just didn’t “feel” the pieces shown, maybe I wasn’t in the right move or maybe the pre-show talk left me with too high expectations.

The second piece I found highly enjoyable in terms of movement and the lighting effects to create the “light through a window” were magical. Unfortunately, the lighting was more convincing than what Alston had described earlier as an intense emotional connection between man and woman. The dancers faces were still and I didn’t feel connected to the movement, although the choreography was beautifully subtle with bursts of light in amongst modest shade.

I will go and see more pieces by Richard Alston as I believe that he must have more in his repertoire that would suit my tastes more. Would I go to another pre-show talk? I’m not sure; I think that this one made me enjoy the performance less, what do you think?

Journey Dance Company "Prey" Work in Progress

Laura Forbes, artistic director of Journey Dance Company dances in and presents her latest choreographic piece, “Prey” as a work in progress. This sharing, at Dance House was developed further from a previous residency at Dance Base and involves BA dancers from LIPA and Edinburgh’s Telford College, where Laura herself graduated in 2008.

Laura’s ideas developed from natural relationships between predators and prey, her dancers revealing something about themselves in their movements. “Prey” was, to me, a vivid and exciting piece, bringing to the audience the personalities of four individually powerful dancers, who together produced an alluring performance.

With open windows in the Glasgow City Centre Studio, my concern lay with my attention span with so much background noise. I need not have worried. From the moment Jo Jeffries began to slowly explore the space in front of me, I was captured by “Prey”. Laura Forbes’ choreography is mesmerising, she has considered every part of the dancer’s body during each careful choreographic step. Agnes Bell’s light fingers traced the ground with an intricate path along which her body then followed. This style of movement lent itself well to the intimate nature of a studio sharing and I am interested to see how Laura develops such expression for the stage.

Joined by Laura herself and Sophia McGregor, the dancers related beautifully by means of a web-like elastic. This brought another dimension to the piece when Jo entrusted her with the care of this material. My reaction to this was natural, as if we had all been part of the idea in the beginning, a hugely successful outcome to the sharing, whether or not it was a choreographic intention!

I felt each dancer brought their personality to the piece and created four very different characters that could be further developed. Satya Dunning of Dance House discussed development with Laura and suggested that she continue to develop this piece, even after she tours in June. My feelings reflect those of Satya as I think that Laura would enjoy having more time to look into the themes of the piece and continue to develop solo material for her dancers.

Journey Dance Company created, for me, a special bond between the dancers and audience. This is an enchanting piece of contemporary dance, on which I must commend Laura Forbes and her company dancers for putting across so beautifully. I am looking forward to watching this piece grow and adapt to new spaces on its tour.
See “Prey” this month with Foundations Dance Collectives’ tour, “Founding Roots”.