Dance News
Sensing Movement Living Spaces
An international symposium hosted by the University of Chichester in collaboration with University of Southern Denmark on Monday June 7th 2010 – 10am till 4pm.
Dr Susanne Ravn is a dance researcher based in Denmark and the author of several books on dance, movement and learning processes. Her book Sensing Movement, Living Spaces, which explores the ideas presented during this research symposium, has recently been published by VDM Verlag.
Using a combination of ethnographical research methods and insights drawn from phenomenology Susanne Ravn's research explores the way in which expert dancers from a number of movement disciplines offer enriching insights not only movement into but also body consciousness. She has worked closely in workshop environments with professional ballet and modern dancers, improvisers, Butoh artists, and ‘new dance’ and Body-Mind Centering practitioners to explore the ways in which space, sensing and memory are structured as lived experience, and subsequently shaped and given form in movement.
On June 7th 2010, Susanne will be giving a practical workshop at the University of Chichester in which participants can experience from a first person perspective the complex interactions that operate between the dancer, their body, space and the environment. Participants will explore through direct experience how awareness of movement extends beyond the body to the physical and cultural environments within which we move – and how this has to be considered when taking these experiences into phenomenological explorations.
She will follow the workshop with a seminar in which she unpacks the detail of the interweaving of 1st and 2nd person research methodologies and philosophical theory that emerged during her research, arguing that the application of phenomenological theory to dance could take more account of the world around.
On behalf of the University of Chichester I would like to invite you to join us on this day of practice-based research enquiry.
Sarah Rubidge – Professor in Choreography and New Media
For more information please contact ArtsConferences@chi.ac.uk or download the Registration Form
Dance Taster Day
On Thursday November 5th, 150 Year 12 & 13 Dance students visited the Dance Department for a fun-filled Taster Day. Thanks to the organisation of Cathy Childs, Annemarie Nichols and other colleagues in the Dance Department, this was the biggest Taster Day that Dance have ever held, with a massive increase in attendance over the same event in 2008.
The students were given the opportunity to get involved in a range of workshop activities and watch performances from the University’s own students. Feedback from the event has been overwhelmingly positive and has encouraged a number of students to apply to the University this year, as well as developed important links with tutors and advisers.
One parent who travelled with her daughter from Belgium to attend the event said in her follow-up email: "My daughter thoroughly enjoyed the taster day last Thursday. Everything seemed so well organised and friendly. What a super way to inform potential students. I was so impressed with the fact that the current students were so involved in the taster day. I believe this conveys the department’s confidence in the course and their students."
Many thanks to all involved!
International dance scholar presents one-day research conference at University of Chichester
Renowned international dance academic Professor Ann Cooper-Albright from the US is to present a one-day conference at the University of Chichester as part of the Dance department’s programme of research events.
Entitled ‘Acts of passion: history, language and the body’ the conference will take place on Tuesday 30 June and will consist of a performative lecture and experiential workshop.
African-American theatre dance in the US
Research Seminar, featuring a lecture by guest international dance scholar Susan Manning
Leading international dance academic, Susan Manning, will reflect on her recent experience curating an exhibit in Paris on the repertory of 20th century African-American theatre dance. Like Barack Obama, choreographers who came of age in the 1980s and 1990s – Jawole Zollar, Bill T. Jones, Ralph Lemon, and others – have brought a post-Civil Rights sensibility to their aesthetics and politics. How might this sensibility reshape narratives of 'black dance' in the U.S. and in Europe? read more >>
Dance students to perform on stage at Queen Elizabeth Hall with the Balletboyz
28/10/08
Three Dance students from the University of Chichester will perform on stage at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London’s Southbank Centre with famous modern dance company, the Balletboyz, in November.
The Dance students, Kai Downham and Zack Dennis (Year 1) and Joseph Darby (Year 2), rehearsed with the Balletboyz in the University’s Dance Studio earlier this month. They will take part in two performances of the Balletboyz’ ‘Greatest Hits’ international tour at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on 4th and 5th November.
Graduate performance company mapdance launch their 2008 spring tour
13/02/08
Following the success of their first tour in 2007, University of Chichester’s graduate performance company mapdance is back with a diverse repertoire of four dance works. The company of seven dancers will be touring nationally from February to June 2008 to a range of venues, colleges and schools.
Chichester Arts Events for Spring 2008
This season we are offering an eclectic programme of high quality Contemporary Dance and Theatre Productions, celebrated musical events, and a Dance performance by our very own student MAP Dance Company.
An exciting feature of the programme is the presentation of new performance knowledge and research by professional artists, and PhD students at the cutting edge of their discipline.
From productions by international artists to the work of young performers and companies the University of Chichester offers a great night out at a sophisticated venue, for very reasonable prices. Not to be missed!
For more information you can download the Arts Events brochure pdf
The Rebecca Skelton Fund Awards
The Rebecca Skelton Fund provides financial assistance towards the cost of postgraduate dance study in experiential/creative work to include dance improvisation and those training methods such as Skinner Releasing Technique, Alignment Therapy, Feldenkrais Technique, Alexander Technique and other body-mind practices that focus on an inner awareness and use the proprioceptive communication system or an inner sensory mode.
For more information visit Rebecca Skelton Fund
Dance Wins AHRC Award
The Dance subject area has just won jointly with Surrey University and Royal Holloway an AHRC (Arts and Humanities Research Council) Collaborative Research Training Scheme grant of approximately £10,000. This is to fund three research training seminars and a postgraduate conference for research over the next 2 years.
The research training seminars will benefit the 10 or so research students in Dance and Performing Arts at Chichester alongside research students from Surrey University and Royal Holloway. This graduate training programme will facilitate sharing research across and between related areas of disciplinary knowledge and cultural contexts and aid in breaking down the isolation of graduate research crucial to the shared artform of dance.
The two day postgraduate conference will be open to graduates from Dance and related disciplines UK-wide, providing an opportunity to foster critical rigour and experimentation with research in a supportive environment.
Professor Valerie Briginshaw
Dr Sarah Rubidge, world premiere of Eros~Rris at The Linbury Theatre, Royal Opera House.
Dr Sarah Rubidge, Reader in Digital Performance has been staging the world premiere of Eros~Rris at The Linbury Theatre, Royal Opera House.
Created by choreographer Liz Lea and virtual artist Sarah Rubidge, Eros-Eris interweaves live and virtual choreographies.
‘Strong yet feline, Lea casts herself as a black-clad goddess opposite Conchúir’s tall, platinum-haired god. The two flit about against and inside the streaks, waves and fumes of Sarah Rubidge’s digital graphics, which themselves dance upon a flat pendulum and a screen-like arc planted mid-stage.’ Donald Hutera, The Times 23rd May 2007.
Lorraine Smith a graduate from University of Chichester, is one of the Choreographers for IN THE SHADOWS OF SENGHOR
A 60 minute experimental theatre piece combines performance poetry with elements of dance and multi-media.
Celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the birth of French speaking Senegalese intellectual and political figure, Léopold Sédar Senghor, Tonny Ajoup has used various poems from some of the writer‚s notorious poetry collections to create a show which re-explores the emergence of the literary and ideological Négritude movement in France in the mid-twenties to the early 1930s.
Performed in French and English, the show opens with a new performance from Live Art collective Le Couteau Jaune, introducing the audience to a sonic and an historical journey. Lead by artists Mc Clure and Darryl Biggs, the collective is specialised in the using language, sound and projections to create intense and disturbing environments.
Venue & Time:
Saturday, 9 December, 2006, 7:30pm
@ THE SPACE
(nearest station is DLR Mudchute), 269 Westferry Road, Isle of Dogs, London
E14 3RS
Creative Team:
Director/Producer: Tonny Ajoup
Choreographer: Lorraine Smith, Anne-Maarit Kinnunen
Costume & Set Designer: Nesreen Nabil
Lighting Design: Daniel O‚Neill
Sound Design: Nela Brown
Performers: Leonie Charles, Chiara de Palo, Rechel Gensaya, Sean Quinn
Film by Dance graduate Charlotte Miles to be shown on Channel 4
Recent
Dance graduate Charlotte Miles has been commissioned by Channel 4 to produce
a dance film as part of its 'Three Minute Wonder' series. Charlotte's
film 'Do You See Me?' features a performance by Youth Dance Company,
Young Anjali, following six friends hanging out in their local town – a
place where pedestrian movement becomes dance, and where nothing is quite
what it seems. The film offers the viewer an opportunity to see life through
the eyes of the dancers through the use of Doggicam – a camera body
mount most recently worn by Tom Cruise for Mission Impossible 3.
The film is being screened by Channel 4 on Wednesday 15 November at 7.55pm.