Thursday 19 February 2015

FOOTPRINT DANCE FESTIVAL: What's Happening Now?

The deadline for choreographic work has passed! Artist directors, Hannah and Nia have worked through applications and watched candidate videos. Invitations to auditions have been sent out and the Footprint Dance Festival Committee are hard at work organising applicant auditions for Thursday 26th February. The committee have met with University of Roehampton Dance faculty and begun reaching out to sponsors. Additionally, Liz and Sophie are about to order Footprint t-shirts, so keep an eye out for Footprint clad people on campus soon!

Today, Emilie, Footprint's film and documentary manager, released the first of many promo videos, introducing the members of Footprint Core Committee. Take a look below:


In other news, Footprint Dance Festival has recently gained a new partnership with Wandsworth Council FRINGE Festival. Footprint has received funding to deliver a Community Dance project with local primary schools, which is great news for the festival.

Keep updated with Footprint Core Committee's progress on the festival on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and via the website!

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Friday 13 February 2015

REVIEW: Sadler’s Wells The Associates: Kate Prince, Crystal Pite & Hofesh Shechter

Sadler's Wells
Thursday 5th February 2015


Sadler's Wells Associate Artists are central to the artistic direction and vision of the theatre, marking it as the leading venue in Britain for dance. Associate Artists have the opportunity to collaborate with other choreographers and artists to develop ideas for large-scale works. The triple bill produced tonight by Sadler’s Wells director Alastair Spalding presented three choreographers in the midst of choreographic changes. However, a clear gulf is apparent between Crystal Pite’s mysterious An Image Of You Falling and Kate Prince and Hofesh Shechter’s pieces, which felt limp and clumsy.


Directed by Prince, SMILE opened the evening with a seemingly light-hearted exploration of the ‘dark side’ of Charlie Chapin’s showman smile. Ridden with repetition and bland clichés of sad clowns, SMILE does little justice to dancer Tommy Franzén’s exceptional technical and performance abilities. The narrative drifts aimlessly through images of overt showmanship to deeply rooted sadness, without consideration for the reality of Chaplin’s complex psychology.

Additionally, Shechter’s The Barbarians In Love stumbled through its transitions from tight baroque score to Shechter’s contrastingly loose physicality, as the dancers stomped around the stage like beasts. But somewhere in between the clean ballet lines and weighted contemporary movement, the work loses its way. Shechter seems to make an attempt at postmodernism, using a cold female voice to narrate what appears to be a rather intimate therapy session. The woman repeatedly asks Shechter: ‘what do you want Hofesh?’, culminating in Shechter’s frank confession of a mid-life crisis and marital infidelity. His words cut through the built up tension, leaving little for the remainder of the work.

Finally, Pite’s An Image Of You Falling, second in the program was a much-needed relief. Pite’s choreography glides through dark fragmented images of the disturbed relationship between a man and a woman, danced by Peter Chu and Annie Plamondon; from the moment they met to their violent end. Another cold female voice repetitively narrates the piece; ‘this is where it began’, ‘this is the sound of your heart hitting the floor’, ‘this is the room where it happened… a bed, a table, a lamp, no curtains’. Pite’s use of second person is particularly discomforting and emphasises the eerie tone well. The dancers move soundlessly around each other, only making contact towards the end of the work. Their limbs intimately linger, slide and wrap around each other. In the background the sound of machinery, wind and passing cars fills the moments of silence. Was it a car accident that brought the couple to their violent end? Or was it a domestic dispute, as alluded to by the movement?

Pite remains the clear winner in tonight’s triple bill. Of all three choreographers, Pite has total control over her choreography and the direction that it takes. Whereas Shechter and Prince’s choreography felt incomplete and considerably blander.