Writing this at 2am is definitely not one of my better ideas.
I have spent many years advocating for freelance artists' financial rights when faced by low pay, no pay, profiteering, exploitation, extortion and more. Which segues perfectly to the one annual experience which encompasses all of the above: Edinburgh Fringe.
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Oops, really.
It was so disheartening to see that so many applicants were rejected in the earlier round of ACE's hardship fund.
And then they decided to extend the final deadline but not actually tell many people, but Grantium died the death it deserved - the monitoring section, which isn't mandatory, but on deadline day, it wasn't editable, so for many applicants, they couldn't submit, and as far as ACE is concerned, if they didn't submit, they don't count.
I've submitted a couple of Freedom of Information requests to ACE to get more data about the numbers affected and how much they were applying for, and that will take weeks. Given the urgency of this, I'd be really grateful if people affected by Grantium breaking on them could fill out this wee survey, and hopefully allow me to record a short video of you talking about your application and how it would have helped you.
The survey is here: http://www.cloud-dance-festival.org.uk/home/ace-hardship-grantium-ouch.html
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Two dancers, aged 81 and 84, look back on their lives in dance, from when they met and began dancing together aged 14 and 17, little knowing how their partnership would transform the world of dance.
Their story is universal, sharing the physical, emotional, financial and career challenges common to all working in dance, including the sacrifices and pain in sustaining their careers together over five decades, long after their stormy relationship had dissolved.
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Edinburgh Fringe is nearly back upon us, and with it being a British Council year again, there's an enormous selection of high-quality shows to see - and that's just in dance! In addition to the British Council Showcase - usually presenting the cream of the shows on offer - there's also the annual Taiwanese dance showcase at Dance Base (038, Together Alone), a Czech dance showcase, the Made In Scotland showcase, and The Place's presentation of three shows as well as an installation by Rosemary Lee and Roswitha Chesher.
Of course there's also the Edinburgh International Festival alongside this, showing largescale work such as Nederlands Dans Theater and Boy Blue Entertainment's Blak Whyte Grey, which features the superlative Dickson Mbi.
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Who do I write this to? I'd originally planned to write this as an "Ode To ACE", but I actually really care for the people I know who work for ACE, and I can't see how they're involved in today's decision-making. Instead, there are some other people who I don't know, and so this is aimed at them.
After all these years, it was so brilliant beyond words that Ballet Black finally became an NPO. Ditto for Rosie Kay, and Tom Dale. But then the hand tooketh away. MDI, Dance Manchester and Greenwich Dance - the dance development agencies for Liverpool, Manchester and South East London respectively - lost all their Arts Council funding and things stopped making sense.
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As I've been working on my own independent research for several years, and I like networks, I've been exploring the idea of a network for independent dance researchers (including PhD students), and after conversations with Victoria Thoms (Society for Dance Research), Dr Sara Houston (University of Roehampton) and several PhD students, I've finally organised an introductory meeting for anyone who is, will be or has been working independently on dance research, including PhD students: graduates who conducted research as part of their studies and who are still interested in research; journalists researching for books on dance; PhD students who are feeling isolated; PhD graduates who would like to continue in research but not in an academic framework; and those of us who do our own research because we love it. There are no doubt other categories too, and they're welcome as well.
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At some point in the last few years, Brighton's Festival and Fringe have evolved from "something that's happening over there" to an unmissable event to catch some truly amazing and otherwise-sold-out shows. Last year, Complicite's The Encounter was on: solidly sold out for its run at London's Barbican Centre, this was a unique opportunity to see it in a comparatively intimate venue. This year, it's Michael Keegan-Dolan's Swan Lake: I don't care how far you have to travel to see it, make sure you see it. And also Liz Aggiss's Slap and Tickle, while you're at it. And then there's the premiere of Theo Clinkard's new work, so I hope you have your credit card at the ready.
Add a comment I don't remember how or when I first heard about Avatâra Ayuso, however it was Donald Hutera who first introduced me to her at a post-show party at Sadler's Wells in 2011. I spent the next several years with her in mind when trying to find a suitable venue for Cloud Dance Festival, and the first thing I did after meeting with Bernie Grant Arts Centre in 2013 was to email her excitedly to say that I'd finally found a venue large enough to show her work.
Add a comment Over five years ago, Arts Professional magazine approached me about "the sites I wouldn't be without". Five years later, those have been distilled down to two websites, both in their own states of flux: Article19 tweeting today to announce "future changes", and last week's impromptu and unanticipated announcement that Carmel Smith, the erstwhile editor of London Dance for over 15 years, being made redundant with immediate effect.
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On Sunday 10 January, I held an open space event on gender and (in)equality in the dance industry, organised through Cloud Dance Festival and with the partnership and collaboration of Donald Hutera, Sally Marie, the Female Choreographers' Collective, Kaleidoscopic Arts, Technique Exchange and others.
Now that the Christmas season is over and we no longer have that excuse to splurge excessively on Prosecco, chocolate and whatever else people splurge excessively on this time of year, why not use those funds instead to support any number of dance-related crowdfunding campaigns? If you actually have any money left over, that is - but as you know with crowdfunds, every penny counts. Once you deduct the website's and Paypal's fees, that is...
Crowdfunding sites are generally very painful to wade through - dispelling the myth that countless random strangers will stumble across your campaign and be compelled to donate generously (despite a weird glitch this evening which converted the category links on Crowdfunder to Autin Dance Theatre's expired 2014 campaign), so here are the key campaigns in need of your support right now.
There are probably many other crowdfunding campaigns, but I didn't come across them, and I'll aim to keep this page updated as crowdfunds come and go.
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Many websites and publications have been posting their dance highlights of 2015, which are exclusively of shows. But in our industry, how much of our work actually involves performing our work? 365* GFA grants have been awarded in dance this year (amounting to £7,383,626), and we can only guess how many more have been turned down, which goes to show how very active our industry is, even if all the weeks and months and years of slog and work and admin-ad-nauseam which go into each project and production generally goes overlooked.
Also, (no) thanks to a very large pulmonary embolism earlier this year, and deciding to live 300 miles away from London (which was fine until Virgin Trains took over and put all the train fares on steroids), I've had to settle for secondhand "viewing" of many shows, largely through Twitter. Not quite the same as the real thing, but thanks to Virgin Trains, a hell of a lot cheaper.
So my 2015 list of highlights is of the moments of our industry which have taken place off stage. I could list my favourite shows from this year, but where's the fun in that? Here goes.
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We've been talking about gender inequalities in dance for a long time now. Most of the conversations we've had and the articles which have been written have focussed on the plight of female choreographers, leading to initiatives such as the Female Choreographers' Collective, founded by Jane Coulston and Holly Noble, Kaleidoscopic Arts, founded by Lucia Schweigert and Konstantina Skalionta, Tamsin Fitzgerald's The Bench and Charlotte Vincent's The Table.
But after all these years of panel debates, panel discussions, conferences, articles and conversations, how have things changed across the independent dance sector for the people working in it? While debates etc are great at stimulating post-debate conversations, in time, the conversations fade away and little changes, however people's frustration at the ongoing situation and at not being heard remains.
The gender debate in contemporary dance is hardly new and has not really explored in depth, but when Rambert offered their programme for their #RambertLive events, including a debate on not only female choreographers, but on how to provide opportunities and commissions for them, that seemed worth travelling 600 miles roundtrip for. In one day, no less. With blood clots.
World-renowned choreographer Robert Cohan CBE and his long-time collaborator and composer Eleanor Alberga have been mentoring three choreographers and composers, all at various stages of their careers. They have been passing on their indispensable knowledge to continue their legacy of creating intuitive contemporary dance and music.
“How do we make dances better? How do we continue to both refine and challenge our methods? How can we encourage more fully-realised and deeply-considered dance-making from ourselves and from our colleagues?” - Robert Cohan, May 2015
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{extravote 5} Wendy Houstoun's Pact With Pointlessness was the final Edinburgh Fringe show I saw, and it was a wonderful show to finish with, effortlessly summing up the mania, hilarity, sincerity, theatricality, tongue-in-cheek dancing and whimsy of the attention-deficit Fringe.
{extravote 5} The advance publicity for Sweetshop Revolution's I Loved You And I Loved You stated that it explored the extremely talented Welsh composer Morfydd Owen and her love triangle with the man she married and the man she loved; someone later pointed out that the promotional photo was reminiscent of that for Dangerous Liaisons.
{extravote 4} For some time, every prize and award in contemporary dance seemed to be earmarked for James Wilton, until he relocated to Austria to work with Oper Graz, and since then, he has been developing his practice with commissions and teaching and continuing to create work for his company of which Last Man Standing, commissioned by Dance City, is the most recent.
T-Dance is a piece which explores touch and connection, and how to touch and connect with others when they are that little bit too far away to reach. Vera Tussing has been creating experimental work in a wide range of nontraditional spaces over the past years, and while the dancers' friendliness and informality are refreshing in the setting of a black box theatre setting, it's easy to imagine this piece being transformed by moving it to a nontraditional space, where the audience can't lurk behind the fourth wall.
{extravote 5} From Liz Aggiss's first appearance onstage at the start of The English Channel, you know to expect the unexpected.
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