STUDENT, COMMUNITY & FAMILY WORK

WORK FOR STUDENTS

We have been commissioned by several conservatoires and universities in the UK to create work to be performed by their students. The work we make with the students reflects our artistic research & interest in the potential of dance as a political art form with the power to create positive social change. This includes digital work made during lockdown. We have created work for:

Rambert School of Ballet & Contemporary Dance 2019/20

‘Finale’

As alumni of Rambert School, we were commissioned in 2019/20 to create work for the 3rd year students to celebrate the school’s centenary. We created a work called ‘Finale’ for 44 students who would all portray the school’s founder Marie Rambert. ‘Finale’ never made it to the stage due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Find out more about Finale

Screenshot 2022-04-07 at 09.50.10 copy.png

Rehearsal shot of Rambert School students in 'Finale'

Costume design for 'Finale' by Maxwell Nicholson-Lailey

WORK FOR STUDENTS

NSCD students in 'Walls of Sound'. Photo by Camilla Greenwell

Northern Contemporary Dance School

‘Walls of Sound’

In November 2020, we spent three weeks during lockdown at NSCD creating work for 15 of their 2nd year BA students. The work was live-streamed from their theatre to a digital audience. 'Walls of Sound' explored Japanese Noh theatre (tied in with our work ‘Two Moths in Real Time’), the music of Throbbing Gristle, the everyday sounds of Leeds, the Fluxus art movement, William Blake, LS Lowry, Japanese horror films and queer theory.

Find out more about Walls of Sound

NSCD students in 'Walls of Sound'. Photo by Camilla Greenwell

Rambert School of Ballet & Contemporary Dance 2022/23

‘Billionaires in Space (and don't come back!)’

In November 2022, we spent two weeks working with 3rd year BA students, making a shiny new disco-ballet about the current space-race of the mega-rich.

Find out more about Billionaires in Space

Students from Rambert School in Billionaires in Space. Photo by Chris Nash

Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music & Dance

‘Nightlife’

During the lockdown of February 2021 we created a film with over 30 3rd year dance students from Laban through a series of workshops held on zoom. Nightlife is a short dance film which takes you on a journey through the sound waves of night time radio stations and focuses in on our nocturnal bedroom lives; an insomniac Under Milk Wood. It combined studies into queer nightlife and nocturnal wildlife.

Find out more about Nightlife

Screen Shot 2021-03-09 at 11.40.38 copy.png

Laban student in 'Nightlife'

Screen Shot 2021-03-09 at 11.38.00 copy.png

Laban student in 'Nightlife'

London Contemporary Dance School

‘An Effort in Camp’

In May/June 2020 we created a 20 minute film with 14 3rd year students at LCDS. This was during the first covid lockdown and the 5 week process was held entirely over zoom. We devised a sort of 'Course in Camp' to understand more about the meaning of the word, through studying lots of theory, references, sources and people. We guided the dancers to create material and film themselves at home, which we edited together into a 20-minute film.

Find out more about An Effort in Camp

Screenshot 2020-08-21 at 19.59.41 copy.png

LCDS student in 'An Effort in Camp'

Screenshot 2020-08-21 at 20.02.50 copy.png

LCDS student in 'An Effort in Camp'

Edge Hill University

We have been lucky enough to create 2 works on students at Edge Hill.

'Radical Daughters'

Made in 2018, this is a group work for 10 dancers who all portray the artist Claude Cahun. We developed this work into a solo for Jules Cunningham.

'Pink Narcissus'

12 students play the prolific romantic novelist Barbara Cartland, a high-energy, bigoted vision in pink. We developed this 201? work into a Thick & Tight duet, which the students performed with us as a chorus at the Lowry.

Find out more about Radical Daughters and Pink Narcissus

Screenshot 2020-08-21 at 19.57.56 copy.png

LCDS students in 'An Effort in Camp'

28698727_1841415875893252_7956367558150379455_o copy.jpg

Edge Hill students in 'Radical Daughters'

Edge Hill students in 'Pink Narcissus'. Photos by Nick Fairhurst

WORK FOR COMMUNITY GROUPS

South East Dance’s Steering Group

Over several weeks in 2021, we worked with the Steering Group, a community group of 10 people of various ages, a mixture of non-disabled and disabled, most of whom have minimal dance experience. Over four 1.5 hour zoom sessions we studied Romanticism, poetry, synaesthesia and ABBA, to create 4 short films featuring the Steering Group’s dance and written work. These films were shown as part of Brighton’s Our City Dances festival in July 2021.

Find out more about the Steering Group films

Screen Shot 2021-07-10 at 16.11.51 copy.png

Still from SED Steering Group films

Screen Shot 2021-07-10 at 16.12.23 copy.png

Still from SED Steering Group films

Meet Me at The Albany

During April 2023, we worked with the wonderful members of Meet Me over 4 weeks. Carl Harrison of Camp Fit fame joined us to teach warm-up, we taught some repertoire including a dance to Mary Oliver’s ‘Wild Geese’, we created poetry based on everyone’s memories of nature and co-created a dance based on their words. We will be making a simple little film of their beautiful work which will be the basis of a project we will do with primary school students about nature. We’ll then share the children’s work with this group, connecting everyone together in some small way.

Screen Shot 2021-07-10 at 16.12.52 copy.png

Still from SED Steering Group films

WORK FOR FAMILY AUDIENCES

Royal Opera House Family Sunday events

We have been commissioned by the Royal Ballet’s Learning & Participation Team to create and curate work for several Family Sunday events. These are daytime shows for children and their families, which aim to bring in audiences who wouldn’t usually visit the Royal Opera House.

'Wild Things'

With a theme of Fabulous Creatures, we curated a line up of short performances by wonderful artists; Patricia Langa, DJ Hassan, James Southward, Vidya Patel, Faith Prendergast and Karl Fagerlund-Brekke

Faith Prendergast in 'Wild Things' at the Royal Opera House. Photo by Jon Archdeacon

Vidya Patel in 'Wild Things' at the Royal Opera House. Photo by Jon Archdeacon

'Night Suites'

We were asked to respond to the Nutcracker so we created a short new solo for Jordan Ajadi, who takes the audience on a journey through a suite of different dreams, conjured by a dream-creature who is playful, mischievous, shape shifting and altogether magical.

Find out more about Night Suites

Screenshot 2022-04-06 at 13.37.02 copy.png

Jordan Ajadi in 'Night Suites' at the Royal Opera House

'Excellent Together - Lots of Love'

Excellent Together is a project we co-run with Corali Dance Company to support collaboration between pairs of artists. Excellent Together brings people together in their differences to promote creative solidarity and challenge prejudice around what makes an artist or their work 'excellent'. For this Valentine themed event, we presented work by 3 Excellent Together duos.

Find out more about Excellent Together

Screenshot 2022-04-06 at 13.37.41 copy.png

Jordan Ajadi in 'Night Suites' at the Royal Opera House

'Prima'

Danny Smith stars as Prima Ballerina Dame Margot Fonteyn, looking back over her long career with her friend Frederick Ashton.

Find out more about Prima

'Voices'

To celebrate Pride, we worked with Corali Dance Company to interview staff at the Royal Opera House about what Pride means to them. We used their recorded interviews to create a tapestry of voices woven together, the soundtrack to a live work for 4 dancers.

Find out more about Voices

Jackie Ryan and Patricia Langa in Excellent Together at the Royal Opera House. Photo by Jon Archdeacon

'Letter To Tchaikovsky'

We worked with First Soloist of the Royal Ballet, James Hay, to create a solo about Tchaikovsky, the most famous ballet composer. The solo considers Tchaikovsky's hidden queerness and the difficulty of not being able to be open about who you are.

Find out more about Letter To Tchaikovsky