Animated Edition - Summer 2023
Rest of World Price:
£11.50
|
|
* All prices include delivery
Focus on: Dance gives voice to issues people are experiencing
Summer can mean different things for those of us in community and participatory dance practice.
For some, it’s the end of busy term-time work and a chance to rest, reflect, spend time away. For others it’s one of the busiest times of year, a full-on flurry of school holiday schemes, cultural celebrations and festivals.
And, of course, summer is traditionally a time
for training, refreshing your practice or trying something new on courses like our own Summer Intensive (26-27 July). We hope that some of you are able to join us there.
Whatever kind of a summer is unfolding before you, this edition of Animated has something for you from think pieces to contemplate while taking time out, to quick bursts of inspiration to scroll through on your ‘phone on your daily commute.
As ever, they are a glorious contrast of voices from all parts of the profession involved with all kinds of people, places and projects. They are bound together by common threads and deeply held values. We defy you to remain unmoved
by the depth of care each article demonstrates for communities themselves – within the dance profession, aspiring to train for it or serving it. We hope you leave each world – depicted with such care by our hard-working authors – a little more inspired about your own.
Louise Katerega
Head of Professional Development
Chris Stenton
Chief Executive
In this issue
Read and download the complete Summer 2023 digital edition of Animated magazine online in a flipbook.
The large-scale outdoor spectacular Rush, by choreographer and Artistic Director of Southpaw Robby Graham, was commissioned by ArtReach for Leicester’s Journey’s Festival During the Summer of 2022. This was the fourth iteration of a work that has become Southpaw’s signature and a touchstone for our troubled times. One year on, Robby in conversation with People Dancing’s Louise Katerega reflects on the origins, journey and final destination of Rush, a work that has remained resonant for almost a decade and spawned a host of unlikely dancers in some of the most challenged communities in four locations in England...
The Velcro Collective is a female-led dance, theatre and participatory arts collective based in the South West of England, that brings outdoor performance to life for visually impaired and sighted children and family audiences. Co-founder, Louise Brown, shares the uniquely collaborative process behind their latest show, Crunch, in conversation with visually impaired dancer, Holly Thomas and audio describer, Dr. Louise Fryer.
Sharon Scaniglia, previously manager of ArtsSpeak in Nottingham, shares her appreciation of supporting artists, how creativity combats loneliness and her passionate belief in older age as an important time of rich self-expression. These come together, for her, in the magic of Cool Company, a gallery-based dance project for over 60s led by choreographer, Deane McQueen.
Embracing the age of digital photography, Mark Anderson, of West Midlands-based infuseDANCE, contemplates the power of fusing dance and photography for young people, offering instant inspiration, increased engagement, mental health survival strategies and wider audiences.
Georgina Cockburn is a PhD student at The Centre for Dance Research at Coventry University centred on People Dancing’s Live Well and Dance with Parkinson’s programme. We join her on her research journey around the UK contemplating the importance of capturing individuals’ lived experience in the programme itself and the wider world.
Hayley Graham, one of twenty dance artists with Sense charity’s National Inclusive Dance Programme 2022-23, looks back on her experience together with Rebecca Randall, Sense’s Resident Dance Artist and Stephanie Tyrell its Head of Arts. Here they describe a delicate practice of building trust between those who create, those who lead and those who support a dance session to reveal artistic potential.
Maria Malone, Co-Founder and CEO/Executive Director of Movema, gives us a fascinating insight into their Global Folk project, where Morris met Ukranian and Indian dance leading to revelations about what English culture can learn from its past identity and that of others to heal its present and embrace a more peaceable, diverse future.
Suzanne Cantwell-Birkin moved to Coventry in the English West Midlands from Philadelphia in 2003 where she met Alexis Haines who completed her BA in dance at Coventry University in 2001. Eventually forming the “small but mighty” Off-Balance Dance Company, follow them here though two decades of challenge and triumph in the city they call home, where dance has been their only constant, sustaining themselves and their community.
Anita Clark, Director of The Work Room in Glasgow, Scotland, frames the voices of parent-artists as they launch a new resource. Born of a new project, RE-EMERGING, it is offered for others, like them, contemplating or navigating the complexities of resuming their practice alongside the care and
raising of children.
“Human first, dancer second.” This is the ethos and motivation behind Birmingham’s Linden Dance Company, with professional artists, young people and communities alike. How, co-artistic director Sara Macqueen asks, can we create a safe and motivational space for people to thrive both physically and mentally?
Susanne Burns, Karen Gallagher and June Gamble are three of Britain’s most respected super-producers, arts innovators and cultural consultants. Here they ruminate, reflect and call for revolution as they take us on a journey through four decades of dance development in England.