4dancers – Page 49

A Different Kind Of Dance Team: Nel Shelby & Christopher Duggan

July 6, 2012 by 4dancers

Most of you know Christopher Duggan from his dance photography column here at 4dancers which runs the last day of the month here and is titled “Finis”. What many of you may not know is that Christopher is part of a team–his wife, Nel Shelby–is a dance videographer. Today we thought we’d share a bit more about what life is like for this talented couple in the dance world…

This is Nel’s tenth season at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival. She spent the summer of 2001 as a videography intern and now serves as Festival Videographer, supervising two interns and an apprentice each season. Christopher has been Festival Photographer at the Pillow since 2006. He acts as mentor for an intern during each summer festival, and this year he will participate on the faculty in a 5-day dance photography workshop led by his esteemed colleague Rose Eichenbaum.

Deeply dedicated to the preservation and promotion of dance through documentation of live performances, Nel and Christopher often team up to provide artists with the complete package for their upcoming productions. They enjoy brainstorming with artists from the inception of a work, creating behind the scenes photographs of rehearsal and generating excitement through promos, to the final production, filming performances and providing photography for press and preservation. Based in New York City, they have worked with countless emerging, established, uptown and downtown choreographers, dance venues and presenting festivals.

Both Nel and Christopher had personal relationships with dance prior to filming and photographing the art form. Nel danced from age 2 through 22 and has a bachelor’s degree in dance. She is also a certified Pilates instructor. Movement is an incredibly important part of her routine, and because she feels kinesthetically connected to the performers she films, she finds that most of her choices are instinctual and gracefully-aligned with the choreography. Christopher has developed an aesthetic that seeks to capture the heart and integrity of each choreographer’s voice within an image. He was first attracted to dance when working on the wardrobe crew for performances in college and has felt a magnetic pull from dancers ever since. He played the doundoun in a West African group Magbana and made several trips to West Africa to study drumming and dance.

Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival offers a bustling season for Christopher and Nel because of its vast variety of dance and large quantity of work – each season, their responsibilities include documenting aspects of festival culture in addition to its 20 mainstage dance performances, filming, photographing and overseeing documentation of more than 100 free performances and events, and educating students about the technical and philosophical aspects of photographing and filming dance. But its the festival’s sense of magic that keeps both artists clamoring for more each year. Situated on the beautiful Berkshires hills, nestled in majestic trees and rooted in the history of founder and modern dance visionary Ted Shawn, the Pillow is steeped in tradition but forward-thinking in its worldly and contemporary curation. It’s a place to grow, learn and find inspiration. And for Nel and Christopher, it’s home. They now own a cabin on the same road as the Pillow and cherish the thought that their daughter is growing up at the festival each summer.

4dancers talked with both of them a bit about their lives and their work with one another… [Read more…]

Ballet Dancers: Special, But Expendable….

July 3, 2012 by Kimberly Peterson

by Kimberly Peterson

In the new series “Breaking Pointe”, a documentary style show highlighting the world of professional ballet inside Ballet West from the CW network, there are several brilliant things which happen here: 1) – a no holds barred look at life as a professional dancer, the ups and downs of this on their professional and personal lives, their own development as artists and people; 2) – it brings into sharp relief the nature of the competitive atmosphere of professional ballet and the ramifications of this atmosphere on the work ballet produces.

In the first episode, we are introduced to several of the dancers in differing points in their careers, who are getting ready for their annual contract renewals, or conversely, their pink slips. The Artistic Director, Adam Sklute, in speaking about how he must make difficult decisions for the good of the company, states: “The best recipe for creating a hardworking and well-functioning dancer and artist is if all the dancers know that they are special, but also that they are expendable.” This statement resonated with me and instinctually. I found myself bumping up against it as I watch these people struggle for an unattainable perfection, while knowing and accepting that they will never truly find it, never really have security or rest. There is only the constant pursuit of perfection.

While this may be the way in which ballet chooses to conduct itself, the manner in which they operate their business, I seriously doubt the efficacy of this kind of an environment not only on the people who work there, but also the work that is eventually produced. [Read more…]

Dance In The UK: Latitude Festival

July 2, 2012 by 4dancers

by Jessica Wilson

The line-up of Latitude Festival 2012 has been launched, due to take place on 12-15 July at Henham Park in Suffolk, UK. With tickets already on sale, the dance and theatre bill highlights look set to take the Festival by storm with a huge variety of acts taking place.

For example, the National Theatre will showcase Alice By Heart, a National Theatre Connections production from the writers behind the hit musical adaptation of Spring Awakening, with documentary-theatre company Look Left Look Right premiering their Latitude commission of four new musicals. Political activist Mark Thomas will preview his new play about his father, Bravo Figura, before taking it on to Edinburgh’s Traverse Theatre, emphasising the breadth of works being presented at Latitude, and the talent within these. Theatre Delicatessen are also set to premiere their new production, Henry V, in The Outdoor Theatre where Globe Education at Shakespeare’s Glove – London – will also perform.

Additional highlights include Australian superhuman circus company C!rca, the Lyric Hammersmith with its brand new series of highly experiential site specific theatre pieces, Battersea Arts Centre, Harold in Havana, HighTide (Suffolk’s leading festival theatre company), Pentabus Theatre presenting specially created work The Diggers Band and internationally renowned contemporary dance favourites Sadler’s Wells from London who will return to The Waterfront Stage. The Sadler’s Wells programme includes Candoco Dance Company, a company of disabled and non disabled dancers and Sadler’s Wells Associate Artist and leading figure in British hip hop scene, Jonzi-D.

With Latitude featuring such prestigious performance companies as the National Theatre and Sadler’s Wells, the Latitude tradition for presenting the best in new dance and theatre will continue. Melvin Benn, the Managing Director of Festival Republic and the founder and creator of Latitude Festival commented that the bill for 2012 will see Latitude present many sensational artists yet again, each of which the Festival is thrilled to announce, making the Festival confident that 2012 will be the best Latitude to date and maintain its title as the king of the multi-arts festival.

Eleven dedicated arts stages will offer performances to festival-goers from a spectacular mix of artists across comedy, film, dance, theatre, literature, poetry, cabaret and classical music, as well as the Latitude Contemporary Art Awards and Exhibition. Now in their third year, the Awards offer a platform to five of the contemporary art world’s most exciting artists, giving them a chance to create a piece for an exhibition set in a wooded area of Henham Park. The 2012 shortlist comprises of modern day Hannah Höch equivalent Linder Sterling; The Guardian Artist of the Week Tom Dale; Jerwood Drawing Prize 2010 shortlister George Young, 2008 MaxMara prize shortlister Lisa Peachey and Kingston University Stanley Picker Fellowship member Andy Holden. 2011 Latitude Contemporary Art Prize winner Andy Harper will also be returning with a new piece.

As the seventh edition of Latitude, the festival is also set to host music legend Bon Iver as the closing performance in the Obelisk Arena in his first major headline slot and only UK festival appearance in 2012. In addition, the BBC London Olympics theme composers, Elbow, will top the bill on Saturday, while Paul Weller will bring Latitude 2012 to a crescendo on Sunday.

Jessica Wilson

Assistant Editor Jessica Wilson is a final year student at Middlesex university in London, studying Dance Performance. She is also a Marketing and Communications Assistant at the Royal Academy of Dance (RAD).

Jessica reviews London shows for the Society of London Theatre’s initiative for 16-25 year olds, TheatreFix, writes features for A Younger Theatre and blogs for Cloud Dance Festival, with additional press responsibilities. She has completed many marketing internships, the most recent at English National Ballet.

Jessica has also previously interned for SOLT, East London Dance and the ISTD dance examination board. Jessica is a National Youth Dance Ambassador for Youth Dance England, focusing on young people’s access to dance. She is extremely passionate about opportunities for young people enabling them to succeed and hopes to continue advocating this in the future through a variety of means.

The opinions expressed here are Jessica’s alone and do not reflect the opinions of RAD.

Finis: Gotham Dance Festival

June 30, 2012 by 4dancers

by Christopher Duggan

My wife Nel and I have been filming and photographing dance for years, and we can’t seem to get enough of the dance festival experience. Festivals offer a different kind of excitement that you don’t always see during one company’s week-long run in the theater. They’re jam-packed with different dancers, styles and choreographic voices over a short amount of time. With so much happening, the festival set-up creates a huge buzz that keeps everyone excited and on their toes. It’s a fun vibe, and it seems to encourage new audiences – fresh faces that are game for seeing something new and being exposed to art they aren’t familiar with.

Behind the scenes, I get to see how that variety is created, and sometimes, I see the same dancers and choreographers on different nights with completely different programs. It shows how incredibly diverse the dance world is, how much talent exists in the field and how lucky we are as fans to have access to it all.

Gotham Dance Festival is getting better each year, and I’m always psyched to photograph the companies Producer Ken Maldonado brings to The Joyce Theater. This year, there was a one-night only celebration featuring choreography by a fantastic group of U.S.-based female choreographers to benefit Gotham Arts Exchange. The show included: BalletX performing the work of Jodie Gates, Jane Comfort & Company, Loni Landon, Camille A. Brown & Dancers, Carolyn Dorfman Dance Company, Kate Weare Company, Pam Tanowitz Dance, and a special encore by Monica Bill Barnes & Company.

The festival also included California-based BODYTRAFFIC and Gallim Dance. Nel and I first saw Gallim perform Blush at White Wave Festival in Brooklyn, and we’ve been hooked ever since. In fact, Nel and I have worked with a lot of these choreographers and dancers over the years. We are so proud to see them achieving such great success and filling The Joyce Theater, and it was really fun to share this festival experience with them.

And now I’d like to share it with you…

Finding Balance: Artistic Exhange & Trust

June 25, 2012 by 4dancers

by Emily Kate Long

Lately I’ve become increasingly aware of—and increasingly excited by—how much hard science goes into this esoteric and ephemeral art form. The study of technique is, at its roots, a study of kinesiology: physics applied to the human body. Broadening the scientific scope a bit, the emotional, intellectual, and sensory exchanges that happen in the studio and onstage are roughly analogous to biological mutualism. This installment of “Finding Balance” is a look at the fine balance between needs and gifts of the participants in artistic exchange and the trust that’s required to achieve equilibrium—the balance of science with something greater and less measurable.

In biology, mutualistic relationships are categorized as obligative (the relationship is necessary for the survival of one or both participants) or facultative (useful but nonessential for one or both participants). Additionally, the interaction can be described in terms of what is being exchanged between parties: services, resources, or both.

Often the focus is on the relationship between performers and audience, but there are a lot of other players here. Teachers, directors, choreographers, musicians, production staff, and stage crew all make necessary contributions to the presentation of the artistic product, and each derives benefit from the process and the product. The right balance of mutualistic relationships in nature encourages the success of ecosystems. The right balance in professional dance is necessary for the survival and advancement of our art form.

Dancers require opportunities to hone our craft, opportunities to share our art, and individuals or ideas from which to draw inspiration. Classes and rehearsals offer opportunities to perfect movements, and for those things, dancers need a facilitator—a teacher, director, choreographer, or stager. Sharing our art can’t happen without another party present; that’s where the audience comes in. Dancers draw inspiration from a multitude of sources: the audience, the facilitator, the dance itself, the music, fellow dancers, emotions, and past life experiences. Our relationship to all of these things is largely obligative—we cannot intuit technique or dance exclusively by instinct. We cannot be our sole source of motivation and we definitely can’t watch ourselves from across the footlights.

The primary need (arguably, the exclusive need) of the audience is an exceptional sensory and emotional experience, which is delivered directly by the performers, choreographer, musicians, and designers. Of course, this delivery would be impossible without the work of directors, coaches, and crew as well. The audience’s relationship to the performers and facilitators is ambiguous in terms of being essential or simply beneficial—certainly, society at large benefits from art, but only individual audience members (and sometimes not even they) know whether they need to engage in a relationship with dance. [Read more…]

Disclosure – Affiliate & Ad Info

Copyright Notice