Artistic Director Assistant Director Associate Director Fellow General Manager SDT Dance Agent For Change Senior Administrator Administrator Education Manager Dance Worker Marketing Manager Press Officer Marketing Assistant Technical Manager Stage Manager Rehearsal Director/Dancer Dancers
Janet Smith Sally Owen Marc Brew Amanda Chinn Caroline Bowditch Amanda Barnett Viktoria Begg Dawn Hartley Lorraine Jamieson Katie Smith Alison McDicken Vicky Wilson Emma Jones Amy Steadman James MacGillivray Joan Clevillé Toby Fitzgibbons Ruth Janssen Anna Kaszuba Jori Kerremans Naomi Murray Matthew Robinson Natalie Trewinnard Rocco Vermijs Solene Weinachter
Ar tistic Director Janet Smith
Dundee Rep Theatre Chairman of the Board Peter Inglis Artistic Director & Chief Executive James Brining Associate Director Jemima Levick General Manager Ian Alexander Assoc. Director Creative Learning Michael Judge Set & Costumes Dundee Rep Production Dept.
Get in Contact Tel +44 (0)1382 342600 Email SDT@dundeereptheatre.co.uk
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Visit www.scottishdancetheatre.com
LankellyChase Foundation
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The Russell Trust
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Iain More Associates
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The Gannochy Trust
SDT is part of Dundee Rep Theatre. Dundee Rep is a registered charity. Graphic Designers: Merchant Soul. Photography: Andrews Ross, Viktoria Begg.
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Welcome
About SDT
Welcome to this performance by Scottish Dance Theatre.
‘Effortlessly superb dancing’~ The Herald
Since our last UK tour the company has had a great adventure, touring a performance and workshop programme to Dubai and China, where we visited Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. This made for an Autumn of contrast. A week after performing to an audience of 1,200 at Peking University, we were making our regular visit to mid-Argyll, performing in Lochgilphead School, with a busy audience of 80, including several families that host our overnight stays. Both experiences were special events, though the challenges of staging and performing, very different. Tonight we present a new programme of work. In The Life and Times of Girl A, Ben Duke brings us his own eloquent blend of dance theatre in a work that reveals to me both his twinkling humour and his skillful pursuit of emotional truth. NQR has brought me a great opportunity to collaborate with Marc Brew, currently on an Associate Director Fellowship with SDT and Caroline Bowditch, our Dance Agent for Change. Cellist Robin Mason has joined us in the creative process and we are delighted to have him touring with us and live music integrated into the performance. The constant creative collaborators in all our work are of course SDT’s dancers whose investment enables and enriches everything we do. We hope you enjoy the performance. Janet Smith
Scottish Dance Theatre is Scotland’s national contemporary dance company. SDT tours a body of original work by some of the best and most celebrated international and emerging choreographers and Artistic Director, Janet Smith. Part of Dundee Rep Theatre, SDT is a company on the move constantly stretching the skills of our committed dancers and apprentices in a repertoire that is ever-evolving, pushing boundaries and expectations. Our work explores the human condition and what it is to be alive in the world today and seeks to bring a life-enhancing experience of dance to as many people as possible. Creative Learning is at the heart of our organisation. We are committed to the development of youth and community dance and offer an inclusive education programme at home and on tour.
RepNet SDT is a founding member of the new European network RepNet. The network brings together five repertory dance companies from across Europe - SDT, Carte Blanche (Norway), Nordwest/Tanzcompagnie Oldenburg – Tanztheater Bremen (Germany), Skånes Dansteater (Sweden) and Iceland Dance Company. The purpose of the network is to enable each member company to enhance their work through the exchange of experience and mutual learning and to increase and develop their audiences. RepNet’s mission is both inward and outward: to share and learn from each other in order to develop our companies, broaden audiences and deepen the understanding of dance.
‘The members of Scottish Dance Theatre are among the most personable dancers now working in Britain. Extremely nimble and versatile, they bring a refreshing collective energy to everything they do’~ The Times
RepNet has recently commissioned GGA (Glasgow Grows Audiences) to complete an audience research project across all five companies.
Support SDT SDT offers businesses and individuals a variety of sponsorship opportunities. To discuss a tailored sponsorship package, please contact Amanda Chinn on 01382 342600 or achinn@dundeereptheatre.co.uk
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The Life and Times of Girl A
Choreographer
Ben Duke
Designer
Holly Waddington
Lighting Designer
Jackie Shemesh
Music
Excerpts from:
Curves of Air by Fourcolour; Moya by Godspeed you! Black Emperor; Sisters, Brothers, Small boats of fire are falling from the sky! by A Silver Mt Zion Track; 10.15 saturday night by The Cure; Praladium by Bach [Nathan Milstein recording of Bach-Sonaten G-Moll- Dur partita]; Banshee Beat by Animal collective.
Ben Duke on creating The Life and Times of Girl A I have a couple of preoccupations that I am still sufficiently fascinated by to bring them to every piece. The first one is that I love hearing dancers talk and all the problems that brings. The second is I like the challenge of trying to combine dance and narrative. So with those two as given ambitions I usually begin a piece with a very vague notion. For example in my notebook under the words Scottish Dance Theatre I have written ‘a piece about people in a space’. Arguably all work is about people but I find that dance can quite successfully disguise the people on stage and keep them hidden from an audience. That brings me back to the talking dancer, as spoken text helps me to see the performers as people. When I first started watching dance aged 20 I was amazed by it, I thought this is a truly fantastic medium. I had the privilege to watch a dress rehearsal for a piece that was breathtaking, the dancing was very musical and technical but my favourite bit was the end when the dancers leapt into a final position and one of the dancers lost her balance, ‘oh s**t’ she said very audibly. My image of that dancer as this silent virtuoso was
N.Q.R
shattered and I greatly preferred this foul mouthed fallible person who appeared in her place. I am interested in people dancing, less so in the dance being so brilliant that I lose sight of the individual. It is not impossible to have both, the dancers of SDT dance brilliantly, it is hard for them not to, but what is interesting to me is the attempt to allow that movement to reveal rather than disguise part of them. The second part of the phrase ‘a piece about people in a space’ gave me the idea that I wanted to set this piece in one space. When I first came up to Dundee I had not much more than that phrase in my notebook and we began working. We improvised and one of the improvisations became about people on a journey. The idea of journeys led me to thinking about airports and I realised that this space they were in should be an airport – but not a literal one – because what was interesting was the idea of limbo that airports create. People in between – and the space should somehow represent this in betweenness. I asked the performers to write down things about airports and amongst the many wonderful phrases that came out was ‘does it matter if the name on my boarding card is not mine?’ This gave me an idea about a loss of identity in an airport or even a switching of identity. As much as possible I want this piece and every piece to be about the people on the stage, it seems that that is what live performance is best equipped to do. Film and TV can offer amazingly accurate naturalism, circus and gymnastics can offer breathtaking virtuosity and live performance, to my mind especially dance, can offer a unique moment of connection between people in an audience and people on a stage. And in that moment something can be true and inspiring. In a good piece the choreographer/director has allowed you to see these people and experience some kind of connection with them, in a lesser piece they have hidden them.
Choreographers Marc Brew,
Caroline Bowditch and Janet Smith Designer
Naomi Wilkinson
Lighting Designer
Emma Jones
Composers David Paul Jones,
Robin Mason Cellist
Robin Mason
Voice Over Irene Macdougall Recorded Bass
Louise Major
Marc Brew, Caroline Bowditch and Janet Smith on NQR* and collaboration MB: As choreographers Janet, Caroline and myself work with collaborators such as composers, lighting and costume designers but this is the first time for all of us that we have collaborated with 2 other choreographers/directors on the creation of one work. This is why NQR is so unique. From the out set having 3 choreographers collaborating together on a new production is not quite right. We have 3 different creative people with differing working methods, varying tastes on style and interest in choreography. The difference has created an opportunity for us to learn from each other, to grow artistically and develop new working methods for work in collaboration. What are the challenges? Many but isn’t that exciting. CB: One of the big issues that has come up during the making of NQR has been related to how Marc and I
would be covered by another dancer if we were unable to do a show for any reason. We have had big discussions about whether or not someone would or wouldn’t use our wheelchairs and how that might affect the reading of the piece for the audience. It’s a conversation that we’ve been having amongst ourselves as collaborators but also as a whole company. Some people view our chairs as just being a prop that is essential to carry out a particular piece of choreography. Others see it much more politically. The conversation continues and we’ve definitely not come up with a solution yet but I’m sure we will solve it if we ever need to. JS: Caroline offered us a great starting point in the medical acronym NQR. Our different approaches and styles have given me the chance to see abstract movement and more characterful events inform each other, physically and emotionally in our shared creating of the landscape of the piece. We are all three very different, with our own not quite rightnesses and it’s fascinating to discover each other’s personal world views. *Not Quite Right - Acronym formally used in medical records to describe unexplained difference.
Thanks to Dundee Rep Ensemble actors John Buick, Angela Hardie, Emily Winter and Jim Sturgeon. — 03 3
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Introduction
Company Directors Janet Smith Artistic Director
Sally Owen Assistant Director
Janet has been Artistic Director of Scottish Dance Theatre since 1997 and has created 6 works for the company– Playfall (1998), Song of Songs (1999), Still (1999), Highland (2001) Forty Minutes (2004) I thought I Heard Somebody Calling (2009) and most recently co directed NQR (2010). She has also restaged Chiaroscuro (1997) and Touching Zulu (2006) for the company. In Spring 2006, Janet co-directed MONKEY, a collaboration between Dundee Rep Acting Ensemble and SDT.
Sally was for 10 years a principal dancer with Ballet Rambert (now Rambert Dance Company), where she created leading roles in work by Christopher Bruce, Glen Tetley, Louis Falco, Lar Lubovitch, Richard Alston and Lindsay Kemp.
Janet studied dance and drama at Dartington College of Arts and continued dance studies in New York. She created and toured 2 solo programmes before forming Janet Smith & Dancers. The company toured nationally and internationally for over 12 years – visiting Europe, the Middle and Far East. Janet also worked as a freelance performer with London Contemporary Dance Theatre and Rosemary Butcher. She has taught widely, at student and professional level, encouraging creativity, ownership and expressive range. Janet has choreographed internationally for companies including Dance Theatre of Ireland, The Playhouse Company (South Africa), Batsheva (Israel), Cisne Negra (Brazil) and Dance Theatre of Freiburg (Germany). She has created children’s works for English National Ballet and Janet Smith & Dancers and worked in opera and theatre including the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Her freelance career has embraced dance, theatre and mime, and she has appeared with companies including Second Stride, The Lindsay Kemp Company, Rosemary Butcher Company, Gateway To Freedom, Women’s Comedy Workshop and with Nola Rae’s London Mime Theatre. She has created works for many dance and theatre companies including Ballet Rambert, Nederlands Dans Theater 2, La Compangnie Renaud-Barrault, The David Glass Ensemble, The Royal Shakespeare Company, Ra-Ra Zoo and Extemporary Dance Theatre. Sally was also Course Director for 10 years at the Contemporary Dance Professional Option at London Studio Centre and Co-Artistic Director of their contemporary performing company Intoto Dance.
Janet’s work concerns people, culture, community and identity. She works collaboratively, drawing inspiration from dancers as well as the world around her. In January 2009 Janet won the Jane Attenborough Dance UK Industry Award. This honours an individual working in dance who has made an outstanding contribution to the artform. — 05
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Choreographers MARC BREW Choreographer/ Dancer Marc Brew has been working in the UK and internationally for the past 12 years as a dancer, choreographer and teacher; with the Australian Ballet Company, the State Theatre Ballet Company of South Africa, Infinity Dance Theatre in New York and for 5 years up until early 2008 with CandoCo Dance Company. He was a guest performer for the London Hand Over Ceremony for the Beijing Olympic and Paralympic Games Closing Ceremony. Since 2001 Marc has been dedicating time to his own choreography with Marc Brew Company and was featured in Time Out Magazine as the best of the new breed of London’s Rising Dance Talent. Recent choreographic credits include Nocturne commissioned by Liberty Festival, Greenwich and Docklands International Festival and the Without Walls Consortium, The British Fashion Awards 2009, Turning the Inside Out for the Intransit Festival, Strata for London Contemporary Graduation Season, Elephant Man directed by Jemima Levick for Dundee Rep Ensemble and National Theatre of Scotland’s ensemble productions of Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off by Liz Lochhead and Our Teacher’s a Troll by Dennis Kelly .
Caroline Bowditch Choreographer/ Dancer Since arriving in the UK in 2002, Caroline has been mentored by Adam Benjamin, CandoCo and Yael Flexer (Bedlam Dance) and has participated in several residencies with CandoCo. Caroline participated in The Dancers Project 2005 (The Place) and underwent training on the Cultural Shift project 2005 (East London Dance). She has choreographed and performed work as girl jonah with Fiona Wright and is a founder member of Weave Movement Theatre (Melbourne) and The FATHoM Project (Newcastle). In 2007 she received a Wellcome Trust Arts Award to create Proband, which uses her genetic mutation as the basis for the choreography and music. Caroline toured with SDT in Spring 2007 where she helped create and performed in Adam Benjamin’s Angels of Incidence. She choreographed The Long and the Short of It with Tom Pritchard for company repertoire in 2008 and co-directed NQR (2010) with Marc Brew and Janet Smith. Caroline is currently SDT’s Dance Agent for Change.
Ben Duke Choreographer Ben studied at Guildford School of Acting and London Contemporary Dance School. He is the co-founder of Lost Dog. As a performer he has worked with Dominic Leclerc, the Darkin Ensemble, Maresa von Stockert, PunchDrunk, and Henrietta Hale Most recently he has performed in the Gate Theatre’s critically acclaimed I am Falling and also in The National Theatre of Scotland’s Dolls. As a choreographer he has worked with Phoenix Dance Theatre, Scottish Opera, From Here to Maturity, Transitions, Edge, Intoto, The Oily Cart, the Gate Theatre and The National Theatre of Scotland. The Life and Times of Girl A is his first collaboration with Scottish Dance Theatre.
Janet Smith CHOREOGRAPHER (See Directors page 6)
Following DanceEast Rural Retreat 2008 - For Future Directors and Creative Producers for Ballet and Dance Marc was awarded a future leaders placement with Scottish Dance Theatre. Marc has now returned to SDT at Dundee Rep Theatre as Associate Director Fellow and is very excited by the unique opportunity of co-directing NQR.
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Collaborators
Collaborators Emma Jones Lighting Designer Emma is the Technical Manager of Scottish Dance Theatre. After graduating from Aberystwyth University she worked in various theatres in the UK and toured extensively both at home and abroad. Lighting design credits include The Long and the Short of It (Scottish Dance Theatre), The Little Mermaid (Dundee Rep), Twice Upon a Time and The Children (Dundee Rep Young Adults), Our Country’s Good and Maybe Tomorrow, (Dundee Rep Creative Learning) most recently NQR (Scottish Dance Theatre).
David Paul Jones Composer David Paul Jones is an Edinburgh-based composer, pianist and vocalist specialising in music for piano, the human voice and music for theatre. He has written and performed throughout the UK, Europe and worldwide including Australia, The Middle East and South America. His back catalogue consists of an extensive range of instrumental and vocal scores together with several soundtracks and sound designs for theatre. His theatre work includes Those Eyes, That Mouth and The Devil’s Larder (Grid Iron); Elizabeth Gordon Quinn (NTS); Something Wicked This Way Comes (Catherine Wheels/NTS); Dolls (Hush Productions/NTS); Four Men & A Poker Game (Metis Arts); Lamb To The Slaughter (Grid Iron); Mary Queen Of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off (NTS); Our Teacher’s A Troll (NTS) and most recently his children’s musical The Songbird (Giant Productions). As a performer of his own work in theatre, he appears as a vocalist, pianist and occasionally as an actor. His most recent stage appearance was as ‘Silent Dave’ in the highly acclaimed and multi-award winning production of Barflies based on the writings of — 09
Charles Bukowski for Grid Iron at the 2009 Edinburgh Festival. His theatre work has received several nominations for Best Use Of Music at the CATS Awards and he has been a short listed artist for the Creative Scotland Awards. His live concert performances include work with DPJ Ensemble, solo vocal and piano performances and collaborations with a diverse range of artists including Alyth McCormack, Catriona McKay, Zoey Van Goey, Orquestra Scotland Brasil and Sidewinder. His debut album Something There is recorded on Linn Records. For further information visit: www.davidpauljones.com www.myspace.com/dpj1969
Robin Mason Composer/Cellist Robin enjoys a varied career as a freelance cellist in Edinburgh. Previous theatre work include; Arena (SDT), Songbird (Giant Productions), Hansel and Gretel and Something Wicked This Way Comes (National Theatre of Scotland and Catherine Wheels), Emperor’s Opera and Peer Gynt (Benchtours), Land of Cakes (Dundee Rep). He has worked as a composer/ performer for Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Perth Rep) and Claire Duffy’s Hope Street reality expo at CCA in Glasgow. Robin has played with composer DPJ on many occasions both in theatre and as a member of the DPJ ensemble. Other performing includes regular recitals, Scottish Ballet and with Steve Kettley’s Odd Times. He has enjoyed collaborations with singer/songwriter Steven Gordon, Tallithi Mackenzie, Julie Dawid and more recently Colin Donati. For Benchtours Robin has run music workshops in East Lothian for adults with learning disabilities. He also teaches cello in St Andrews.
Jackie Shemesh Lighting Designer Jackie graduated from the Jerusalem School of Visual Theatre. Based in London and works internationally designing lighting for dance, theatre music and opera. Recent works for Dance include: Lunatic by Nigel Charnock for National Dance Company Wales, Hungry Ghosts The Rain Parade for Lost Dog, Dear Body, B for Body by Luca Silvestrini for Protein Dance, Disclose by Gisela Rocha for Introdance Holland, Habayta by Nigel Charnock, Magnolia by Stijn Celis for Talia Paz, Big In Bombay by Constansa Macras Berlin, Wool This is not a Love Song by Ivgi and Greben, Two Playful Pink Strawberry Cream Gunpowder Sudden Birds by Yasmeen Godder, Bettina Strickler and Saiko Kino Place Prize Commission 2008. Recent Theatre productions include: One Dimensional Man for Opla Companya, As You Like It for Curve Theatre Leicester, The Arab and the Jew for Gecko Theatre company, Orlando for Vidy Lausanne/Herzelia Ensemble, Ramayana for Lyric Hammersmith London, In a Spitting Distance for The Rucab project, The Hound of The Baskervilles for Peepolykus at West Yorkshire Playhouse, What we did to Weinstein for Menyer Theatre London and Yerma Black Rain Eiram for Herzelia Ensemble.
Holly Waddington designer Holly studied Fine Art at Oxford University and Scenography at Laban. She has worked as a costumier in the film industry, costume designer in theatre and more recently as a scenographer with a particular interest in dance theatre. She was a finalist in 2007 Linbury Prize for theatre design. Film credits; Mike Leigh’s current picture (as yet untitled), Cosi (Chris
Menaul), Clash of the Titans (Louis Leterrier), Glorious 39 (Stephen Poliakoff), The Other Man (Richard Eyre), Happy Go Lucky (Mike Leigh), Atonement (Joe Wright). Theatre/dance credits; Breathing Irregular, The GATE, Hedda, The GATE, Meltdown (Rambert), Les Miserables (Pimlico Opera/ Wandsworth prison), Chicago (Pimlico Opera/Bronzefield prison), Friducha (Laban), Exquisite Corpse (Laban). This is her first collaboration with Ben Duke and Scottish Dance Theatre.
Naomi Wilkinson Designer Naomi’s designs for dance include: Just for Show (with Lloyd Newson, DV8 Physical Theatre, National Theatre London and International Tour) Glacier (Tilted, Queen Elizabeth Hall, South Bank London). Recent theatre credits include: Christ Deliver Us (Abbey Theatre Dublin) The Fahrenheit Twins (Barbican Pit Bite 09) The Last Witch (Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh International Festival 09) Peer Gynt, (Barbican Bite 09, National Theatre of Scotland/ Dundee Rep, awarded Best Design by the Critics’ Awards for Theatre in Scotland 2008), La Dispute (Abbey Theatre, Dublin), Cockroach, The Dogstone, Nasty, Brutish and Short and Nobody Will Ever Forgive Us (Traverse Theatre/ National Theatre of Scotland) On Religion and Colder than here (Soho Theatre), Critical Mass (Almeida Opera), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Dundee Rep, awarded Best Design by the Critics awards for Theatre in Scotland 2007), Casanova, The Firework-Maker’s Daughter, I’m a Fool to Want You, A Little Fantasy, Shoot Me in the Heart, I Can’t Wake Up, Happy Birthday Mr Deka D, I Weep at My Piano (All Told By An Idiot) Don’t Look Back (Dreamthinkspeak Total Theatre Award Edinburgh 2005). 10 —
Introduction Company James MacGillivray Rehearsal Director/Dancer James began dancing at the age of 11 at Harlow Ballet School. A graduate from Central School of Ballet in 1997, James was immediately engaged by Ballett Schindowski, Germany, creating and performing solo roles. He choreographed several pieces for children’s performances with the company. From June 1999, James worked as a freelance dancer/choreographer in various projects in collaboration with the Choreographisches Zentrum NRW, Essen, including the debut performance of Temper Temper Dance Company. He joined SDT in 2000 and was appointed Rehearsal Director in May 2002. In 2004, James choreographed student pieces for Telford College, Edinburgh, Scottish School of Contemporary Dance, Dundee, and a dance film for SDT. James has mentored apprentices on placement from both Northern School of Contemporary Dance and London School of Contemporary Dance. He was mentored by Gregory Nash when he participated in a year’s mentoring scheme operated by Dance UK to learn skills in producing, commissioning and facilitating dance. In summer 2008 James received Professional Development funding from the Scottish Arts Council and SDT to study with the Martha Graham Dance Company and School in New York.
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Company Joan Clevillé Dancer
Born in Barcelona and graduated in Humanities from the University Pompeu Fabra, Joan received his dance education at Elise Lummis’ La Companyia, where he worked among others with the Cuban teachers Rodolfo Castellanos and Mirta Plá. Before joining SDT in summer 2009 his professional engagements included the Ballet Carmen Roche (Madrid), the company of the Choreographic Centre of Valencia and the Ballet of the Graz Opera (Austria). He worked with choreographers Cathy Marston, Katrín Hall, Darrel Toulon, Catherine Guérin, Ramon Oller, Thomas Noone, Pascal Touzeau, Ángel Rodríguez and Gustavo Ramírez among others. Joan has also choreographed several pieces that have been presented in Spain, Austria and Japan.
Toby Fitzgibbons Dancer Toby began dancing at Central School of Dancing in Norwich before continuing his studies at the age of 16 at Doreen Bird College in London, graduating in 2003. During his time at college he toured internationally with the performance company. Toby took up an apprenticeship with SDT before working in London with Smallpetitklein Dance Company, joining SDT in summer 2004. Toby very much enjoys the challenge of performing work by the diverse range of choreographers who come to create work for SDT and also enjoys collaborating with the SDT Creative Learning team in the delivery of education work on tour.
Rocco Vermijs Dancer Rocco was born in the Netherlands and studied at the Rotterdam Dance Academy and RudraBéjart. His professional experience includes IT-Danza (directed by Catherine Allard) and Titoyaya (directed by Gustavo Ramírez). He has danced also in work by Uri Ivgi, Maurice Béjart, Ramon Oller, Jírí Kylian, Stijn Celis, Nacho Duato, Martha Graham, Itzik Galili and Gustavo Ramírez.
Ruth Janssen Dancer Ruth started dancing at the Monica Furneaux School in Devon before moving to London Contemporary Dance School in 2000 where she obtained a first class honours degree in contemporary dance and choreography. She has performed with Manchester City Ballet, Jonathan Lunn, Bark Dance Productions and Smallpetitklein Dance Company. Ruth has also choreographed work on SDT company members as part of Out Of The House, which premiered in Spring 2006. Ruth joined SDT in 2001.
Natalie Trewinnard Dancer Natalie’s performance experience includes dancing for a charitable organisation as part of a cultural exchange programme in Asia; as part of the LCDS representation at a festival in Malta and Palermo and with LC3, the performance company of London Contemporary Dance School. In 2007 she received The Robert Cohan Award for most Promising Female Dance Artist at the school. Natalie joined SDT in July 2008.
Jori Kerremans Dancer Jori (Belgium) began dancing at Terpsichore Centre for Dance and Movement before continuing his studies at the age of 15 at Dé Kunsthumaniora Lier, where he studied contemporary dance for 2 years. He then went to study at The Royal Ballet school of Antwerp where he worked together with national and international choreographers like: An Van den Broeke , Sandra Dehertogh, Nancy Rusek (FR), Toru Shimazaki (JP). Jori was invited to perform in Japan and China to dance the choreography by Toru Shimazaki. His professional experience includes IT-Dansa (directed by Catherine Allard) where he danced choreographies by Nacho Duato, Jiri Kylian, Stijn Celis, Jo Stromgren, Raphael Bonachela, Alexander Ekman, Monste Sánchez, Nora Sitges and Gustavo Ramírez.
Matthew Robinson Dancer Matthew graduated from London Contemporary Dance School in 2009 with a first class honours degree. In 2008 he was the recipient of the Robert Cohan Award for Most Promising Dance Artist, and in his final year toured nationally and internationally with LC3, taking his own work to Malta and Italy. He has danced work by a range of choreographers including Richard Alston, Lorena Randi and Jan De Schynkel while training, and has created his own commissioned work for The Scottish School of Contemporary Dance and The Place Centre for Advanced Training. Matthew joined SDT as an apprentice in July 2009.
Naomi Murray Dancer Naomi began her training in her hometown of Cupar with Yvonne Gray School of Dance before attending the Dance School of Scotland at Knightswood Secondary School in Glasgow. During her time there she won a 6 week exchange to Victorian College of the Arts (VCA) in Melbourne. In 2000 she performed pieces by Oliver Hindle in the Glasgow Holocaust Memorial and a duet in C.H.A.S.S. In 2005, Naomi graduated from London Studio Centre with a BA (Hons) in Dance and Theatre (contemporary dance), and joined SDT in 2006. Teaching has been a huge focus for her since then, most recently at the open classes at The Place, London and for SDT.
Anna Kaszuba Dancer Anna has an extensive range of performance experience, including a site-specific performance with Shobana Jeyasingh, Back to Front Gala at Sadler’s Wells with Frauke Requardt and touring around London and Malta as part of LC3, the performance company of London Contemporary Dance School. In 2008, Anna won the Robert Cohan Award for Most Promising Dance Artist. Anna has recently graduated from London Contemporary Dance School and joined Scottish Dance Theatre as an apprentice dancer in July 2009, as part of her Postgraduate Diploma in Performance with LCDS.
Solene Weinachter Dancer Solene Weinachter is French and was originally educated in Lyon. Solene has also studied theatre, cinema and circus as she is interested in art as a way of sharing universal issues. Solene started contemporary dance at the conservatoire of Lyon with Michele Mengual and Françoise Benet as her former teachers. She pursued her training at the London Contemporary Dance School where she obtained a postgraduate diploma in contemporary dance and performance. She joined SDT in 2007.
Amy Steadman Stage Manager Amy trained in Professional Stage Management at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and graduated in 2002 with a BA. Her first job was with Dundee Rep Ensemble in the Stage Management department where she worked as an ASM and eventually DSM on all in house and touring productions, getting to tour to London and Mexico with the company. She joined SDT as Stage Manager in October 2006 and continues to enjoy touring around the UK and abroad with the company.
Emma Jones TECHNICAL MANAGER (Please see Collaborators page 9)
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Introduction Creative Learning Get Involved with SDT Creative Learning
‘ It inspired me to dance’~ Pupil at SDT Interactive We share our passion for dance through an extensive education programme at home and on tour by providing a range of opportunities for teachers, pupils and the general public. The company and the Creative Learning team are committed to the development of youth and community dance through inspiring activities such as workshops based on current repertoire, professional training, residencies, lecture demonstrations, pre and postshow discussions and the hugely successful Interactive events. For more information about SDT Creative Learning, please visit www.scottishdancetheatre.com or contact the team on +44 (0)1382 342 600
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Dawn Hartley Education Manager Dawn began ballet training in Ayrshire and moved to BushDavies School in East Grinstead, aged 14. Completing her training at London Contemporary Dance School, she joined Michael Clark and Company and toured worldwide. In 1990, Dawn became Scottish Arts Council’s trainee Dance Artist in Residence and subsequently danced, choreographed and taught throughout Scotland and abroad, including working with Bosnian children in exile in Slovenia. Dawn was Movement Lecturer for the Drama Department at Edinburgh’s Telford College and for the Vocal Studies Department at RSAMD for many years. She was Dance Artist to East Lothian Council from 1999 to 2007, also performing (with Company Chordelia, Alex Rigg and as Puck at Aldeburgh Festival) during this time. Dawn joined Scottish Dance Theatre in January 2007.
About Us Lorraine Jamieson Dance Worker Lorraine trained at the Centre for Professional Dance Training at Edinburgh’s Telford College, graduating with a BA (Hons) degree in 2005. Lorraine completed a year long apprenticeship with YDance, eventually joining the company as a full time dance worker and performer. She has also performed with Spinal Chord, On the Runn Dance Productions and Smallpetitklein Dance Company as part of their residency at Dance Base. Lorraine joined SDT in August 2007. E: ljamieson@dundeereptheatre.co.uk
E: dhartley@dundeereptheatre.co.uk
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