Dance Risks conference by Yorkshire Dance

Dance Risks

a conference exploring professionalism, excellence & the art of community dance Leeds | Fri 28 Oct 2016

www.yorkshiredance.com

Bookings 0113 243 8765 online www.yorkshiredance.com £55 if you represent an organisation £30 if you’re a freelancer £25 if you’re a student Lunch and refreshments included. Yorkshire Dance’s Bodies on the Beach © David Lindsay

Dance Risks Yorkshire Dance invites you to a conference exploring professionalism, excellence and the art of community dance.

Special Offer All delegates are entitled to a discounted ticket to Wallflower by Quarantine at Yorkshire Dance, Fri 28 Oct, 8.00pm for just £10 If you’d like to take advantage of this offer, please book your conference place by phone and let us know. Subject to availability.

Join us for a day of debates, practical workshops, talks and performances. Be part of a community to ask how can we place art at the heart of community dance and what that means in practice; how we define quality within community dance performance; and how we can raise our game to produce work of a higher quality. jo Fong & Nic Green in Quarantine’s Wallflower © Simon Banham

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Timetable 9.30am - 10.00am Leeds College of Music Registration & refreshments 10.00am - 11.00am Welcome session with Yorkshire Dance and Gillie Kleiman; with Some words to wonder on from Luke Pell and film by Lucy Boyes & Robbie Synge

Casson & Friends The Dance Leeds Made © Yorkshire Dance

11.15am - 12.45pm Morning sessions – choose from:

2.45pm - 4.00pm Afternoon sessions – choose from:

• Quality and Professionalism in Inclusive Dance with Louise Brown

• Risk-taking with Gifted & Talented Young People with Phoenix Dance Theatre, National Youth Dance Company & National Centres for Advanced Training in Dance

• Dancing the Everyday with Tim Casson (Casson & Friends) • Approaching Communities a chaired discussion with Lucy Boyes, Hannah Buckley & Akeim Toussaint Buck 12.45pm - 1.30pm Lunch 1.30pm - 2.30pm Performance by Phoenix Youth Academy; with Some words to wonder on from Luke Pell and film and Q&A with Fevered Sleep

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• Men & Girls Dance with Sophie Eustace (Fevered Sleep) & Rose Condo (LBT) • Finding the Extraordinary in the Everyday with Every Day People 4.00pm - 4.30pm Refreshments 4.30pm - 5.15pm The Gathering with Tim Casson and Some words to wonder on from Luke Pell

10.00am - 11.00am

Morning session one

Welcome

Quality and Professionalism in Inclusive Dance

Artist Luke Pell draws together the key concerns of our contributors in the first of three intriguing video appearances. Lucy Boyes and Robbie Synge have worked with three elder dancers as a collective over four years. Their short film, Risk Assessment, incorporates footage spanning this period and recent reflections among the group on ideas around risk in the context of age, performance and professionalism. Gillie Kleiman, curator of Juncture 2016, invites us to explore what we really mean by some often-used words.

Risk Assessment ÂŠ Lucy Boyes & Robbie Synge

with Louise Brown What are our biggest challenges and how do we face them? A 90-minute session for practitioners and creators who make work with disabled and non-disabled people. The session will take the form of an open discussion based on a series of key questions and provocations. The group will be invited to discuss, reflect and share experiences. We will explore our practice together and look at the artistic, ethical and political challenges surrounding this area of work.

GDance, Lost and Found ÂŠ Kevin Clifford

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Morning session two

Morning session three

Dancing the Everyday

Approaching Communities

with Tim Casson (Casson & Friends)

a chaired discussion with Hannah Buckley, Lucy Boyes & Akeim Toussaint Buck

How can we use everyday life as choreography?

Where is your art?

In 2012, Tim Casson created Casson & Friends, making work which invited the public to be a core part of the dance-making process.

Three independent artists discuss their various experiences of working in and with communities, challenging some of our preconceptions.

Through a series of experimental projects, Tim has explored dancemaking with the public.

What skills do we need? How do we start? What’s the real driving force behind our artistic process? Are we meeting a need in the community?

In this practical session Tim invites you to explore his unique form of public engagement, considering how we can bring dance into the heart of a community, and how we can work in public spaces.

Casson & Friends, The Dance WE Made © Brian Slater

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And what are the pros and cons of working independently or for an organisation?

Hannah Buckley, Elsie & Hannah © Hannah Buckley

1.30pm - 2.30pm

Afternoon session one

Performance

Risk-taking with Gifted & Talented Young People

Luke Pell makes the second of his video appearances to give us something to wonder about. Phoenix Youth Academy performs Underworld, choreographed by Antonio Borriello. The dancers are a part of a mysterious world, where they breathe and dance as one. Together, they are a creature that moves in water. They are part of an Underworld.

with young dancers & staff from National Youth Dance Company, Phoenix Dance Theatre and National Centres for Advanced Training in Dance What does ‘risk’ mean to young people in dance? Three outstanding young dancers talk about their own journeys into dance, and what risk-taking means to them.

Fevered Sleep’s Sophie Eustace presents a film about the company’s recent huge success, Men & Girls Dance, and invites you to take part in a Q&A session.

Representatives from the three organisations currently guiding them discuss the expectations we load onto talented young dancers, how we can nurture individuals within a company, how we might get beyond technique to create something truly magical, and much more.

Phoenix Youth Academy, Underworld © Brian Slater

National Youth Dance Company, In Nocentes © Jane Hobson

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Afternoon session two

Afternoon session three

Men & Girls Dance

Finding the Extraordinary in the Everyday

with Sophie Eustace (Fevered Sleep) & Rose Condo (Lawrence Batley Theatre) Are there any subjects too risky or taboo? Men & Girls Dance brings together two very different groups of performers: men who dance professionally and local girls who dance for fun. At times playful, at times thought provoking, the project celebrates the rights of adults and children to be together and pushes against the current climate of fear and paranoia around relationships between men and girls. Join Sophie and Rose to discuss the challenges of devising and presenting this political, provocative and ‘risky’ piece and the potential dance has to tackle even the most taboo of subjects.

Fevered Sleep, Men & Girls Dance © Karen Robinson

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with Sally Marie & Rachel Palmer, Every Day People What are the risks of putting non-dance makers in the driving seat? A practical session, with lively debate and conversation springing from the recent project, Every Day People – in which six members of the public who knew very little about dance took the lead in making their own work. Explore some of the risks... Who would come and see the work? Could non-dance makers be supported to make work without being influenced by dance-makers’ prejudices? What political issues might be raised by non-dance specialists making extraordinary work?

Every Day People © Danilo Moroni

The Contributors

4.30pm - 5.15pm

The Gathering

Where are we now?

Antonio Borriello © Antonio Borriello

with Luke Pell and Tim Casson

No plenary. No dreary summing-up. Luke Pell makes his third video appearance, leaving us with some final words to wonder on... And record-breaking dance-maker Tim Casson creates something magical and joyful to send us away on a real high...

Antonio was born in Italy where he started dancing at the early age of 8. He then moved to train in The Netherlands at Codarts Rotterdam Dance Academy, graduating with a Bachelor Honours Degree in Dance. He danced with Phoenix Dance Theatre (England), Scapino Ballet Rotterdam (The Netherlands) and Florence Dance Company (Italy). He worked with internationally renowned choreographers such as Regina can Berkel (former Forsythe Dancer), Sharon Watson, Richard Alston and many others. Antonio is now based in Leeds, West Yorkshire, working as a freelance dance artist as well as being employed at Phoenix Dance Theatre as Youth Academy Co-ordinator.

Lucy Boyes Lucy Boyes is a performer, teacher and choreographer based in the Highlands. Since graduating from Northern School of Contemporary Dance in 2007, Lucy has been based in Scotland working in performance and education within various participatory and professional contexts, most recently with a focus on work with older people. With Robbie Synge, Lucy co-directs and is part of a small ensemble of dancers ranging in age from 31 to 72.

Dance Includes conference 2015 © Brian Slater

Louise Brown

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Louise is an inclusive dance practitioner and producer specialising in this area of work for the past 12 years,

Akeim is a freelance multidisciplinary artist, born in Jamaica and raised in Leeds whose skills include beatboxing, singing, poetry and dancing. Since graduating from Northern School of Contemporary Dance in 2014, Akeim has worked created Snakebox with fellow graduate Otis Jones and performed in Balbir Singh Dance Company, Chris Goode & Company, Jamaal Burkmar Dance and BalletLorent. He has led community projects using art to build awareness of causes such as homelessness and an intergenerational project in Chapeltown commissioned by East Street Arts and funded by Leeds Inspired.

Hannah Buckley Hannah makes work about human experience from a personal perspective. An important part of her creative process is engaging with a wide range of people, through interviews, conversations and workshops. Hannah is part of Accumulations, a collective of artists working primarily in movement, dance and performance. She has an ongoing

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Tim Casson Tim has performed and taught extensively for Jasmin Vardimon, founding their JV2 Professional Development Certificate. He has performed for Nigel Charnock, Katie Green and Ben Wright and regularly leads education projects for a wide range of dance organisations, including Sadler’s Wells, where he worked with the National Youth Dance Company. Tim was Associate Artist at Pavilion Dance South West (2013-15), created recordbreaking dance project The Dance WE Made, and directs his company Casson & Friends. He created family show Night at the Theatre with Stopgap Dance Company. cassonandfriends.com

Rose Condo © Dominic Simpson

Akeim Toussaint Buck

collaborative project with her twin sister, a photographer based in NYC. Her work has been supported by Yorkshire Dance, Dance Manchester, The Place, Greenwich Dance, TripSpace, Dance4, Leeds Beckett University and Arts Council England.

Rose Condo is Head of Community Engagement at Huddersfield’s Lawrence Batley Theatre and an awardwinning performance poet.

Sophie Eustace © Sophie Eustace

working with and for a range of companies and independent artists across the UK, including GDance, Diverse City, Braena, Candoco Dance Company and Jurg Koch. She has been involved in some key national initiatives and developments within the inclusive dance sector. Her passion focuses on ensuring access to participation into dance, whilst challenging the discussion around quality, training pathways and professional work for and with disabled artists.

Sophie has worked as an arts producer for over 15 years. She joined Fevered Sleep in 2007 as General Manager and became Executive Director in 2012. She has overseen the development and delivery of the all creative projects for the past nine years and the growth

Sally Marie

of the organisation. Before joining Fevered Sleep she worked with the Young Vic, Royal Court Theatre, Scarlet Theatre Company, Spare Tyre Theatre Company and The Little Angel.

Sally Marie has performed with Protein Dance, Sean Tuan John, Jasmin Vardimon, Tilted Productions, Duckie at the Barbican, H2, Lulu’s Living Room, Rajni Shah, Deja Donne in Italy, Frauke Requart, IJAD, Geoff Moore, Gary Stevens and Neil Paris, and worked creatively with Ridiculusmus. She has twice been voted Best Female Performer by Dance Europe, and was nominated for a Spotlight Award Best Female Performer on two occasions in the National Dance Awards. She was awarded the New Adventures Choreography Award 2013 and The Children’s Choreography Award. Through her own company, Sweetshop Revolution, Sally has directed two solos and made three full length works.

Jane Hackett is a freelance dance maker, director, producer and writer. Until recently she was Artistic Programmer and Producer at Sadler’s Wells and Director of the National Youth Dance Company; she currently works as a consultant to a number of organisations including BBC Young Dancer. Jane has worked internationally as a dancer, choreographer, dramaturg and director, in places ranging from small community venues to international theatres and Opera Houses. She is an experienced teacher, programmer and producer. Jane has an MA in Dance Studies, is a published author, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a Churchill Fellow, Artistic Assessor for Arts Council England and former Vice-chair of Dance UK.

Gillie Kleiman Gillie Kleiman is an artist. From her practice of dance and choreography emerge artworks that manifest as performances, texts, and events, presented in contexts associated with dance, theatre, live art and experimental performance. She received danceWEB scholarships in 2008 and 2013, was an Artsadmin’s Artists’ Bursary holder in 2013/4 and took part in Sadler’s Wells Summer University (2011-14). She is currently a doctoral researcher at University of Roehampton and an associate artist at Dance4.

Jane Hackett

Rachel has directed The Dance Movement since 2006, while building a varied portfolio career as a freelance dance artist, manager and choreographer. As a choreographer Rachel’s many projects have included the Olympic Legacy Trust funded project Tree of Light under the Artistic Direction of Charlie Morrissey and a partnership with Farnham Town Council to deliver the outdoor dance performance Farnham Blooming (2015) on a cast of 150 young people. Rachel has extensive experience in managing dance events having worked as General Manager at Woking Dance Festival, 2007 - 2012.

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Luke Pell

freelance dancer, teacher and choreographer in Yorkshire for five years before joining Phoenix Dance Theatre in 2000. Tracy worked with Phoenix for 8 years touring alongside the company and delivering national and international education projects under the artistic direction of Thea Nerrisa Barnes, Darshan Singh Bhuller and Javier De Frutos. In 2008 she joined Northern School of Contemporary Dance as Head of Learning & Participation, overseeing the college’s outreach, centre-based evening and weekend classes including the Centre for Advanced Training. Tracy is also co-chair of the Northern Children and Young People’s Network and liaises with partners both nationally and regionally representing NSCD.

Fascinated by detail, nuances of time, texture, memory and landscape, Luke Pell is an artist based in Scotland. Noticing threads that weave between people and place, his work takes form as intimate encounters; poetic objects, installations and designed environments – choreographies – for physical and virtual spaces. A maker and curator, he collaborates with other artists and organisations imagining alternative contexts for performance, participation and discourse that might reveal wisdoms for living. Committed to artist and artform development these projects create spaces for folk from different fields and realities to gather and explore relationships between words and movement, periphery and community. Luke works internationally as a dramaturg for dance and is Associate Artist with Fevered Sleep and Janice Parker Projects.

Every Day People Every Day People was created by Sweetshop Revolution (Sally Marie) and The Dance Movement (Rachel Palmer) who joined forces thanks to funding from Arts Council England and support from Farnham Maltings.

Based in the Cairngorms, Scotland, Robbie Synge makes performance, film, objects and other things rooted in choreographic thinking around the body and its meeting with people and the natural and built environment. Robbie has worked regularly in performance in professional, education, and other participatory contexts with young people and adults. Robbie is associate artist at Tramway, Glasgow.

Tracy Witney Tracy studied for her BA Honours Degree in Dance at Bretton Hall, Leeds University. She worked as a

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Robbie Synge

Fevered Sleep makes performances, installations, films, books and digital art, for adults and for children. Fearless about experimentation and passionate about research, we develop brave, thought-provoking projects that challenge people to rethink their relationships with each other and with the world. Fevered Sleep makes performances, installations, films, books and digital art, for adults and for children. Fearless about experimentation and passionate about research, we develop brave, thought provoking projects

National Centres for Advanced Training in Dance (CATs) Centres for Advanced Training in Dance deliver non-residential, highly specialist dance training in their locality, whilst continuing to live at home and benefiting from a broad and balanced education, the scheme is for young people aged 10–18 years. Centres are pioneers in prevocational training and research, promoting best practice and providing exceptional and innovative tuition to young people, regardless of their personal circumstances. CATs are supported through the Department for Education’s Music and Dance Scheme, and operate from host organizations across England.

that challenge people to rethink their relationships with each other and with the world. Led by Artistic Director’s David Harradine and Sam Butler, 2016 marks our 20th anniversary.

Phoenix Youth Academy offers a high-quality training programme for talented young dancers (aged 13-19 years) interested in pursuing dance as a career. Students meet twice per week, developing their contemporary dance technique through working with recognised choreographers and Phoenix Dance Theatre’s company dancers. Academy members also participate in intensive courses during the school holidays, with regular performance opportunities at platforms across the UK.Youth Academy graduates have gone on to successfully audition for numerous conservatoires, including: London Contemporary Dance School, Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance, Northern School of Contemporary Dance, Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance and Royal Conservatoire of Antwerp.

National Youth Dance Company National Youth Dance Company creates and performs innovative and influential dance, bringing together the brightest talent from across England to work intensively with Sadler’s Wells’ renowned Associate Artists. The company has established a reputation for challenging, high quality work and produces dancers that are open-minded, curious and brave.

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Yorkshire Dance

Conference

Yorkshire Dance champions the value of dance and its development in Yorkshire.

Dance Risks is Yorkshire Dance’s fifth annual conference.

The organisation is committed to creating opportunities for people of all ages, backgrounds and abilities to see, make and take part in high quality dance. Yorkshire Dance is dedicated to building a region-wide infrastructure for dance through partnerships with emerging and established artists, practitioners, local authorities and other organisations in the arts, health and sport sectors. Yorkshire Dance 3 St Peter’s Buildings, St Peter’s Square, Leeds LS9 8AH

The conferences bring together people from around Yorkshire and beyond who work with dance in a range of contexts for engaging and essential discussion on the issues facing the dance industry. Dance Risks has been timed to coincide with Yorkshire Dance’s Juncture 2016 festival, curated by artist Gillie Kleiman. Juncture collects artworks where the role of professional dancer is given to someone else, bringing artists, participants and their shared work into conversation about what happens when the dancing is handed over.

@YorkshireDance #DanceRisks www.facebook.com/yorkshiredance www.youtube.com/user/YorkshireDance @yorkshiredancepictures #DanceRisks Cover photo: Lucy Suggate’s Swarm Sculptures © Amy Sinead Photography

Yorkshire Dance Registered 2319572 England Registered Charity No. 701624 VAT No. 418 0193 70

a festival of contemporary dance curated by Gillie Kleiman

Quarantine Lucy Suggate Sara LindstrĂśm Nicola Conibere Fitzgerald & Stapleton immigrants and animals

Leeds 25-30 October 2016 juncturedance.com Jo Fong ÂŠ Alex Green www.greenphotographs.co.uk