`Dance Tek Warriors`.

DANCE TEK WARRIORS
Education Resource Pack
RESOURCE PACK CONTENTS
Union Dance ....................................................................... 3
Corrine Bougaard, Artistic Director .......................................... 5
Company Dancers................................................................. 6
Chronology of Collaborations and Productions ........................... 9
Dance Styles and Techniques ............................................. 16
Union Dance Identity............................................................. 16
Contemporary Techniques...................................................... 18
Martial Art Forms .................................................................. 19
Street Styles ........................................................................ 22
Sensing Change ................................................................. 24
General Information .............................................................. 24
Notes by Corrine Bougaard..................................................... 25
Interview with two of the dancers ........................................... 26
Press and Audience Responses ............................................... 28
Choreographic Features ......................................................... 30
Choreographers .................................................................. 33
Mavin Khoo .......................................................................... 33
Bharat Natyam ..................................................................... 33
Rafael Bonachela .................................................................. 36
Choreographic Process........................................................... 39
Soundscape ......................................................................... 40
Body Map ............................................................................ 41
Design for Sensing Change ................................................ 42
Set Design ........................................................................... 43
About Isadora ...................................................................... 44
Design Collaborators ............................................................. 45
Multimedia.............................................................................. 45
Costume................................................................................. 46
Light Wear.............................................................................. 49
Further Information ........................................................... 50
Union Dance Education .......................................................... 50
Workshop Ideas.................................................................... 52
Contacts .............................................................................. 54
2
Background
This is a company excited by movement… on the cutting edge of contemporary dance. They
provide a mixture of pop culture and street dance moves in a fresh and interesting mix that
invigorates the audience.
The Stage, May 2005
Union Dance’s founder and Artistic Director is Corrine Bougaard. The Company’s
first performances took place in 1983, and in the last two decades Union Dance has
become internationally acclaimed for its eclectic mix of contemporary dance, hip
hop, martial arts and streetwise wit, communicating the world’s rich cultural
diversity through breathtaking movements and stunning visual effects.
The
Company's philosophy is to explore movement as a multifaceted language to
reveal, celebrate and question perceptions of modern society.
The Company is remarkable for its stylistic versatility.
The Times
Former members: Michael Joseph, Jedda Donnelly, Garry Benjamin, Simone Noblett, Will Thorburn,
Susanna Cole
Photo: Charles Dragazis
In 1992, a dance journalist observed,
Contemporary dance companies are struggling to keep their niche in this increasingly
conservative ecology. Only those with something urgent to say are likely to survive. Union
Dance should be among them because its Director, Corrine Bougaard, is determined to
present work that reflects cultural influences outside the white European mainstream.
Jan Parry, The Observer, 1992
3
Unity through diversity
The Company has developed a strong style and identity, which has been
contributed to by the dancers and the choreographers who have worked with Union
Dance over the years.
Artistic Director Corrine Bougaard actively seeks to
collaborate with artists from a variety of cultures, frequently non-Western. The
dancers tend to remain with Union Dance for a significant part of their career and
their diverse backgrounds and experience considerably influence the Company’s
productions.
Throughout its 20 year history Union Dance has focused on
collaborations with choreographers, composers and designers, often presenting a
multi-media performance on stage.
Due to the range of different artists and art forms involved in its productions, Union
Dance has evolved an eclectic style, which is informed by many dance techniques
and styles, and also draws on martial art forms. The Company trains primarily in
contemporary techniques, but is also influenced by hip-hop, club styles and
capoeira, and has used African and other world dance styles in its vocabulary. (See
the section on Styles – p. 16 - for further information.)
Union Dance has collaborated on original productions with a range of artists
including dub poet Benjamin Zephaniah, composer / musician Steven Williamson,
Kora player Tunde Jegede, major choreographers such as Afro-American Bill T
Jones and from the UK, Laurie Booth.
In addition some of the Company’s highly successful touring and education projects
have included collaborations with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, English
National Opera, The Serpentine Gallery, The Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA)
and The Tate Gallery. The Company tours nationally and internationally, recently
performing in Malta, Italy, New York, Bosnia, Barcelona and Vienna.
4
Corrine Bougaard - Artistic Director
Corrine founded Union Dance with a mission to explore and express an identity
through dance which reflects the growing cultural fusion of contemporary British
society.
I created Union Dance because I wanted to explore, as a dancer and choreographer, the
varied cultural references that make up my background. This need resulted from a longstanding sense of concern at why these important creative traditions had become
misunderstood and discriminated against, consequently downgrading them and making
them seem less valuable.
(Corrine Bougaard, 1993)
Born in South Africa, Corrine trained at the London Contemporary Dance School
and at the Alvin Ailey School in New York. After performing with Ballet Rambert
(now Rambert Dance Company) from 1975-6, Corrine became a founder member,
choreographer, teacher and Associate Director of Extemporary Dance Theatre.
Awarded the first Arts Council bursary for an Artistic Director of Dance, she
identified the need to promote dance which would speak to a contemporary
culturally diverse society. Corrine was a recipient of the Winston Churchill
Fellowship and became the first British choreographer to research contemporary
dance in Cuba. She most recently choreographed Dance Divine Dreams for Dance
in House, Union Dance’s 2001 production and for the Henley Festival 2004.
Corrine is also interested in the developing field of new technologies with dance,
which she is currently exploring as a senior lecturer on the MA course in Design at
Central St Martin’s College of Art & Design, London.
Corrine Bougaard (right) dancing with Henrietta Harris in 1983.
5
Dance Tek Warriors
To become a spiritual warrior means to develop a larger vision, a special kind of
courage, fearlessness and genuine heroism.
Dance Tek Warriors is a full evenings dance production, structured in three different
parts originally comprising four choreographies commissioned to a theme, united by
shared music, design, technical and thematic elements.
Artistic Concept: Corrine Bougaard
Company Dancers: Michael Joseph, Charemaine Seet, Andrea Whiting, Simone Noblet,
Garry Benjamin, Curtis James
Commissioned Music: Tunde Jegede
Lighting Designer: Bill Deverson
Animation Designer: Katie Dawson
PROGRAMME
Fallen From Grace
Mass Equilibria in the Sea of Tranquillity
Travellers learning from ancient forms to become new warriors
Phase 1: Dawning
Phase 2: Middleway
Phase 3: Maalstrom
Choreography & video 8: Michael Joseph
Music: Entroducing by DJ Shadow,
Track:Stem / Long Stem
Future Sound Of Jazz Vol 3 Frank Zeffa,
Track: Garsaaidi
Super 8mm by Michael Joseph
6
Three Young Blades
Choreographer: Charemaine Seet
Music: Beethoven’s Opus 130 (Cavatina)
Original music by Rick Koster
Choreographers Notes
A dance made in response to the title Fallen From Grace. Begins with the idea of
disparate souls poised and waiting to move on or return somewhere. Evoking a
subverted image of nostalgia and displacement through deconstructing ‘stylistic
sentimentality’ borrowed from traditional Chinese martial arts/morality tales. The human
confusion and vulnerability is expressed as emotional vertigo created in the dance
through physical awkwardness, spinning and disorientation.
Premiered in 1996, commissioned by Studio Theatre and reworked for Dance Tek
Warriors 1997/98.
Hard Edged Hope
“The Spirit of the Dance is inseparable from the human condition”
Eye Open, Path Chosen
Choreographer: Abdel R Salaam, created with The Company
The doors of perception are open in the vision of experience. How in an distrustful age
do we find the way that is necessary to follow a spiritual path.
Original music for 1st and 2nd sections by Abdel R Salaam and David Lawson
Music: Tunde Jegede
This section of Dance Tek Warriors was only on occasion programmed into the
evenings performance.
7
Transformation
To enter the transforming field of that much vaster vision is to learn
how to be at home in change, and to make impermanence our friend.
Bright Flames In Dark Waters
Choreographer: Doug Elkins
“Dancing is not getting up
painlessly like a speck of dust
blown around in the wind
Dancing is when you rise above both
Worlds, tearing your heart to pieces, and
giving up your soul,
Dance where you can break yourself
to pieces and totally abandon your
worldly passions
Real men dance whirl on the battle field
They dance in their own blood
When they give themselves up, they clap
their hands
When they leave behind the imperfections
of the self, they dance
Their minstrels play music from within: and
whole oceans of passions foam on the crest
of the waves “
Rumi, Persian poet, the choreographer originator
of the Whirling Dervishes
8
Music:
Album: Three Years, Five Months and Two Days In the Life of Arrested Development,
Track: Mans Final Frontier
Album: The Forest, David Byrne
Track: Ava, Macchu Picchu
Album: Jungle Massive Vol 1, track: Sweet Vibrations
Album: Devotional and Love Songs by Nusrat Fetah Ali Khan and Party, Track: No 5
The last section of this choreographic work within the Company became known as The
Golden Section. Made with financial support from Northern Arts, with assistance from
Darlington Arts Centre. Union Dance is funded by The Arts Council England and The
Borough of Westminster.
9
Dance Tek Warriors – Postmodern Deconstruction in DanceCharemaine Seet
Maybe Oscar Wilde said it best, for he anticipated postmodernism's insights decades
before it arrived:
“Art can never really show us the exterior world. All that it shows us is our own soul, the
one world of which we have any real cognizance…it is art, and art alone, that reveals us
to ourselves.”
In Dance Tek Warriors, Union Dance embarked on a project, with 7 dancers working in
collaboration with 3 choreographers: Michael Joseph, Charemaine Seet and Doug
Elkins. Each choreographer was asked, by the artistic director, Corrine Bougaard, to
create a section of dance which would deconstruct: (take apart and examine the
assumptions and meanings of) the popular video phenomenon PlayStation, in particular
the game of Tekken.
Michael Joseph’s “Mass Equilibrium in a Sea of Tranquility” is shaped like a
narrative, and begins at the end of “battle”. Warriors return from a Virtual fight, recount
in movement their experiences, and finally collapse/decay. The characters in the dance
represent computer animations. Their movements are robotic (borrowing from the street
vernacular form of the 80s) and often begin and end with simulated ”hydraulic
movement” jerkiness. Joseph also quotes shapes and poses from martial arts as a
reference to the overall theme, Tekken.
The music by DJ Shadow brought the piece into a contemporary popular culture (late
1990s) context. Michael has a very particular relationship to the animated image. He is
a filmmaker and photographer as well as being a dancer. His imagination inhabits the
digital world easily. This makes the piece feel like a section edited out of a movie..open
ended but a densely detailed construct of a different world.
In “3 Young Blades”, Seet takes the idea of “warriors”, swordswomen and swordsmen,
and immerses them in a viscous atmosphere of slow motion and pregnant pauses. The
music is an old, crackly recording of Beethoven (the particular piece played
uncharacteristically slow) which is another contradiction in cultural terms.
The aesthetics are Asian, borrowing from the new filmmakers of China and Japan. A trio
of dancers move in and out of awkward tableaus which incorporate modern dance
clichés, a soupy and naïve palette of Western dance movement.
10
This “melodrama” out of context, again aesthetically Asian, nails down the atmosphere
of disassociation and ultimate melancholy.
The piece teeters between being choreography and performance art. Costumes further
the stylized experience by using exaggerated pop culture artificiality as a texture as :
Originally 2 dancers wore long, ungainly long wigs and PVC bodices.
Doug Elkins “Bright Flames in Dark Waters” is a suite of fluid, athletic and joyous
dances for the whole company. Elkins collaborates with the talents of each performer
and weaves a complex and unpredictable series of movement encounters on stage.
The varied music for this work is from the albums Jungle Massive Vol 1 track 1, Sweet
Vibrations, the album, The Forest by David Byrne using the tracks Ava and Macchu
Picchu, and the album Devotional and Love Songs by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Party,
track 5.
Doug’s musical choices reflect the varied cultural influences within the company and
contemporary urban culture. Elkins uses several dance vocabularies simultaneously,
seamlessly moving from one to another. In the hands (and bodies) of skilled performers
this emerges as a finely integrated tapestry of cultural images. Individual interpretations
of the choreography by each dancer, enriches the whole. Elkins, who is dedicated to
this “dance conversation”, easily navigates the currents of improvisation and creativity
that he initiates in the work.
Elkins deconstructs dance forms with the irony that characterizes post-modernism, but
through a lightness and affection for the material he imbues it with joy and makes it
accessible to everyone.
As a critic in NYC once remarked, “the dance looks as delicious to dance as it is to
watch”..approximation of quote. I can definitely attest to that from experience. Dancers
who have had the privilege to work with Mr.Elkins love him for his creative generosity
and genius…a rare combination.
Union and Dance Tek Warriors under the leadership of visionary artistic director,
Corrine Bougaard, allowed younger company choreographers the opportunity to fully
realize their ideas. They were given total artistic freedom within the framework of the
theme and allowed to make works that were un-conventional and risky. These works
were premiered alongside the more seasoned work of Doug Elkins to a critical London
audience.
11
Useful definitions and other resources:
What is post-modernism in dance?
The dance movement coming after ballet and expressionistic dance of Germany and
USA (Martha Graham). Merce Cunningham the American choreographer is the first
renown post-modernist.
Susan Foster:
2 types of postmodern dance
Objectivist dance – focuses on the body’s movement – like Merce.
Reflexive choreography – the body will inevitably refer to other events and because of
this asks how those references are made.
Reflexive choreography works with the conventions of dance to show the body’s
capacity to both speak and be spoken through in many different languages – like Doug
and Laurie Booth
Deconstruction in dance training.
A Postmodern attitude to physical training involves a period of ‘detraining’ the dancers
habitual structures and patterns of movement.
The post-modern body is not a fixed immutable entity but a living structure which
continually adapts and transforms itself.
The body dancing can challenge and deconstruct dominant cultural inscription.
Ref: Elizabeth Dempster “Women Writing the Body”
From Bodies of Text – Ellen W Goellner, Jacqueline Shea Murphy.
What is deconstruction?
Deconstruction, is the more general process of pointing to contradictions between the
intent and surface of a work and the assumptions about it. A work then "deconstructs"
assumptions when it places them in context. For example, someone who can pass as
the opposite sex may be said to "deconstruct" gender identity, because there is a
conflict between the superficial appearance and the "reality" of the person's gender.
Wikipedia
12
Questions & Answers
1. What are the different styles used in this piece?
All four Choreographers used different styles to convey their personal idea of The
Warrior theme. Michael Joseph used Capoeira, B-boying (Body Poppin', Robotics)
Partnering and Contemporary Techniques; Charemaine Seet worked with
Contemporary techniques especially Cunningham; Abdel R. Salaam used African mixed
with Contemporary and Doug Elkins as a Chinese American created with as Michael,
similar various styles like B-boying, Capoeira, Asian Martial Arts and Contemporary
Techniques such as Release Work and his own take on Cunningham.
2. How and why are the costumes different in different sections?
Each section builds up to the making of a Warrior and all the Choreographers had a
brief to follow, so individually they had their own idea on what their costume should be.
Each costume designed by Ursula Bombshell with her idea of what each
choreographer wanted and to also convey the feel for each section. Michael and
Charemaine's were loosely based on Super Heroes and Tekken (Playstation Game) so
it had a very futuristic theme.
Abdel was Monk like in feel and had transparent back packs. Doug was all based on
Golden colours. The opening sections 'Mass Equilibria in The Sea of Tranquillity' and
'Three Young Blades' were the new beginning from Heroes 'Fallen from Grace'
travelling and settling in a new land. Abdel was a transition between opening section
and last section, which was the completion of the Warrior.
3. What do the costumes represent?
They represent an additional idea and an extra layer for each Choreographer. The
layers are choreography (movement), music, lighting, multi-media and costume.
4. How are contrasts set up between the sections?
They are set up by use of music, costume changes to convey different moods, and,
especially different lighting (Bill Deverson) states so it compliments the original brief for
each section.
5. Why is 'Bright Flames in Dark Waters' placed last?
It is last because the Warrior is now complete and has encountered many journeys
(sections) to get there. There are always struggles in Life, but it is the struggles that
make you what you are, such as with roses with it's thorns and pearls made from grit.
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6. In what way is 'Bright Flames in Dark waters' a finale?
There is always hope even in dark times. It is also a celebration of becoming a Warrior
and Doug is very experienced working with the Dancers to achieve a good balance of
enjoyable dance.
7. What do the floor patterns represent?
Different ways of using space as in folk dances and also allowing the audience to see
and recognise patterns and rituals that they have seen through repetition.
8. How do the sections link to the overall theme and the title of the production?
'Dance Tek Warriors' is based on Sony PlayStation game 'Tekken' and Sony sponsored
Union Dance to give away (by raffle) PlayStation 2 and Tekken 3 to an audience
member each time thy performed 'Dance Tek Warriors'. Union Dance were also allowed
to use CGI footage during the show, so the overall theme was about the Warrior and
each choreographer displayed their own take on it.
9. What political points are being made in this dance?
Everyone has struggles and you have to believe in yourself to achieve what you want in
Life. It is about inspiring people to get up and do something for themselves.
10. What do you understand by the term 'the global citizen'?
In this age of computers you can be in contact with anyone via the internet, so land
boundaries do not exist anymore. There was a time when you had to travel by foot, car,
boat, train or plane to see someone from another country but with a laptop and camera
you can have a dialogue and not even leave your home! It is also accepting that we are
all different but with that difference we can all be equal.
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Choreographers for the Production
Michael Joseph. Photo: Charles Dragazis
Michael Joseph, Rehearsal Director, Soloist & Teacher
Michael trained at the Rambert School and joined Union Dance in 1986, after working
extensively as a dancer with English National Opera and appearing in numerous TV
and video productions. He performed with Bunty Mathias’ Harlemation Dance Company
and Doug Elkins’ Dance Company at the Riverside Studios. Michael is a recipient of the
Arts Council Dance for Camera Traineeship Award, has worked on two films specifically
in dance cinematography and made a major contribution to the creative video work in
LifeForms. Michael has choreographed for Union Dance’s productions Dance Tek
Warriors and Dance in House, and created works for Nubian Steps at the South Bank
Centre and The Mission.
Michael teaches extensively for Union Dance both nationally and internationally. He
also frequently choreographs and teaches for Union Too, Union Dance’s youth
company. In 2004 Michael co-choreographed a new work for the Company
commissioned by The Henley Festival of Music & The Arts and 'Are you right, and I'm
wrong?' for Contact Dance Company in Malta.
15
Photo; Dancers: Charemaine Seet & Curtis James
Charemaine Seet - Choreographer and Soloist
As a dancer, choreographer and teacher since 1983, her career has spanned 4
continents. She has trained in and researched many diverse styles of movement
including classical ballet, Graham technique, Cunningham technique, Klein (release)
technique, Bharata Natyam (Indian Classical Dance), Baroque dance, Capoeira, contact
improvisation, hip hop and b-boy.
She also studied Iyengar and Astanga yoga, and Tai Chi. This experience and
knowledge informs her creative dance work today. Most recently she has been a
member of the Doug Elkins Dance Company in New York City, formerly a Union Dance
member from 1993 – 2000. Charemaine created 3 Young Blades” for “Dance Tek
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Warriors”. Charemaine Seet moved to New York and now lives with her family
including her son and daughter in Australia
Doug Elkins- Associate Choreographer
American choreographer Doug Elkins was Union Dance’s Associate Choreographer
during the late 1990s. Like many of the choreographers Union Dance works with, he
liked to create movement in collaboration with the dancers, allowing them to contribute
to the choreographic process. He regarded himself as a facilitator in the rehearsal
studio.
Doug Elkins has worked with Batsheva Dance Company, Pennsylvania Ballet,
Pittsburgh dance Alloy, the City Opera Ballet in Graz, FLY Dance of Houston and
Candoco. In 1997 he received a New York Dance and Performance Award (a Bessie)
and in 2001 the Cho-San Goh and Hichard H. McGee Foundation Award for
Choreography. As Associate Choreographer for Union Dance, Doug received critical
acclaim for works such as Dance Tek Warriors, LifeForms and Dance In House.
He has been ‘recognised for walking the walk as well as talking the talk, not to mention
utterly tanking what's left of post-modernist pretension, all the while fashioning a
singular provocative poetics of dance’.
Elkins is getting better and better all the time, the clever allusions blend more silkily and
bite deeper into the texture of the dancing. The break-dancer movers are less a novelty
and more an impudent take on the world.
(The Village Voice, New York City)
The whole thing was a breath of fresh air.
(The New York Times)
17
Dance Tek Warriors, Bright Flames In Dark Waters by Doug Elkins,
Union Dance
In Dance Tek Warriors, Bright Flames In Dark Waters is the last choreographic section
from an original full evenings dance production. It was inspired by Super Heroes,
Tekken a Playstation game and a poem by Rumi, a Persian poet, the choreographer,
and originator of the Whirling Dervishes. Doug Elkins deconstructed some of the ideas
see essay by artist Charemaine Seet.
Union Dance dancers as artists had taken from the movement starting points and this
final piece using those ideas as choreographic content.
There are six dancers, three male and three female, in the work which has four sections
of different lengths and the work lasts approximately 27 minutes. There are several
different performance styles within Dance Tek Warriors: B-Boying, Capoeira, Asian
Martial Arts and different contemporary techniques.
The overall theme:
“To become a spiritual warrior means to develop a larger vision, a special kind of
couragw, fearlessness and genuine heroism.” Union Dance.
Section 1
This has 6 small sections within it.
A group dance for all six dancers with a rap accompaniment and a Street performance
style. Two trios in horizontal lines perform different motifs, with different speeds, energy
and actions. They are all wearing gold costumes that were created by fashion costume
designer Ursula Bombshell, infliuenced by her time spent in Asia. . The dance is very
rhythmic and closely visualises the mood of the accompaniment: Man’s Final Frontier.
The set has a projection of many small squares onto a cyclorama within a gold light.
Floor and sidelights can be seen, and shadows appear over the cyclorama throughout
this dance. The lights all fade as the dance finishes.
A solo by Andrea Whiting to a ‘cello accompaniment. This has a mixture of attacking
and fluid gestures to a smooth strings melody. This leads into a womens duet with two
movement themes shown at the same time. The movement is sophisticated and the use
of suspension is clear. The dancers occupy the same space but have no relationship
between them.
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Two male dancers enter, each joining one of the two females; 2 contrasting short
contact duets happen with no relationship one duet to the other. One male leaves and
his partner follows. The remaining male dancer (Michael) walks around and past his
partner (Simone) who dances earlier motifs mainly at low level.
Charmaine enters as the last duet exits with fluid movement, including curves, slow
attacking gestures, street freezes and movements arising from impulses to rippling
actions. There is a very relaxed, release style feel to this solo. The accompaniment has
changed and we hear a human voice humming or non verbally chanting as she moves.
Curtis joins her on stage and they first dance in unison, with the occasional under and
over each other moments. The US lighting changes from blue to a pinky red. Shadows
appear on the cyclorama and we see a great amount of contact work with Curtis lifting,
lowering and carrying Charemaine.
Michael enters with a simple skipping motif, joined by Andrea and the four dance
together. They perform in unison, variations of motifs seen in the earlier solos and
duets. They move into duets briefly as the remaining two dancers enter leading into a 6
person canon. The shadows effect is again used well, seemingly filling the stage with
lots of dancers. They exit in canon as the lights lower to blackout to conclude this
opening section.
The accompaniment for the sections b), c) d) e) and f) is from the album The Forest by
David Byrne using the tracks Ava and Macchu Picchu.
This section is performed to Sweet vibrations, track one, on Jungle Massive
volume one.The US lighting has changed back to blue but the scene is made
brighter with additional white light. There are four dances within this section.Five
dancers perform swinging, skipping, hopping loose style of movement with a
mixture of small arm gestures and steps. The accompaniment starts with rhythmic
drumming with a male voice adding a layer of rap. There are 2 duets and a solo
each perform in their area of the stage and do not relate other than to their
partners.
Two duets now happen simultaneously, the pair downstage right using movements
linked with Capoeira and the upstage right couple dance street, rippling gestures in
unison.The section ends with Andrea and Charemaine involved in a battle
downstage.
Six dancers perform a hand motif seen earlier in the work, in unison, very slowly
and in direct contrast to the rhythms of the drumming and rap accompaniment. The
music changes on ‘hey, hey, hey, hey’ and the dancers’ speed of movements is
faster and sharper and they divide into smaller groups, leaving a solo by
Charemaine travelling around a duet with smooth fluid contact work to end this
section.
The skipping motif returns, followed by two duets with different actions in Street
and B-boying styles. Couples enter and exit, soloists perform separately and
together in threes,before all dancers return and bring back various motifs, with
pauses, and gradual slowing down until music stops and a blackout.
19
This section is performed to the album The Forest by David Byrne using the tracks Ava
and Macchu Picchu.
The US lighting has changed back to blue but the scene is made brighter with
additional white light. There are four dances within this section.
Five dancers perform swinging, skipping, hopping loose style of movement with a
mixture of small arm gestures and steps. The accompaniment starts with rhythmic
drumming with a male voice adding a layer of rap. There are 2 duets and a solo each
perform in their area of the stage and do not relate other than to their partners.
Two duets now happen simultaneously, the pair downstage right using movements
linked with Capoeira and the upstage right couple dance street, rippling gestures in
unison.The section ends with Andrea and Charemaine involved in a battle downstage.
Six dancers perform a hand motif seen earlier in the work, in unison, very slowly and in
direct contrast to the rhythms of the drumming and rap accompaniment. The music
changes on ‘hey, hey, hey, hey’ and the dancers’ speed of movements is faster and
sharper and they divide into smaller groups, leaving a solo by Charemaine travelling
around a duet with smooth fluid contact work to end this section.
The skipping motif returns, followed by two duets with different actions in Street and Bboying styles. Couples enter and exit, soloists perform separately and together in
threes,before all dancers return and bring back various motifs, with pauses, and gradual
slowing down until music stops and a blackout.
Section 3
This is a longer duet performed by Charemaine and Michael Joseph. The lighting is a
deep blue with a white flood into which the dancers move. The sound is smooth, chilled
slow music which complements the movement vocabulary.
The dancers seem to hang loosely and move in a relaxed easy manner in a unison duet
with contemporary and street dance styles both present. This changes as they make
physical contact and move one another around, under and over the other. Michael
supports Charemaine in various unusual positions, from which she always moves away
smoothly and calmly. “This supportiveness and sensitivity allows the transformation to
resolve their spirits,“ Union Dance. The release feel in the movement then speeds up (
although the accompaniment maintains the calm atmosphere) and there is a sense of
increased aggression between them before the duet concludes with an unusual balance
with Michael supporting Charemaine’s neck as she gently sways as the lights fade to
blackout.
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Section 4 The Golden Section
This last section with the blue lighting set starts with all 6 dancers walking on to create 2
lines of three. The accompaniment is again different to the previous sections and is to
track 5 from the album Devotional and Love Songs by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Party.
There is a male singer with lyrics in Urdu and an Asian feel and tempo to the music. The
dancers skip and walk in a relaxed manner, echoing the fluidity of the music. There are
significant hand and arm gestures used as they travel in their threes. Motifs from earlier
in the work are repeated and varied from the street, B-boying,voguing and
contemporary styles as solos, and duos interpersed with walking and additional skipping
motifs. As trios they intermingle with travelling, asian hand and arm gestures in a
manner that gives a spiritual feel to the street dance style;followed by a unison motif as
a six which is very fluid with sinuous rippling through the body and arms. They skip into
three duets and as identical couples bring back the various styles including capoeira. As
threes they contrast each other briefly, move into twos again for a canon which flows
from USL to DSR. They dance in a small circle before reurning to capoeira style
movements and the work ends with all lying down.
Costume
The costume designer is by Ursula Bombshell.
All the dancers are wearing trousers of varying styles and shades of gold through to a
dull red. Their tops are in varying styles and tone in with their trousers. Some are
sleeveless, others longsleeved, some are close fitting and other hang loosely.
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ANDREA WHITING
CURTIS JAMES
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COMPANY Dancers FEATURED IN DANCE TEK WARRIORS MOTIFS
Vanessa Abreu Having completed an MA Choreography from Laban,Vanessa has
been developing her work alongside composer Matthew Orange and video artist Andrej
Gubanov, directing, choreographing
and performing mainly solo works. She has performed and taught for Union Dance in
2008-09.
Naomi Deira (Apprentice Choreographer & dance performer
/ teacher).Naomi is an experienced dance teacher, who is graduating from the
Amsterdam School of the Arts. She has studied at the Alvin Ailey in
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New York and danced at the Fall Festival with her own choreographic work. Naomi is a
qualified teacher of dance in educaton.
PAST COMPANY DANCERS
Garry Benjamin, Assistant Rehearsal
Director, Soloist and Teacher
Garry was born in Huddersfield and trained at
the Thamesdown Dance Studio, Swindon and
the Northern School of Contemporary Dance,
Leeds. Before joining Union Dance in 1996,
Garry enjoyed a successful career at Dundee
Rep Dance Company (now Scottish Dance
Theatre) and completed six months of touring
in Thailand. He choreographed and performed
in the Paris Fashion Week and TV Live, Albert
Hall. In 2001, Garry choreographed original
works for Nubian Steps, Union Too and Union
Dance, and in 2002 was appointed Assistant
Rehearsal Director. Garry has performed and
taught in Macau and for Union Dance in
Barcelona (including Dies De Dansa XII), the
Black Dance Festival in Vienna and the Kuopio
Dance Festival in Finland.
Garry Benjamin. Photo: Charles Dragazis
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Susanna Cole, Associate Dancer and Teacher
Born in Lisbon, Susanna trained in dance at the Roehampton Institute in London.
She has worked with Generation Dance Theatre, The Douglas Bros with Mathew
Hawkins, Garcia Baxe, Neti Neti Theatre and Compound Productions. She has
completed an MA in Choreography and received the Arts Council / Jerwood
Traineeship Award in Dance for the Camera. She and Michael Joseph are mainly
responsible for filming and editing on Union Dance Film projects. She has taught
extensively both independently and for Union Dance, as the Company’s Education
Officer. Susanna first performed with Union Dance at the Henley Festival in 2004.
Susanna Cole. Photo: Charles Dragazis
Jedda Donnelly, Soloist and Teacher
Having trained at the Laban Centre, Jedda has
worked extensively as both a dancer and
teacher. She has performed for Nubian Steps at
the South Bank, in the West End production of
The Lion King, Aspects of Dance, the Black
British Dance Festival and with the late William
Louther Dance Company. Jedda has also danced
and modelled for a number of commercial
companies including Vodafone, Toni & Guy, Marks & Spencer and Ikea. Jedda was a
recipient of an Arts Council Fellowship in Arts Management and worked as an
Education Officer for the Croydon Clocktower before joining Union Dance in 2002.
She is due to leave the Company in 2006. In addition to performing, Jedda works
as a freelance project manager running media based training for young disengaged
people.
Photo: Will Thorburn and Jedda Donnelly
Photo: Charles Dragazis
Will Thorburn Soloist and Teacher
Will trained in contemporary dance at London’s
Laban Centre and has worked for Metallized at
The Place and Scottish touring with Freshmess.
He received the Lisa Ullmann scholarship and
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travelled to Brazil in 2002/3 to research capoeira. Outside Union Dance, Will is
currently an apprentice capoeira instructor for Group Senzala in the UK. Will’s
choreography includes work for Union Too, World Beat Festival, for television with
HipHoda, and film work with Bedlam and Reel Dance in Aberdeen. Will joined Union
Dance in 2000, developing his interest in hip hop, capoeira, martial arts, classical
and contemporary techniques.
Gerrard Martin, Soloist & Teacher
Gerrard was born in Northampton and studied at De Montfort University (BA Hons
in English Literature and Performing Arts), and at the Northern School of
Contemporary Dance. He performed in the West End cast of The Lion King and
toured nationally with Phoenix Dance. Gerrard has also danced at the National
Theatre, English National Opera, the Royal Opera House and the Edinburgh Fringe
Festival. He has danced commercially for artists such as Lionel Ritchie, Eternal,
Shola Ama and Shaggy, has performed at the Resolutions platform and for Nelson
Mandela on his Celebrate Africa state visit. Gerrard joined Union Dance in 2004.
Dee Ovens, Soloist and Teacher
Dee trained at The Alvin Ailey School (New York) and London Studio Centre,
graduating in 2004. Since then Dee has toured throughout Britain with Ace Dance
and Music, Ruff/Cut Dance Company, H2O, and performed at the Big Mission in
2005. She joined Union Dance in January 2006, to replace Jedda Donnelly.
Hian Ruth Voon, Soloist and Teacher
Ruth trained at Lewisham College and Northern School of Contemporary Dance and
toured with South East Dance and The Dance Movement performing works by Henri
Oguike and Jeanette Brooks amongst others. Ruth went on to dance with Stephan
Koplowitz (Dance Umbrella 1998), Stephanie Schober Company, Cathy Seago &
Dancers and The Classic Individuals. She has also worked in arts management with
several organisations including Arts Council England, and is currently training to be
a massage therapist. Ruth joined Union Dance in 2005.
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27
CHRONOLOGY OF COLLABORATIONS AND PRODUCTIONS:
1983-85
VISIONS OF RHYTHM
Premiere at Battersea Arts Centre ‘Dance Days’ 1983
Combining classical Indian, jazz, and modern contemporary dance
Original Programme: No Man’s Land and No Boundaries
Performers included: Corrine Bougaard, Chitra Sundaram, Shobana Jeysingh
1985
UNION CITY
A special commission for Central Television, Autumn 1985. Choreography: Corrine
Bougaard and Stuart Thomas.
1985-87
SPIRIT AND ENERGY
Programmes included: The Old Landmark by Garner Harris. Shakka by Corrine
Bougaard. Story Time, Dance Time by Thomas Pinnock. Slapstick, Courage Best,
Union City by Stuart Thomas. Een Geloof by Tracy Sue Coleman, Free Them by
Bougaard.
Dancers: Corrine Bougaard, Garner Harris, Desmond Harris, Henrietta Harris, Stuart
Thomas, Michael Joseph, Karen Estabrook.
1987- 88
JUST UP THEIR STREET
The Tabernacle, London, July 1987
Programme included: Delerium by Jon Smart, Outlaw by Jawole Zollar and
Abstractions by Claud Paul Henry.
1989
KICKING THE BLUES
Programme included: Blue Pictures - A Day In The Life Of by Jon Smart. Worldweave
by Corrine Bougaard, Safety in Numbers by Chantal Donaldson, Distant Ending Daze
by Brenda Edwards, Abstractions by Claud Paul Henry.
1988
DUB AND DANCE
Premiere at The Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, 15th September 1988
Programme: Benjamin Zephaniah, Union City, Outlaw by Jawole Zollar and Delerium
by Jon Smart.
Union Dance has a long history of collaborating with artists from other art forms. In
Dub and Dance the Company worked with rap poet Benjamin Zephaniah.
1990
AS YET UNTITLED
London premiere at BAC 23 June 1990
Programme: Blue Pictures, Duet.
1992
URBAN CLASSICS
Programmes included: Two Track by Corrine Bougaard and Bunty Matthias. Kicking in
Mid-Air by Tom Jobe. Urban Classics by Floyd Hendricks. Tributo A by Cuban
choroeographer, Eduardo Rivero
Dancers: Hopal Romans, David Nurse, Jason Germaine, Nicola Hilton, Michael Joseph.
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29
1993
DRIVING FORCE
Premiere at Spring Loaded, The Place, March 1993
Driving Force by Denise Wong and Bunty Matthias, British Jungle Dances by Jacob
Marley and Soon by Bill T Jones. Dancers: David Nurse, Hopal Romans, Charemaine
Seet, Jason Germain, Nicola Hilton, Michael Joseph, Floyd Hendricks.
Soon was a tribute to Arnie Zane who died of Aids related lymphoma in 1989 leaving
Jones mourning the loss of a professional partner and friend. ‘When Arnie was gone, I
felt I had to go back to the studio. I suddenly had something very clear that I wanted
to express.’ (Bill T. Jones 1992.) British Jungle Dances was a witty satire on British
colonialism, with male and female dancers in white male formal dress.
1994 - 95
THROUGH
COLOURED GLASSES
DANCE
Programme: British Jungle Dances by Jacob
Marley, Delirium by Jon Smart, Red, Blue
and Ochre by David Nurse, A Knot Annulled
by Doug Elkins.
Dancers: Michael Joseph, David Nurse, Karl
Sulivan, Hopal Romans, Andrea Whiting,
Simone Noblett, Charemaine Seet and
Nicola Hilton.
A Knot Annulled was a series of vignettes,
blending street dance with Mozart opera
music and contemporary and capoeira. The
music ranged from Mozart to hip hop.
30
1994 – 95
THE FICKLE FRIEND
Choreography: Floyd Hendricks. Performed by the Company.
Premiere: Jacksons Lane, London 1994.
A full length narrative show for children.
In some venues, children from the
Company’s education workshops were incorporated into the performance, having
learned some of the repertoire in their workshop.
1995-97
MOTIVATE THE ERA
Tenth Anniversary Touring Season.
Programme: A Knot Annulled by Doug Elkins, Soon by Bill T Jones, The Thrill is Gone
by Charemaine Seet, British Jungle Dances by Jacob Marley, Red, Blue and Ochre by
David Nurse, Arroz Con Mangos by Isabel Bustos.
Dancers: Michael Joseph, David Nurse, Hopal Romans, Andrea Whiting, Simone
Noblett, Garry Benjamin, Charemaine Seet.
The fact that the 10th Anniversary tour lasted two years is not surprising, given that
the date of Union Dance’s inception is a little vague… However, for the purposes of
the 10th Anniversary, it was agreed that the Company had been properly inaugurated
in 1985.
1997
DANCE TEK WARRIORS
Programme: Mass Equilibria in the Sea of Tranquillity by Michael Joseph, Three Young
Blades by Charemaine Seet, Eye Open, Path Chosen by Abdel R Salaam, Bright Flames
in Dark Waters by Doug Elkins.
Dancers: Garry Benjamin, Curtis James, Michael Joseph, Simone Noblett, Charemaine
Seet, Andrea Whiting.
1999
DTEK 23 - CLUB MIX
This innovative programme took excerpts
from Dance Tek Warriors into nightclubs to
reach new audiences for dance. DTek23 –
Club Mix was an eclectic mix of urban
culture,
featuring
a
continuous
combination of cutting edge beats: drum
‘n bass, projected visuals, computer
animation, and positively up tempo
contemporary dance. It was inspired by a
PlayStation
game
‘Tekken’.
The
contemporary movement was based on
the spirit of ancient Asian and Brazilian
martial arts, Capoeira, Aikido, and Street
Dance and today’s energetic club culture.
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2000
LIFEFORMS
Programme: Generic Signatures by Laurie
Booth and Starlings Scatter by Doug Elkins.
Premiered at the Queen Elizabeth Hall,
November 2000.
Laurie Booth’s Generic Signatures took its
starting point from capoeira, whilst Doug
Elkins’s Starlings Scatter contrasted street
dance with the renaissance music of
Monteverdi.
Dancers:
Charemaine
Seet,
Bawren
Tavaziva, Marcia Pook, Michael Joseph,
Garry Benjamin, Jedda Donnelly, Simone
Noblett, Will Thorburn,
2001
DANCE IN HOUSE
Premiered at the Lilian Baylis Theatre, Sadlers Wells, London, Autumn 2001.
Programme: Quintessential Vibes in Music by Garry Benjamin, Zenith and Nadir by
Michael Joseph, Dance Divine Dreams by Corrine Bougaard, Be Cat, See Spot, Run
(Tiger’s Pursuit) by Doug Elkins.
Dancers: Garry Benjamin, Tracy Bradley, Michael Joseph, Simone Noblett, Charemaine
Seet, Bawren Tavaziva, Will Thorburn.
Dance In House consisted of four short pieces by Company choreographers and longterm dance artists with Union Dance; Doug Elkins, Michael Joseph, Garry Benjamin
and Artistic Director Corrine Bougaard. The four parts explored ideas of identity,
branding, reality and personality through music, film, dance and the digital imagery of
former MTV director/producer Peter Emina. The choreographers ‘played with the
identities of the dancers, mixing up their distinctive features and styles’. Music ranged
from Coldcut’s cool collective of DJs to funky jazz.
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2002 IMAGING THE INVISIBLE
A
‘multimedia
installation’
with
choreography by Doug Elkins and Andile
Sotiya. Using illusions, projection and
dance the production team, (including a
photographer / video artist, a multi-media
artist and an installation designer as well as
the choreographic and performance team)
demonstrated how the world is seen in
different ways by different people, using
movement as a trigger for memories. A
metaphorical journey from childhood to
adult, Imaging the Invisible took a cultural
perspective on the individual and changing
perceptions of the everyday.
Celebrating racial harmony in a racially
divided society is a tough task, but this
ensemble – a racially diverse combo, have
been doing exactly that for 15 years.
(The Guardian Guide, 2001)
2003 – 2005
PERMANENT REVOLUTION V2R
Programme: Fallela by Vincent Mantsoe, Holla by Bawren Tavaziva, Fractured Atlas by
Doug Elkins.
Dancers: Michael Joseph, Garry Benjamin, Galia Delgada, Jedda Donnelly, Simone
Noblett, Will Thorburn.
Permanent Revolution V2R (Virtual to Reality) was another Union Dance collaboration
with media artists Thomas Gray and Derek Richards. Along with the three
choreographers, Elkins, Mantsoe and Tavaziva, they created a ‘world in which memory
and place collide to challenge our notions of identity.’ The choreography drew on
contemporary, African, street dance and even salsa to explore how migration and
transition can effect cultural change and impact on our lives.
Union delivers its most
ambitious
project
to
date... As movement of a
thousand impulses it’s an
impressive
show…
The
result is a showcase for
world dance, which starts
like a prayer and ends like
a party.
(The Times, 2003)
Dancers: Michael Joseph & Garry Benjamin
Image: Thomas Gray
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2004 – 2005
URBAN CLASSICS II
A programme of excerpts from recent
productions; Dtek23 Club Mix, Imaging the
Invisible, Dance In House, Dance Tek
Warriors, Motivate the Era (A Knot Annulled),
and LifeForms.
Dancers: Michael Joseph, Garry Benjamin,
Simone Noblett, Will Thorburn, Jedda
Donnelly, Galia Delgado, Susanna Cole.
Urban Classics II provided an accessible
introduction to contemporary dance for many
new audiences and smaller scale venues. At
the same time, the Company continued
touring Permanent Revolution to larger
venues.
Photo: Thomas Gray
2005 – 2006
SENSING CHANGE
Programme includes: Pure C by Mavin
Khoo and Silence Disrupted by Rafael
Bonachela.
Dancers: Michael Joseph, Garry Benjamin,
Will Thorburn, Gerrard Martin, Hian Ruth
Voon, Susanna Cole, Jedda Donnelly
Photo: Charles Dragazis
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DANCE STYLES AND TECHNIQUES
Union Dance Identity
The versatile mix of dance styles that Union Dance expresses, ‘from the street to
the studio’, is an important statement of identity and culture. Union Dance is
internationally acclaimed for its eclectic mix of contemporary dance, hip hop,
martial arts and streetwise wit, which aims to communicate the world’s rich cultural
diversity through movement. Union Dance’s identity comes from this eclectic mix of
dance styles, which are reflected in the Company’s own training and in education
work undertaken in the UK and internationally.
A cycle of influence can be seen in full effect at Union Dance Company who incorporate a
mix of club, capoeira and contemporary dance styles. All with different nationalities, the
personal experience of each dancer has a direct influence on the company’s work. Dance
can be a space for ‘serious debate’ about issues of cultural identity. The cycle of influences
within this company – club culture, capoeira, breaking, contemporary dance, martial arts,
Indian dance and yoga – slashes the negative connotations of appropriation and creates a
positive sharing of inter-cultural wealth.
Pride magazine 1995
The experience of the dancers is an important aspect of Union Dance’s style. They
come from a range of backgrounds and some, as Company members for many
years, have influenced the development of the style. All the dancers have trained
professionally in contemporary dance, however some, like Michael Joseph and
Garry Benjamin, came originally from a street dance background. Others, like Will
Thorburn and Susanna Cole, have trained extensively in Capoeira.
Similarly, the choreographers who have worked with the Company over the years
have contributed their own styles and helped in the development of the Union
Dance style. In particular, the American choreographer Doug Elkins, who worked
with the Company on productions between 1995 and 2003, was very influential,
incorporating Capoeira and street dance moves into his contemporary based
choreography. With their street dance backgrounds, many of the dancers felt very
comfortable with being upside down and low to the floor. Doug Elkins’ works
remained in the repertoire for some time and were used as a basis for many
workshops, as the style was particularly accessible for young people. This meant
the dancers were working in the style on a daily basis, allowing it to become
ingrained.
Repertory Company
Union Dance is a repertory company, which means that the Company tours a
repertoire of works by different choreographers which changes every year,
occasionally every two years. The Company visits a variety of professional theatre
venues in the UK and overseas, some of which are small scale (university studio
theatres for example) and some middle to large scale (such as Richmond Theatre or
the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London).
Although the dancers are continually working with different choreographers, and
learning new styles (such as Mavin Khoo’s Bharat Natyam influenced movements),
what the dancers themselves bring to the process of making a piece is very
important. Most of the choreographers the Company works with do not treat the
35
dancers as a blank canvas, but instead work with their strengths, incorporating
their own ideas and movement vocabulary (for instance, Rafael Bonachela, the
choreographer of Sensing Change production setting tasks for the dancers to
create movement within his choreographic structure). Consequently, although
Sensing Change does not use the same amount of hip hop inspired movement as
previous shows, there are still strong elements of Union Dance’s styles. The
Company’s unique identity also comes through strongly in the education work.
The next section details some of the styles Union Dance has worked with over the
years, which have influenced the choreography.
36
CONTEMPORARY TECHNIQUES
Union Dance works in many contemporary techniques as well as ballet, which all
our dancers studied at college for at least three years. Union Dance’s daily class is
frequently based on Cunningham technique.
Cunningham Technique
The American choreographer Merce Cunningham is recognised as one of the most
innovative and influential choreographers of the 20th century. Born in 1919, he
performed with the Martha Graham Company from 1939 to 1945, establishing the
Merce Cunningham Dance Company in 1952. The technique he developed to train
his dancers is widely used today and is characterised by elements from ballet vertical stance, fast footwork and high leg extension - and from modern dance - the
curves and twists of the torso.
Cunningham’s choreography is abstract; the dance, music and design do not
necessarily relate to one another and in some of his works these elements meet up
for the first time in the opening performance. His work explores random ideas of
indeterminacy and chance. The costume, design, number of dancers or order of
sections may alter from one performance to another. The order of sequences, or
movements, could be decided by chance procedures, such as tossing a coin.
Cunningham also incorporates everyday movements and quirky gestures into his
dances. His movement phrases tend to be based on very complex rhythms and can
involve different parts of the body doing very different movements simultaneously.
Contact Improvisation
Contact Improvisation is a form of movement devised by the American dancer
Steve Paxton. Born in 1939, Paxton was a member of the Merce Cunningham
Dance Company in the early sixties.
In 1972 he gave the name ‘contact
improvisation’ to a form of duet in which the movement is invented by the dancers
as they go along, the only rule being to keep in close contact with one another’s
body. Any part of the body can be used to balance on, lean against or hang on to
and the movements range from rolling over or lifting each other to pushing, pulling,
throwing and catching. The dancers need to develop trust, agility, alertness and
relaxation, so that they can follow their partner’s momentum or change its
direction, going where the movement takes them. Unlike classical ballet it involves
no distinction of gender roles and women lift and support men as often as the other
way round.
Part of the ‘post-modern’ or ‘new dance’ style, Contact Improvisation has provided
a vocabulary and principles for many choreographers. The movement style is
characteristically relaxed and informal, with less attention paid to traditional
classical technique, such as the extended bodyline. However, taking each other’s
weight and going upside-down are features of the dance form and these require
strength, flexibility and thorough understanding of anatomy. Like Union Dance,
Paxton himself uses Yoga in his training to build upper body strength and control
and to maintain suppleness.
In a Contact Improvisation performance, the dancers would often be casually
dressed and perform as a ‘round robin’, whereby only one dancer would change in
each successive duet. This has similarities to Capoeira and indeed post-modern
dance derives some of its movements from martial art forms, such as Aikido falls
and rolls, as well as sports and pedestrian movement - Steve Paxton has created
dances based simply on walking.
37
The movement vocabulary of Contact Improvisation has been absorbed into Union
Dance’s style, partly because it merges very well with capoeira, utilising inversions
and close partner work. Choreographer Laurie Booth combined it with capoeira in
his piece Generic Signatures (performed as part of Union Dance’s LifeForms
programme in 2000) and the style was also used in many of the duet and trio
sequences in Doug Elkins’s choreography for the production Permanent Revolution
V2R (2002).
MARTIAL ARTS
Kung Fu
Kung Fu is a general term, which simply means ‘skill’. The term covers both ‘hard’
disciplines such as Wing Chun (which uses kicks and punches), and ‘soft’ versions
such as Tai Chi, which is based on Taoist ideas of yin and yang – balance or
harmony. Tai Chi’s graceful movements are designed to encourage the flow of chi,
or energy around the body. At its core is a series of flowing movements, performed
as a dance-like solo, linking mind, breath and body.
In their training, Union Dance often use ‘katas’ from Qi Gong; slow moving,
breathing, fluid sequences to prepare and focus the body. Despite its pace, Qi
Gong requires mental sharpness and internal control and, after several repetitions,
the mind, the breath and the movements synchronise and the body begins to act
intuitively. The aim is for the body to remain elastic and the mind focused when the
progressing to the very physically demanding training of Gong Fu.
Aikido
A precise martial art based on the idea of letting opponents defeat themselves by
exploiting their weaknesses.
Union Dance often uses martial art styles in partnering work, as well as solos, often
combined with other dance styles. In the production Urban Classics II, Michael
Joseph performed a solo full of fluid, liquid forms from martial arts, mixed with bboy freezes, locks and floor work.
Dancer: Garry
Benjamin in Dance
Tek Warriors.
Photo Eric Richmond
38
Capoeira
Capoeira is a style of combat which
originated among African slaves held by
the Portuguese who colonised Brazil from
the fifteenth century. It was originally
devised as a technique of fighting using
the feet and legs, as the slaves’ arms
were often chained. Capoeira features
kicks, foot swings and leg locks and
combatants
sometimes
even
held
weapons, such as razors, between their
toes.
Over four million African men, women
and children, many from Angola in West
Central Africa, were shipped to Brazil to
work on huge plantations, forced to learn
Portuguese and to convert to Catholicism.
Many slaves escaped to the jungle, where
they
formed
communities
called
Quilombos.
Those who escaped were
known as capoeiras. In 1888 slavery was
abolished
in
Brazil
and
relevant
documents were destroyed, so the history
of Capoeira has mostly been passed on
verbally.
There are thought to be
similarities, however, between Capoeira
and n’golo, a traditional African dance
from Angola.
Dancers: Michael Joseph
and Jedda Donnelly
Photo: Thomas Gray
With the abolition of slavery Capoeira
spread to all the major cities, but it was then forbidden in Brazil until the 1930s,
because it was seen as a threat to society. It was still practised by descendants of
African slaves. When the ban was lifted the first Capoeira training schools were
formed.
Disguised as a religious dance
On the plantations fighting or the carrying of weapons was forbidden, so the slaves
disguised Capoeira as a form of dance, just as they disguised their own African
gods as Catholic saints and a new religion evolved. Some of the rituals from their
religion, like the circle formation and the music, became essential elements of
Capoeira. Catholic symbols, such as crossing themselves at the start, were also
used, but not necessarily with the same meaning. (This can be seen at the start of
a capoeira inspired duet in Doug Elkins’ A Knot Annulled.)
Structure
Capoeira always takes place in a circle. As the music begins two people at a time
go in to the circle and ‘play’ close together and at the end they shake hands. The
music is played by the Master, on an instrument called a berimbau, a metal
stringed bow amplified by a hollow gourd, originally from Angola. The music is
haunting, with strong rhythms and the speed dictates the action of the game.
Singing is another important element, with melancholy songs relating the history of
the captive slaves. Everyone around the circle sings, or at least joins in the chorus,
39
like a chant. The songs tell the players what to do by their tempo and mood, but
their intention was originally disguised as religious.
There are two different styles of capoeira, Regional and Angola. In the 1930s a
Capoerista (Capoeira expert) called Master Bimba developed the Regional style and
everything before that was termed Angola. The Regional style became more formal
and widely respected. As capoeira moved beyond Brazil and spread across the
world, practitioners became anxious to preserve its traditional roots and returned to
the original Angolan style, which is more theatrical, using slow movements low to
the ground, with the players in close contact. The Regional style uses a more
upright stance with kicks and aerial movements.
A new dance vocabulary
Union Dance began using capoeira with choreographer Doug Elkins, who blended
movements from capoeira, street dance and contact improvisation to create a new
dance vocabulary for the piece. The dancers felt the form suited their style.
Having used yoga and b-boying in their training, they were strong in their upper
bodies and felt quite comfortable in being upside down with all their weight on their
hands. Like classical dance, the grace and fluidity of capoeira contrasts with the
strength necessary to perform it well.
Garry Benjamin, one of the dancers with the Company, believes ‘capoeira is a state
of being…it connects to everything I’ve done in dance so far and allows me to
extend my vocabulary and do things slightly differently…we need to do it justice.
You have to keep it true.’
Many acrobatic and aerial movements from capoeira are very similar to those in bboying or ‘breaking’. It is generally thought that capoeira is the ‘grandfather’ or
‘backbone’ of breaking.
Dancer and Rehearsal Director Michael Joseph says, ‘I’m certain that B-boying
moves emanated from the fathers who were practicing capoeira and their kids just
took it to another form, took it more to the street…and so it just evolved’.
Capoeira has been used in various Union Dance productions, including Motivate the
Era, Dance Tek Warriors and Permanent Revolution V2R. Sensing Change draws on
elements of capoeira from the dancers’ movement vocabulary, but does not
recreate it as such.
Yoga
Union Dance performers often train in Yoga to stretch and strengthen the body and
prepare the body for movement. It is also important for training the body for
inversions (upside down movements), and floor work - taking weight into the arms
and hands and strengthening the upper body.
Although there are many styles of yoga, the differences usually relate to emphasis,
such as focusing on strict alignment of the body, co-ordination of breath and
movement, holding the postures, or the flow from one posture to another. All of
the styles share a common lineage. No style is better than another; it is simply a
matter of personal preference.
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Dancer: Michael Joseph in Permanent Revolution V2R
Photo: Shoza Lak
STREET STYLES
B-Boying
B-boying is a form of hip hop dancing, popularly known as breakin’. It consists of
movements known as top or up rock, down rock, footwork, spinning and power
moves and freezes. B-boying originated in the Bronx, New York in the mid 1970s.
The term ‘B-Boys’ stands for ‘break boys’, so called because they danced to the
break part of the music. It is thought to have begun as a way for rival gangs to
mediate differences and set the location for forthcoming ‘rumbles’ (gang fights).
Gangs met on neutral territory for a party, the day before a rumble was due to take
place. The dance-off, which pitted the gang leaders against each other, mirrored
the confrontation and determined whose turf would host the rumble. The gang
leaders would literally dance out the moves they expected to make in the fight,
stabbing, punching, swinging a chain or hitting with a stick. The winner was the
person who came up with a new move that hadn’t been witnessed before, so bboys spent much of their time developing new moves.
An earlier origin is thought to be James Brown’s song Get on the Good Foot, which
inspired crowds in the late 1960s to imitate the singer's dance moves. Breaking
turned into a new phenomenon when b-boys began spinning on their backs, heads
and hands. The popularity of Kung Fu films during the 1970s also had a great
impact on the b-boying style, incorporating a large number of martial arts moves.
Breaking featured in several films, such as Flashdance.
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B-Boy styles include locking (robotic type movements inspired by TV robots,
cartoons and mime artists) and popping (electric boogie). In locking the body
apparently moves out of control then back into control, snapping into position,
collapsing, then snapping back.
Electric Boogaloo (or boogie), a style of popping, combines locking with smooth,
controlled movements from mime, passing energy through the body, popping and
snapping elbows, wrists, necks, hips and body joints along the way. A movement
that Union Dance sometimes teaches is ‘twist a flex’ – separating sections of the
body and moving them in isolation to each other. Garry Benjamin’s dynamic solo in
the production Urban Classics II demonstrated these B-Boying styles.
The four elements of Hip Hop are B-Boying, Graffiti, MCing and DJing. The music
element of Hip Hop, where music is sampled, mixed and scratched and ‘breaks’
emphasised or repeated, is also an important influence in Union Dance’s work, seen
in the last section of Permanent Revolution V2R and in A Knot Annulled.
Workshop ideas for street dance styles are included in the Education section at the
end of this pack.
Further information:
The London School of Capoeira, Unit 1-2 Leeds Place,
Tollington Park, London N4 3RQ Tel: 0207 281 2020
www.londonschoolofcapoeira.co.uk
Information on break dance and hip hop styles can be found on:
www.worldwidedance.co.uk
www.yogasite.com
42
SENSING CHANGE
Identity is fluid: the self can be reinvented
‘One of the best choreographic commissions of Union Dance’s twenty year history’
The Times
Corrine Bougaard’s Union Dance retains its tradition of exploration through
collaboration with two internationally diverse choreographers: Rafael
Bonachela and Mavin Khoo create Sensing Change – an investigation of dance,
music, light, video projection and acoustic space.
Sensing Change builds on Union Dance’s twenty year’s of experience and
expertise at mixing contemporary dance, hip hop, martial arts and streetwise
wit, whilst demonstrating through performance how 21st Century culture
embraces and celebrates transformation. With grace, fluidity and always a
little edge, this 7-strong culturally diverse company made up of superb dance
technicians, explores and celebrates change.
‘A rocking group number, keeps the dancers moving in sensitive, edgy dialogue with
each other’
The Guardian
Sensing Change premiered at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, part of London’s South
Bank Centre on 11 May 2005. Since then, the show has toured the UK, performing
at large and middle scale theatre venues.
These two abstract pieces have different moods and blend modern dance, music,
video and design to create an eye-catching production. There are seven performers
in the cast, three women and four men. The music for the show is pre-recorded and
consists of an original mixed soundtrack and specially commissioned electronic
soundscape. The performance lasts approximately one hour and twenty minutes,
including the interval.
Pure C
Choreography:
Music:
Costume Design:
Light Pieces:
Film & Digital Technology:
Lighting Design:
Costume Making:
Mavin Khoo
Digital 77
Jessica Bugg
Ulli Oberlack
Derek Richards
Bill Deverson
Annie Robinson
Interval
Silence Disrupted
Choreography:
Soundscape:
Costume Design:
Light pieces:
Film & Digital Technology:
Lighting Design:
Costume Making:
Rafael Bonachela
Santiago Posada
Jessica Bugg
Ulli Oberlack
Derek Richards
Bill Deverson
Annie Robinson
The production of Sensing Change was kindly supported
by forum twenty eight, Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria.
43
Dancers: Hian Ruth Voon,
Gerrard Martin and Will Thorburn.
Photo: Tristram Kenton
Notes on Sensing Change by Corrine Bougaard, Artistic Director
Through non-European dance styles, digital technology and live performance,
Union Dance aims to shift perspectives by exploring and expressing an identity
that reflects the growing cultural fusion of contemporary society.
Union Dance has continually focussed on the uniqueness of identity, with
different manifestations of this theme, including migration and displacement.
The Company’s productions concentrate on how the body functions within the
world around it; making sense of our surroundings both in terms of physical
space and environment, together with the cultural and social circumstances
that effect it.
Sensing Change reveals how twenty-first century culture embraces and
celebrates transformation.
This exhilarating double bill investigates our
rapidly changing ideals through dance, music, video and eye-catching design.
I am a part of the past, but I look to the future
Issey Miyake
Sensing Change is a programme of work that embraces the notion of
collaboration on a creative level with the intention of conveying both
immediacy and timelessness. It reflects this with work devoted to the concept
of change. Layered textures and fluid transparencies unite the simple and the
complex with sophisticated images and delicate intimacy.
As the basis of the creative process, collaborators on this production discussed
the many ways contemporary ideas reinterpret traditional forms. The work
engages ideas of sharing broader perspectives, proposing new ways of
thinking, dichotomy, combining the body with technology, East and West,
urban contrasting simple beauty.
Sensing Change is a transitional programme for Union Dance – which looks
back over the past century and the Company’s journey, but takes on board
the possibilities of the new century, in terms of design and new technology.
Union Dance has always explored different genres and styles, incorporating
them into a fresh new identity, which celebrates cultural diversity.
44
INTERVIEW
Jedda Donnelly and Gerrard Martin were interviewed by fellow dancer
Susanna Cole during the production week at Barrow-in-Furness:
JD: It’s been an extremely challenging process, physically. We’ve challenged
ourselves to work in a new style, which is a mix of contemporary, distorted images,
quirky motifs, a lot of physicality, fused with classical ballet.
This is an exciting time for Union Dance, because we’re going through a process of
re-invention. We’re working with multi-media artists on the project, as well as
soundscape artists, film, wearable lights and fashion designers. There are lots of
collaborators and it’ll be interesting to see how it’s all pulled together this week in
Barrow.
We’re going through a process of change, hence Sensing Change, but we all get on
really well together, we’re very close. Everyone’s there to do a job, but we also
have fun with it and we work as a team.
GM: It’s like a fusion of people and
dance styles, because everyone’s
come from a different background.
Some people have a B-boying
background, like break dancing, hip
hop. Others are more balletic or
contemporary trained.
JD: Working
with
these
two
particular
choreographers
was
interesting.
Mavin, in particular
comes from a kind of neo-classical
background, but he was able to look
at club culture and explore that
through his material – through the
music, the images and the set.
GM: Rafael
works
with
very
contemporary
companies
like
Rambert but pop artists like Kylie
Minogue as well.
JD: They come from different
backgrounds, and in many ways
their styles are really contrasting,
but in other ways there are
similarities in the way that they
move.
Dancer: Jedda Donnelly
Photo: Charles Dragazis
45
GM:There’s distortion, they’ve got a lot of distorted imagery in their vocabulary and
also the clarity of lines, they’re both quite angular. I think it’s their ballet
background – they’ve got a sense of line and form.
JD: Lines, form, shape. The most wonderful moment for me is when I’m being
lifted by the four men on a podium (in Pure C), because I have to be really regal
and dramatic and almost floating on air. I love it!
GM: I liked doing the video work which will be in Mavin’s piece. I also get lifted by
the three women. As a taller, male dancer I usually get to lift other men or women
in the Company, so it’s nice to have that feeling of weightlessness myself.
JD: The whole process has been really challenging, we’ve been doing some serious
press-ups, the whole cardio-vascular thing. Almost like we’ve been going back to
basics. We’ve discovered ourselves in a way. When we go on tour with Sensing
Change we’re looking forward to keeping up that level of intensity.
Dancers: Gerrard Martin and Jedda Donnelly in Silence Disrupted
Photo: Rick Kwan
46
Press and Audience Responses to Sensing Change
The premiere for Sensing Change at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on 11th and 12th May
2005 was reviewed by dance critics from The Times, The Daily Telegraph, The
Guardian and The Stage newspapers.
One of the best choreographic commissions in Union’s 20-year history… impressively made
and executed, Bonachela’s dance is like a spray of bullets that hit their target
The Times, Donald Hutera 2005
a company excited by movement and on the cutting edge of contemporary dance
The Stage, 2005
hyperextended legs, sharply torqued angles, swivelled hips and exotically coiled arms
The Guardian, Judith Mackrell 2005
a rocking group number, keeps the dancers moving in sensitive, edgy dialogue with each
other
The Guardian, Judith Mackrell 2005
pop culture and street dance moves in a fresh and interesting mix
The Stage, 2005
impressively made and executed, Bonachela’s dance is like a spray of bullets that hit their
target
The Times, Donald Hutera 2005
a sophisticated, rich movement texture buzzing with liveliness
The Stage, 2005
Union Dance has always had one foot on the street and another in contemporary dance and
this double bill is no exception. Combining hip hop, urban flavours, break dancing, martial
arts and stylised contemporary movements, Sensing Change charts the development of
21st century culture and how it embraces change and transformation.
The powerhouses behind the choreography are Rafael Bonachela, renowned for combining
art and popular culture in his work with contemporary icons such as Kylie Minogue and
Primal Scream, and Malaysian-born Mavin Khoo who also likes to blend dance styles by
merging modern and classical dance. The double bill begins with Pure C by Khoo. Sharp,
angular, distorted arm lines and hyperextended legs dominate the choreography. At times
during the piece this looks exotic and at other times out of place. The backdrop is minimal
with disco style flashing lights, podium style platforms and futuristic video projection.
Bonachela’s work, Silence Disrupted, is edgy, fast-paced, acoustic and appears to want to
shock. The dancers work through the beat and the partner work is athletic and faultless.
Although it is exciting to witness change, just as with 21st century culture, you sometimes
wish you could slow things down and take a look at what is going on behind the chaos. This
evening does not allow the audience that depth, but does allow them to sense different
movement qualities and dynamics and also experience the transformation the body can go
through by using sound, light, music, silence and interactive technology.
Lucy Wallis, The Stage, 3 November 2005
The response from audiences throughout the Sensing Change tour has been
extremely positive. Union Dance’s work appeals to a wide cross section of the
public and its work tends to attract younger audiences, including more people from
ethnic minorities than other more mainstream companies. This is due to the
Company’s strong identity which is associated with diversity of culture, urban style
and more accessible choreography.
47
I was really impressed again (I saw Urban Classics last year). Your group is so much more
innovative, vibrant and energetic than many of the bigger names that come to Cambridge.
Mumford Theatre, Cambridge, 2 November 2005
I went to see Sensing Change at the Swan Theatre and I was blown away. I thought it was
amazing.
Swan Theatre, Worcester, 18 October 2005
Union Dance Audience Profile:
A recent survey suggested that young people between the ages of 18-29 make up
the highest percentage of Union Dance’s audience – 31.6%. 12-17 year olds
comprise 17.8% of the audience. The over 50’s made up the next largest group.
The survey concluded that this might not be a true reflection, as the over 50s might
have been more likely to complete the questionnaire.
21% of the audience had seen Union Dance before, while 78.9% had never
previously seen the Company. 40.8% of the audience did not attend dance events
often if at all, which is unusual for a contemporary dance performance, as
audiences tend to be dedicated attenders.
The audience were exceptionally happy with the quality of their experience, with
85.5% rating the show as ‘very good’ and 90.1% wanting to see Union Dance again
in the future.
48
CHOREOGRAPHIC FEATURES OF SENSING CHANGE
The following is a brief analysis of the main features of Sensing Change, which
is intended to give students an idea of what to look out for when watching the
video of the production, or seeing a live performance.
Features of Pure C, Choreography by Mavin Khoo
Staging
• The majority of the movement takes place on podiums.
• At the beginning the solo dancer wears a short jacket with extra long
trailing sleeves, lit from the inside.
• The dancers wear lights as part of their costumes, on knees and elbows.
• Video projections on the back screens show the dancers moving slowly,
with close-ups of faces (sometimes morphing into other faces). At times
the screens become transparent and dancers can be seen moving
behind them.
• At first the stage is dimly lit, with flashing lights on either side. Later,
the podiums are brightly under-lit with vibrant contemporary colours,
echoed on the screens.
• Dance music with a constant, hypnotic pulse that builds to a crescendo.
Movement Styles
• Contemporary Dance
• Breaking
• Capoeira
• Classical Indian
• Ballet
Choreographic Features
• Movement in a confined space
• Sharp changes of focus and direction
• Small leg flicks, hip isolations
• Legs and arms extended, the arm line often broken
• Pulses and rebounds with limbs
• Jumps, turns, leg lifts
Composition
• Solo, duets, trios and quartets.
• One couple performs a duet on one podium, while other individual
dancers take one half of the duet and perform it on separate podiums,
so the duet is simultaneously seen broken down as separate unison
phrases.
• Unison quintet, in a line in very close proximity. Gradually, the phrase
breaks down and one by one each dancer breaks away or changes the
movement.
49
Features of Silence Disrupted, Choreography by Rafael Bonachela
Staging
• Boundaries are shown by small circles of light (especially at the
beginning) or three identical pools on a diagonal across the stage.
• The men wear white trousers, the women short white dresses. The
fabric is closely fitted around the men’s ankles, with an Eastern feel to
the drape. The tops of the women’s dresses are also draped.
• Wearable lights feature in the first duet of the piece, providing a
transition between Pure C and Silence Disrupted.
• A camera films this first duet, and instantaneously a computer program
translates this video into electronic sounds.
• The images from this camera are projected on to screens at the back of
the stage and a time-delay program changes them gradually throughout
the piece.
• The soundscape echoes the theme of change, with phrases that begin,
almost develop, pause, then begin again.
Hian Ruth Voon, Susanna Cole, Will Thorburn in Silence Disrupted
Photo: Alastair Muir
Movement Styles
• Contemporary Dance
• Capoeira
• Hip Hop
• Breaking
50
Choreographic Features
• Circular movements are echoed by the lighting design, such as spiralling
turns and leg circles (rond de jambes).
• Pulling and pushing partner-work.
• Wrapping parts of the body around the partner.
• Impulses, which are followed through by different body parts.
• Drags, lifts, shifts, swivels or spirals.
• Sudden drops to the ground and one partner preventing the other from
falling.
• Short sharp movements gestures with one body part.
Composition
• Begins with a duet in a confined space, the dancers wearing lights on
knees and ankles, the movement starting and pausing.
• Piece opens out to a greater use of space, the whole stage is used.
• Exits and entrances are made simply by walking.
• The choreography constantly changes with a series of duets and trios in
close contact.
• The duets vary between man and woman, two women or two men.
• Regardless of gender the duets feature lifts and weight taking.
• The series of duets builds eventually to a trio with a duet in the
foreground and ultimately to all seven dancers performing a unison
phrase, which as soon as it is established, begins to break up.
• The phrasing is important, as the choreography flows through a phrase,
then pauses in a held position and begins again.
• There is a sense of continuous flow despite the constant interruptions to
the phrasing.
51
MAVIN KHOO, CHOREOGRAPHER FOR PURE C
‘One of the UK’s most exciting dancers’
(London Evening Standard)
Mavin Khoo was born in Malaysia where he began his dance studies, training in
India, Britain and the USA. He originally studied the Indian classical dance
techniques of Bharat Natyam and Odissi, but has also trained in classical ballet and
contemporary dance.
Having begun training in Bharat Natyam in
early childhood, Khoo moved to Madras in
India at the age of 10 to undertake full
time dance training. Three years later he
was selected by the British Council for a
project on ‘the bilingual body’, for which
they trained him in ballet alongside
classical Indian dance.
For a long time I never saw a link between
Bharat Natyam and ballet. At the age of 14 I
saw a video called Baryshnikov and the Wolf
Trap (1975)… he was dancing with Gelsey
Kirkland… I was completely mindblown… I
think that it was the subtlety of nuance...
which I hadn’t really seen in ballet.
My
training in Indian dance was always with live
music and there was so much emotional
substance to it, and then you go into your
ballet exams… Suddenly I saw this whole
other side to ballet, and I started to take this
very seriously from then on.
(Interview with Tammy
University, 2003)
McLorg
at
Middlesex
Bharat Natyam
Bharat Natyam is a classical dance style from South India. It was originally a religious
dance from ancient times, performed in temples and at ceremonial processions. The dance
technique of Bharat Natyam practised today is thought to have been developed around 100
years ago.
There are many different dances within Bharat Natyam, incorporating statuesque poses,
intricate and dynamic rhythms and expressive gestures and movements, particularly of the
eyes, hands, shoulders and neck. Sometimes the dancer interprets a story, song or poem,
with hand gestures and eye movements as an important part of the dance to relay
expression and subtlety.
For more information:
www.cicd.org.uk (Centre for Indian Classical Dance)
52
Khoo became a Bharat Natyam soloist in his teens, performing internationally and
studied contemporary dance at the Merce Cunningham Studio in New York and
ballet in London, where he has lived and worked for several years.
My training has been in many different areas. The important thing is that, in order to find
the ‘oneness’ of ballet and Bharat Natyam, I actually had to live two separate lives for a
long time before I could find them within each other.
(Interview with Tammy McLorg at Middlesex University, 2003)
As a soloist, Mavin Khoo has performed in Britain, USA, France, Spain, India,
Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan and Japan. Television appearances include Channel 4
in the UK and JTV in India.
Khoo has performed in collaboration with Wayne McGregor (Encoder 1997), Akram
Khan (No Male Egos 1999), Christopher Bannerman (Cast in Stone? 2000) and
others. He has danced with Sankalpam and Random dance companies and has
toured and guested internationally.
He was associate artist at Akademi (a company which promotes South Asian Dance
in the UK), for whom he performed in the major Coming of Age and Escapade
celebrations at the Royal Festival Hall on London’s South Bank (2001 and 2003). He
has created choreography for the National Youth Dance Company and London
Studio Centre.
Images in Varnam, commissioned by the Royal Ballet’s Artists Development
Initiative, completed a sell-out week at the Royal Opera House’s Clore Studio,
featuring classical ballet and Bharat Natyam dancers and live violin.
Khoo also performed with the Shobana Jeyasingh
Phantasmaton, Surface Tension and [h]Interland (2002/3).
Dance
Company
in
The fastest rising star in the Asian dance firmament
(London Metro)
Performances and collaborations as a soloist and choreographer:
•
Wayne McGregor (Encoder, 1997)
•
Akram Khan (No Male Egos 1999)
•
Christopher Bannerman (Cast in Stone? 2000)
•
Guested with Random and Shobana Jeyasingh Dance Companies
•
International touring as a soloist in Bharat Natyam
Khoo also teaches extensively, giving classes for professional and student dancers,
including Akademi, Sampad, Danceworks, Roehampton and Surrey Universities,
Random and Union Dance.
53
Mavin Khoo Dance
In Autumn 2003, Mavin Khoo Dance was launched as a new national touring
company. Their first production was Parallel Passions, which toured England,
Scotland and Italy for 40 performances, with Mavin Khoo performing himself.
Mavin Khoo Dance’s second production Chandra / Luna was supported by Arts
Council England, British Council Italy and co-commissioners Sampad, Kadam and
Arts Council North East and toured the UK and overseas from 2004 to March 2005.
Featuring choreography from Khoo and Laurent Cavanna (from Siobhan Davies
Dance Company), Liz Lea and Mlavika Sarukkai, Chandra / Luna drew inspiration
from the moon and its influence on human life, a mystic and mythological presence
that has inspired poets, philosophers and astronomers. The music included a
commissioned sound score by Andy Pink and traditional and classical music from
the east and the west. Mavin Khoo Dance is not currently performing.
A gorgeous alien, blazing a trail of energy… with exquisite, edgy grace… The dancing is
languorous, athletic, courtly, vivacious and, most of all, erotic… choreography at once
formally disciplined and brutally explicit.
(The Guardian)
54
RAFAEL BONACHELA, CHOREOGRAPHER FOR SILENCE DISRUPTED
Rafael Bonachela was born in Barcelona, Spain in 1972. He has lived in London
since 1989 and began choreographing professionally in 1999. In the past six years
he has been commissioned by a wide variety of dance companies and commercial
clients, including Rambert Dance Company, Union Dance, MTV, Kylie Minogue, The
Kills, Primal Scream, Jaguar Automobiles, Siemens Mobile and Hugo Boss.
Rafael Bonachela’s choreographic style
Bonachela describes himself as a ‘movement junkie’ and the exploration and
experimentation of pure movement is his motivation.
Bonachela
is
an
abstract
choreographer – none of the
movement in Silence Disrupted is
intended to convey any particular
meaning.
In addition to his own movement
vocabulary, he finds inspiration in
the visual arts and popular culture
which gives his movement a
distinctive style.
A choreographer committed to
innovation, he is one of the most
intriguing and inventive choreographers working in Britain today,
seamlessly between the mainstream and avant-garde dance worlds.
moving
Intricately meshed contact improvisation
Ismene Brown, The Daily Telegraph, 13 May 2005
This consistently absorbing and increasingly exciting work could rank as one of the
best choreographic commissions in Union’s 20-year history.
Set to Santiago Posada’s blistering electronic soundscape, Bonachela’s swift,
angular kinetic language grows in strength as it unspools. He is particularly adept
at grappling duets, such as that between Will Thorburn and Gerrard Martin. The
pair engage in a close, combative style weighted with ambiguous intimacy.
Martin is replaced by Hian Ruth Voon, a little dynamo new to Union this year. She
and Thorburn dig their knotted clutches and hoists deeper into the dance’s subtext
of struggle and support.
In (Jessica) Bugg’s tightly wound bandage costumes, Union’s sharp-looking
ensemble has no time or need to supply Bonachela’s visceral yet disciplined writing
with an easy emotional overlay. Impressively made and executed, his dance is like
a spray of bullets that hit their target.
Donald Hutera, The Times, 16 May 2005
55
Training
Growing up in a village outside Barcelona, Bonachela did not attend formal dance
classes until the age of 16 ‘but even when I was a child I was always playing with
rhythm and making steps for my friends’. (Dance Europe, July 2003) Eventually,
his father, a ‘very macho’ factory foreman sent him to dance school in Barcelona.
After just a year of after school dance classes he began performing with Lanonima
Imperial contemporary dance company, before winning a scholarship to train at the
London Studio Centre at the age of 18.
Rambert Dancer
On graduating in 1992, Bonachela successfully auditioned for Rambert Dance
Company, with whom he danced for 11 years, performing a diverse range of work
from internationally renowned choreographers, such as Merce Cunningham, Glen
Tetley, Christopher Bruce, Siobhan Davies, Twyla Tharp, Wayne McGregor, Michael
Clark and more. This direct exposure to works which have defined the progress of
contemporary dance has undoubtedly helped him to develop his own unique style.
It was very important to be in a company where there is a high level of creative nurturing
and continuous renewal… I had the chance to work with many, many choreographers and
see the way they worked… Siobhan Davies, Merce Cunningham and Wayne McGregor are
big influences and, like theirs, my work is movement orientated.
Dance Europe, July 2003
Choreographic Workshop
In the summer of 1999, Bonachela created a piece for Rambert’s annual
choreographic workshop season, which provides opportunities for the dancers to
choreograph their own work on their colleagues. Bonachela created a work for six
dancers, Three Gone, Four Left Standing, which, to his surprise, was chosen by the
company’s Artistic Director Christopher Bruce to be performed at Sadler’s Wells as
part of their main programme the following autumn.
That experience gave
Bonachela the confidence to continue with choreography and he began work on
another piece almost immediately, borrowing his colleagues whenever they weren’t
needed for rehearsal. ‘From that point I don’t think I’ve ever had a week when I
haven’t been choreographing. And it was never because someone asked me to.’
Bruce once again put Bonachela’s new work Linear Remains into the Sadler’s Wells
repertoire in autumn 2001.
Kylie Minogue
Linear Remains was squeezed into the repertoire at the last minute as an extra
piece and nearly missed its premiere when one of the dancers was injured and
Bonachela had to go on instead. The piece was seen by Kylie Minogue’s creative
director, William Baker, who was on the look out for avant-garde choreography. He
commissioned Bonachela to choreograph first Kylie’s routine for the BRIT Awards,
then her award winning 2002 world tour, Fever. Bonachela was not a Kylie fan –
had never even seen a pop concert – but was prepared to give it a go.
This was the first time someone from the outside believed in me and gave me such a
responsibility. Until then I had just been a Rambert dancer for years, choreographing in my
spare time.
Bonachela in Ballet Magazine, April 2003
Bonachela’s unique approach to choreography, placing contemporary dance in a
more mainstream context, was so highly acclaimed that he went on to work
extensively with Kylie, choreographing the Top of the Pops Awards and the World
Music Awards. He later went on to work on Primal Scream’s Miss Lucifer video,
56
which was nominated for Best Video at the MTV Europe Music Awards in May 2002.
Rafael collaborated again with Kylie’s creative team on the 2005 Showgirl tour and
choreographed the videos for I believe in you and Giving you up.
In 2003 he also received his first proper commission from Rambert to create ‘21’, a
work inspired by Kylie and the idea of celebrity, which featured film of Kylie herself,
created in collaboration with Kylie’s creative team – costume, lighting and set designers.
Associate Choreographer for Rambert Dance Company
In April 2003 he was appointed Rambert’s Associate Choreographer, a post held
previously by internationally renowned choreographers such as Christopher Bruce
and Siobhan Davies. September 2005 saw the premiere of his 8th work for
Rambert, Curious Conscience for 20 dancers, set to music by Benjamin Britten,
which explores themes of ‘night’, ‘sleep’ and ‘dreams’.
Prize Winner
Bonachela’s choreography has received professional recognition on several
occasions. In 2003 he was a finalist in the Critics’ Circle National Dance Awards in
the Best Choreography category, then in September 2004 he won the first ever
Place Prize for Choreography, the audience vote award and the New York
Bloomberg choice award.
Other recent commissions include:
Dies de Dansa Festival, Barcelona
David Hughes Dance Company for the Edinburgh Festival
Transitions Dance Company
English Chamber Orchestra
Dance Works Rotterdam
Gloucestershire Youth Dance Company
Bonachela has completed four dance films, including Nowhere Better than this Place
with the director Livia Russell, and 21, a seven minute film featuring Kylie Minogue,
which was shown as part of his dance work of the same name for Rambert.
Publications with articles on Rafael Bonachela:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Ballet Magazine April 2003, interview with Catherine Hale
The Sunday Times magazine ‘The Next Big Thing’
The Guardian, G2 section, 16 November 2004
ID Magazine, December 2004 issue
The Telegraph, interview with Ismene Brown (‘Jumping-off Point’)
Dance Europe, July 2003 interview with Stuart Sweeney
Spanish Elle Magazine, December 2004 issue
Vanidad Magazine, Spain – ‘Heroes of 2004’
Further information:
www.rafaelbonachela.com
www.rambert.org.uk/aboutrambert/people
www.theplaceprize.com
www.danceeurope.net
57
Choreographic process for Silence Disrupted:
The main ideas of the work stem from the theme – ‘sensing change’. I used this to explore
sensing dynamics and different movement qualities with the dancers. The dancers’
individual styles and approach to movement influenced my choreographic decisions.
Rafael Bonachela, 2005
Union Dance draws together dancers with a great diversity of styles in their
backgrounds. As well as being trained to professional level in contemporary dance,
they have other movement experience, particularly in capoeira and hip hop.
Instead of imposing a pure contemporary vocabulary on the dancers, Bonachela
allowed their individual styles to influence his choreography. This meant that the
style of movement suited the dancers’ bodies and abilities, whilst at the same time
challenging them in new directions.
Silence Disrupted builds from a series of abrupt cameos to a rocking group number, and
keeps the dancers moving in sensitive, edgy dialogue with each other.
Judith Mackrell, The Guardian, 13 May 2005
Body Map
I sourced movement working with the dancers, for example I set specific tasks related to
certain body parts. I used combinations of solo, duet and group works, dancers moving in
unison and exaggeration of movement created in set tasks.
Rafael Bonachela, 2005
One of the tasks he set can be seen on page 41. Bonachela asked dancers Michael
Joseph and Garry Benjamin to work out a duet together. He gave them a hand
drawn map, which demonstrated the directions in which they should travel –
essentially an anti-clockwise oval.
Along their pathway they had to follow
increasingly complex instructions, which related to Body Parts, Actions or
Directions. They had to interpret specific tasks such as ‘shoulder (left), around it,
hip (left), grab it, bum, thigh, 3 steps away’ in order to create their own duet.
Once the movement was in place, Rafael was then able to alter and develop the
phrase as he wished. This way of working helped him to draw out the dancers’ own
movement vocabulary and was also time effective, as he was able to work with
other dancers on separate phrases while Michael and Garry created their duet.
Music
From the start of the rehearsal process, Bonachela was very clear about what kind
of music he wanted, even though it was not yet in existence. He commissioned a
recorded ‘soundscape’ from Santiago Posada, a Colombian multimedia and
recording artist, living in the UK. The pair had previously collaborated when Posada
co-wrote a 12-channel sound score for Bonachela’s E2 7SD, which won The Place
Prize in 2004. Posada came in to rehearsals and worked very closely with
Bonachela on counts and atmosphere and the music was only finished near the end
of the process.
The music was also an instrumental influence on my work. I like electronic sound. It is
very ‘now’ / of the moment. Santiago is a long term collaborator and I felt that his style
would suit Union Dance.
Rafael Bonachela, 2005
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Notes by the Composer On The Soundscape
The sound score makes use of sonic material that intends to intensify the
highly physical energy of the choreography. The narrative of the piece
evolves from subtle sound particles in random interaction with each other
that eventually lock into musical coherence with an abstract sense of
melody. There is an emphasis in the use of noise as a musical aspect, in
order to explore its power as a physical tool, an element of disorientation
that unsettles the senses and lead the audience to an altered state of
perception.
Sound can be felt as well as heard: sound energy turning into tactile
messages. By doing this, the physicality of the choreography is mirrored by
the physical nature of sound. The movement can be felt. The unsettling
power of noise coupled with the rhythmical intensity of the piece echoes the
speed, power and oppression of contemporary life, the noise of media,
advertising, politics and the war.
Most of the sounds in the score are recordings made in the street, which
find connections and interactions with noise, music and electronics in order
to reflect life in big cities. In this way the soundscape embraces and
celebrates 21st century culture and the constantly changing environment in
which we live.
Santiago Posada
Hian Ruth Voon and Will Thorburn in Silence Disrupted.
Photo: Tristram Kenton
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