Rehearsals with Cheshire Dance going well. First performance of The Moment When at Chester Racecourse next week
Love in Idleness tour confirmed!
Rachel has received funding from Grants for the Arts to rework and tour Love in Idleness. The piece will be reworked in a residency at Burton Agnes stately home and performances will take place in five gardens across Yorkshire:
Saturday 30th June – Burton Agnes, Driffield
Sunday 1st July – Temple Newsom, Leeds
Saturday 7th July – Yorkshire Sculpture Park
Sunday 8th July – Oakwell Hall,
Saturday 21st July – Sheffield Botanical Gardens
Musician needed for dance theatre piece
Love in Idleness is a promenade performance which takes place in a garden. Combining dance, theatre and music, it is directed by dance artist Rachel Dean and loosely based around the themes of A Midsummer Night’s Dream; transformation, magic, mischief and love. A tour of five Yorkshire gardens is confirmed for this Summer, funded by Grants for the Arts and produced by Yorkshire Dance.
The two musicians are an integral part of the piece and play an important role in leading the audience. Looking for a musician with:
- Very strong skills in improvisation
- An instrument(s) which is portable and does not require amplification
- An instrument(s) to combine with clarinet or bass clarinet
- The enthusiasm and flexibility needed for the unpredictability/interaction/weather that comes with outdoor work
-The skills and outlook needed to work as part of an ensemble of musicians, dancers and actor.
- Ideally experience in working with dancers/theatre
You need to be available for all of the following dates:
Residential rehearsal period at Burton Agnes stately home, Driffield
Tuesday 26th – Friday 29th June
Performances
Saturday 30th June
Sunday 1st July
Saturday 7th July
Sunday 8th July
Saturday 21st July
There is a fee of £780 for this work.
A workshop audition will take place by invitation at Yorkshire Dance, Leeds on Saturday 2nd June. If you would like to attend please send CV/bio and a few lines on your interest in this project to racheljanedean@yahoo.co.uk as soon as possible and by the 30th May.
More info, photos and film here http://racheljanedean.wordpress.com/choreography/love-in-idleness/
A Christmas Cabaret – Rachel Dean and Matthew Bellwood
Acclaimed performers Rachel Dean and Matthew Bellwood invite you to join them for two very different interpretations of Christmas in a special night of story, dance and music.
Nativity is a full-body collision with the enduring power of the myth and magic of the Virgin Mary. Rachel Dean uses movement, song and things that sparkle to create an irreverent and at times surprisingly devotional solo performance. This engaging solo performance is accompanied by an eclectic, lively and decidedly seasonal soundtrack.
St Nicholas and the Wicked Butcher is the tale of a quest to save three tiny children from a villainous Parisian butcher. Alongside a Christmas ghost story, Matthew Bellwood’s telling of this grisly and bizarre tale promises to be as engaging as his audiences at Opera North and the Edinburgh Festival have come to expect.
Plus Nativity by Rachel Dean and Christmas treats including carols from the Leeds Women’s Institute choir.
Friday 9th December, Theatre in the Mill, Bradford, 7.30pm Tickets £6.50 full, £5 concessions, students pay what you can.
www.brad.ac.uk/theatre/whats-on/performances/Christmas-Cabaret/
Saturday 10th December, Seven Arts, Leeds
www.sevenleeds.co.uk/
Teaching at International New Year Contact Improvisation Jam London
Rachel is teaching the following 3 day workshop in London:
Intentions don’t count for much in Contact Improvisation except when they come through your body. This workshop will take the Clear Intentions theme in the direction of embodying intention. We will practise recognising and responding to our own body’s intentions and those of the people we dance with, letting our bodies take the lead. How can physicality clarify our intentions, tapping into something different from making decisions, different ways of being and relating, becoming an animal, becoming alive.
We will begin from our own physical reality in each moment, using our senses, and listening to, trusting and respecting our body’s intuition. By starting from places of security and ease and expanding outwards with gentleness and awareness, what was once not possible (flying, disorientation…) can become so. We will try slowing down to allow time for this to happen, and speeding up so we depend on our bodies’ intuition and responses to find a way.
We will devote time to the physical skills needed to have autonomy in our dances, so our dancing can be an intersection of our intentions with those of the people we dance with and with the flow of gravity. For example we will practise both receiving a partner’s weight, and channelling undesired weight elsewhere. With the freedom to choose comes the confidence for safe, dynamic and effortlessly powerful dances. The workshop will emphasise Contact Improvisation as a practice of empowerment, personal responsibility and freedom.
Pre-Workshop: 26 – 30 December 2011
Clear Intentions
* Intensives with Jörg Hassmann, Vanessa Cook and Rachel Dean
* Workshops and warmups with various UK & international teachers
* Labs and jams
* Hot-tub and morning yoga
* Delicious vegan & omnivorous catering
£ 130 regular / £ 100 concession
New Year Jam: 30 December 2011 – 2 January 2012
Joyful Resolutions
* Jamming in three beautiful studios
* Workshops and warmups with various UK teachers
* Live music by Barnaby Tree, underscore practice with David Leahy
* Morning yoga, outdoor excursions, dusk & dawn jams
* Bodywork spaces, hot-tub, New Year’s eve feast…
* Delicious vegan & omnivorous catering
£ 100 regular / £ 80 concession
Package price £ 200 regular / £ 160 concession
Book before 1 November for a 10% discount
Prices include meals (but not accomodation)
Venue:
movingartsbase, Syracusae Building, 134 Liverpool Road, London N1 1LA
Multiple studios with underfloor heating and good natural light
Studio sleeping spaces available (10 £ per person per night) Local accomodation info
Schedule:
Pre-Workshop: 26 Dec 5 pm – 30 Dec 12:30 pm
New Year Jam: 30 Dec 5 pm – 2 Jan 12:30 pm
Registration and enquiries:
Daniel Mang
danielmang@gmail.com
+44 7411427331 (British mobile)
http://www.danielmang.com/node/10
September Mathilde performances
Sunday 11th September, Rotherham
Friday 16th September, Leeds, 8pm, 7 Arts, 31a Harrogate Road, LS7 3PD £5/6
Mathilde are a collective of five improvisers who integrate movement and sound, taking playful and entertaining improvised performance and participation to music events, theatres and festivals. They are popular with a wide range of audiences.
Dancers and musicians navigate the physical and sonic space, exploring the boundaries of each others’ realms and giving way to enchanting spontaneous interactions that draw you in and carry you with them on the journey.
More about Mathilde working processes and approaches to improvisation at http://mathildedance.blogspot.com/
The Moment When
Rachel is very happy to be working with Cheshire Dance on ‘The Moment When..’
Cheshire Dance and Walk The Plank are gearing up for a phenomenal performance project in 2012 (inspired by London 2012), choreography by Jacqueline McCormick, Cheshire Dance, Vicki Amedume, Upswing and Ruth Spencer, Independent Dance Artist.
All performances will be site-based at 3 iconic locations in Chester, Cheshire East and Warrington and will involve a range of specialist collaborators in dance, aerial work, music, light, costume, fire and pyrotechnics. The Chester event for example will form the culmination of the Olympic Torch evening celebration event, so we’re talking about events of some scale.
More at http://www.cheshiredance.org/2012/index.html