Neon’s Adrienne Hart has just been announced as one of the Sadler’s Wells Summer University artists 2015 – 2018! Sadler’s Wells will support 21 artists with a four-year dance development programme directed by one of the most respected choreographers working in Europe today, Jonathan Burrows, in collaboration with Eva Martinez, Artistic Programmer for Sadler’s Wells.
“Summer University takes the shape of a two-week intensive period every summer with the same group of artists. Exceptionally, this first year takes place in September. Devised to offer a longer-term approach to choreographic enquiry, the four-year programme is aimed specifically at dance artists who have been active in their field yet are at the earlier stages of their career as dance makers. The artists chosen are therefore all at a crucial stage in their development. Moreover, they have been selected on the strength of their distinctive approach to choreographic practice across a wide range of choreographic backgrounds”
Guest speakers for the first year include Art Angel Director Michael Morris, Dramaturg and Performance Theorist Bojana Cvejic and Tate Modern Curator, Catherine Wood.
Summer University is supported by the Jerwood Charitable Foundation and is made possible thanks to funding through the Leverhulme Trust Arts Scholarship
This position is offered on a freelance basis. Applicants must be able to commit a minimum 5 days to the project between January – March 2016.
All applicants will receive an email confirming receipt of application. Shortlisted candidates will be contacted by email. Unsuccessful candidates for interview will receive an email confirming this.
The deadline for applications is: Friday 4th December
Neon Dance’s Production Week is: 4th – 9th January 2016 (applicants must be able to commit to working Friday 9th & Saturday 9th January)
Following selection, an informal interview will be arranged at a mutually convenient time.
For an informal discussion about the post please email felicity@neondance.org
We look forward to receiving your completed application and thank you for your interest.
Neon Dance is a growing, internationally recognised dance company that produces cross-artform, collaborative work for the stage and screen.
Collaboration is at the heart of every Neon Dance production, with the company creating work designed for a diverse range of spaces; from intimate theatre venues to large-scale festivals.
Under the Artistic Direction of Adrienne Hart, Neon Dance has developed a reputation for working with an exciting array of collaborators, from critically acclaimed composers to award-winning media artists.
Adrienne initially trained at Swindon Dance, winning a scholarship at the age of 17 to train at London Contemporary Dance School. She now works internationally as a choreographer and as Artistic Director of Neon Dance. In 2015, Adrienne became a ‘Dream Artist’ at Pavilion Dance South West and was selected onto the Sadler’s Wells Summer University programme (2015 – 2018), designed to support mid-career dance artists over a 4 year period. Adrienne is also an industry ambassador at University of the Arts London.
Adrienne has worked in Russia, Norway, Germany and most recently Kosovo, choreographing the tragic comedy War In Times of Love by Jeton Neziraj. With Neon Dance, Adrienne’s work has been commissioned and supported by Arts Council England, Creative Industries iNET, Creative England, Dance Digital, Swindon Dance, Modern Art Oxford, Glastonbury Festival, the Royal Opera House, Dance City, Pavilion Dance South West, The National Theatre and Dock 11 (DE).
In 2016, Neon Dance will embark on its first full-length UK tour showcasing ‘Empathy’ – an ambitious new work that explores the human empathy spectrum through movement, sound and set, and featuring an international cast of collaborators from the worlds of contemporary dance, music and design.
The Media Intern will join the company in the studio during its production week in January 2016. With support from Neon Dance’s Producer, they will design and implement a strategy that both creatively documents the making process and promotes the upcoming showcase tour to their peers.
We are looking for creative, collaborative ideas that get people aged 18-25 years excited about contemporary dance, and about this show in particular. This could mean video/audio interviews with the company, campaigns via social media, blogging, photography or something we haven’t thought of.
Most importantly, we are looking for potential. Wow us with your ideas and we will work with you to put them into action.
We are looking for individuals aged 18-25 years based in the South West of England. This includes Devon, Dorset, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Somerset and the unitary authorities of Bath & North East Somerset, Bournemouth, Bristol, Cornwall & the Isles of Scilly, Isle of Wight, North Somerset, Plymouth, Poole, Portsmouth South Gloucestershire, Southampton, Swindon, Torbay and Wiltshire.
As this role is based remotely, it is desirable that you have access to your own laptop and any other equipment required. However, this should not put you off from applying. We will make a selection based on your ideas.
Although you will be joining the company in the studio, you will also spend time working on your own so we are looking for someone who can operate independently as well as work well with the team.
You don’t have to have a dance background to apply – most importantly we are looking for aspiring individuals who wish to make a career in the arts and creative ideas that take a new approach representing, talking about and promoting live work on the stage.
Successful candidates will be provided with:• A bursary of £500 inclusive of travel costs
Interns also benefit from:
Stage One is the submission of an initial proposal. This could consist of a written document (maximum 2 sides of A4), video, audio, text and images or a combination of these elements. You should include the following sections:
Where possible supporting material should also be included with your application and be submitted by email only e.g. CVs / biographies / links to online video or publicity material, show reviews, testimony from other artists/ venues
Stage One proposals should be sent via email to felicity@neondance.org
Decisions will be communicated within 4 weeks of the application deadline.
Stage Two
Successful applicants will go forward to Stage Two which involves working up a suitable work schedule.
We anticipate the start date to be 4th January 2016. This date is flexible and will be confirmed once the selection has been made.
We’ve begun work on our first full-length production EMPATHY with two residencies in the Southwest, UK this summer. The first two weeks of August took us to Pavilion Dance in Bournemouth and we’re currently based at Swindon Dance until the end of the month. Last week we had two of our four strong composing team in the studio with us, a documentary style behind the scenes video coming soon. In the meantime check out a few photos by Miles Hart Photography via our FACEBOOK PAGE!
PHOENIX DANCE THEATRE hosted its first Choreographers and Composers Lab between the 6th – 17th July 2015. The lab took place in the company’s new purpose-built dance venue, which is also shared with Northern Ballet and a stones throw from Yorkshire Dance in Leeds.
Led by Phoenix Dance Theatre’s Artistic Director & Choreographer Sharon Watson and Independent Music Director & Composer Ken Hesketh, the two-week intensive focused on collaborative approaches to creating work and has been designed as a professional development opportunity for both choreographers and composers. We were a multinational crowd of 24 artists; four choreographers, four composers, four musicians and twelve dancers.
Workshops, lectures and daily creative tasks informed our progress through the 2-week intensive. Some days I found myself choreographing on a solo performer, other days I had 4 or 5 dancers and 2 musicians in the mix! Each choreographer/composer had an opportunity to work with one another during week 1 and in week 2 we were partnered off to focus on creating short works with the same collaborative team. I had the pleasure of working with the composer Eloise Gynn and together we made a 10-minute work titled ‘Yoyuu’ for the lab’s informal sharing on the 17th July. Eloise performed in the work alongside dance artists Alice Shepherdson, Prentice Whitlow and Sam Vaherlehto; the Clarinettist/Saxophonist Oliver Dover and Pianist/improv extraordinaire Hara Alonso.
You couldn’t help but think each participant had a role to play in provoking, inspiring or teasing out a different side of your own artistic practice throughout the 2-week intensive. There was such a lively and open atmosphere at play, which gives merit to the team who made it all happen. We felt looked after as a group and encouraged to work outside comfort zones; musicians became dancers and I’ll never forget becoming part of a 24-piece band at one point thanks to guest workshop leader Peter Wiegold! I half wondered on glancing at the list of participants before arriving, whether the choice of 3:1 female to male ratio on both the choreographer and composer selection front had been a conscious decision; so often I find it’s the other way around. Either way, there was a real sense of anything goes. A creative space where serendipity could flourish.
Notably, Phoenix Dance Theatre were able to pay those taking part. This was in part thanks to support from the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation. I wanted to highlight this fact because I think it enabled participants to commit fully to the project without panicking over the usual freelance headache; balancing professional development opportunities (rare) with paying the bills (the norm). The lab enabled its participants to immerse themselves in this wonderfully infectious creative bubble and the little things like relaxing over a drink in the pub – after surviving another Bob Cohen creative task (!) – might trigger an interesting conversation between dancer / musician / choreographer / composer. Too often we find ourselves rushing off at the end of the day to locate the nearest internet hole to lose hours in the vacuous world of the blank funding application!
“…participants will enjoy a rare opportunity to focus on the creative process of research and experimentation with the emphasis on composition in music and dance.”
Guest speakers included the mighty Robert Cohan CBE, Founder of the London School of Contemporary Dance and Phoenix Dance Theatre Patron; Zoë Martlew, Cellist and BBC TV Proms presenter/commentator; Mike Dixon – Dance Critic; Didy Veldman, Choreographer; Dr Jo Butterworth, Professor of Dance Studies at the University of Malta and Peter Wiegold – Composer and Head of Music Research at Brunel University London. It’s nothing like turning up on the first day to find one of the founders of The Place, London Contemporary Dance School and London Contemporary Dance Theatre, setting the creative agenda for the day. My, at times, overly precious and slow choreographic method was blown out of the window (in a good way) and at the same time the experience affirmed I kinda know what I’m doing and should keep doing it!
Whilst I’m sure that the experience will inform each of the participants development in coming months and years, one overriding question that popped up again and again is how do we facilitate more opportunities for live dance and live music to come together. Not as an additional add on near the end of a production period, but the two consistently working side by side, physically (or perhaps virtually) in the same space.
Away from the lab, I’m currently working on my first full-length work with 4 composer/musicians and 5 dancers. I know the logistical and financial burden involved in pulling off such a venture, but I also know (thinking back to a Neon Dance highlight; performing our production The Intention live on stage with composers Nils Frahm and Anne Muller) how exciting, relevant and inspiring it can be when these two worlds collide. Perhaps more can be done to spark conversations between orchestras, bands, composers; and dancers, choreographers, dance companies. These two worlds have such rich and collaborative histories, more should be done to support their future dialogue.
Whilst in Leeds I watched the brilliant NATIONAL YOUTH DANCE COMPANY perform ‘Frame[d]’ choreographed by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. Local youth groups also presented their own absolutely brilliant creations inspired by the work. As the usual soundtrack of Olafur Arnalds / Max Richter mixed into Rap/Pop YouTube hits blasted out from the theatre speakers, I wondered what this new generation of aspiring dancers and dance makers would make of their musical equivalent live in the room with them. Would they have the same challenging, inspiring and thought provoking experience as I had had on the Choreographers and Composers Lab? I suspect they would and I’d like to see the result.
The Choreographers and Composers Lab 2015 is supported by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation.
Adrienne Hart was one of four choreographers selected to attend the two-week intensive.
For more information about the Choreographers and Composers Lab:
Follow Adrienne on Twitter: @ADRIENNE__HART
1. When did you begin working with Neon Dance?
I’ve been working with Neon Dance since 2013
2. Outside of Neon you work as a performer for Jasmin Vardimon and Punch Drunk. You also established the company AΦE in partnership with Esteban Fourmi in 2012 and I hear a new project is currently in the making. Can you tell us more?
AΦE is an Ashford-based company founded in 2012 by Aoi Nakamura and Esteban Fourmi. Our vision is to bring the art closer to audiences, with work which combine fantasia, dream, real, virtual using any elements such as sound, text, new technologies or anything that seems necessary to express our ideas. We aim for high-quality productions and experiences that are not specifically bound by a stage.
We’re currently working on a new work that pushes the limits of the dance performance. Using a Virtual Reality (VR) head set, the idea is that the user will be totally immersed into the work and be able to experience the performance in the comfort of their home or during a live/virtual performance created by AΦE.
3. What can participants expect from your afternoon company rep and creative sessions as part of the Neon Dance Summer Intensive at Swindon Dance?
To introduce Neon Dance’s choreographic vocabulary. Inspire people through different techniques of creative process and bring new dimension and qualities to their choreographic approach to dance and dance making.
Aoi will teach from 2 – 4.30pm each day (24th – 25th August) at Swindon Dance as part of the Neon Dance Summer Intensive. To book your place on the Neon Dance Summer Intensive, follow the link to the Swindon Dance BOOKING PAGE.
AUDITION NOTICE
MALE DANCER, DEADLINE: MAY 8th.
Neon Dance are on the look out for a professional male contemporary dancer. Subject to funding, the period of employment will include UK and international touring, with a creation period at PAVILION DANCE SOUTHWEST.
"EMPATHY" is a 60-minute dance work by Adrienne Hart featuring an original score by Mads Brauer and Casper Clausen (EFTERKLANG), in collaboration with the New York multi-instrumentalist Shahzad Ismaily and Icelandic Cellist Gyda Valtysdottir. The award winning design collective NUMEN have created a laser light design and fashion artist ANA RAJCEVIC has been commissioned to design costume.
The selected candidate will be working alongside dance artists David Lloyd, Annapaola Leso, Aoi Nakamura and Carys Staton.
A highly technical and creatively strong dancer who enjoys working as part of a collaborative team.
1st – 18th June 2015 (creation / development period)
10th – 15th October 2015 (production week + performance)
6th and 13th November 2015 (preview performance dates)
With further touring to take place in 2016.
To apply, please send a CV, headshot and online film links of previous work to: INFO@NEONDANCE.ORG. Audition will be by invitation only.
Deadline for applicants is 6pm on Friday 8th May 2015.
Shortlisted applicants will be invited to take part in a workshop audition in London on Saturday 16th May 2015.
If you have any questions regarding the position, please contact:
FELICITY@NEONDANCE.ORG
