SPUN Productions – Chris

I like the characters and the Camera crew because it makes me feel that my character JB takes the lime light.

In  our piece we have a GMTV scene, I like this  because it shows my character off. I imagine that Ben Shepard and Christine Bleakley are interviewing my character’s life and the story of JB and how he has had a short but wonderful career in music and will also be nominated for a Brit award.

I also like the new idea of having a TV in the living room scene while Dave is having a time of his life dreaming of fantasy tales in his dreams.

The new music by Jim Pinchen and voice overs work very well and it does link the piece together because it introduces the characters in Dave’s dream.  For me the music of the trio in the shoe shuffle really climaxes and I like dancing with David and Tomos.

I also see that Dave is living his life with Lu in the opening duet and later on in the new choreography. I do like the new set that includes wooden frames it gives the whole piece a stunning out come.

 

Chris Pavia

Trespass 2012 – Hannah

Trespass is a dance piece that had been choreographed by 2 professional choreographers, Rob Tannion and Thomas Noone. Trespass has 2 pieces all in one; each piece is about an hour and a half for both sections of the Trespass piece. The two pieces are called ‘Within’ and ‘Splinter’.

Within is about a lone dancer where she faces her imaginary dream with a lot of loud dramatic effects and hardcore drama involving the other dancers as a four. This piece makes me feel like it’s on a 3D TV screen with really loud dramatic music blaring out at you. What I think about this piece is that it is a beautiful amazing story which tells you about a lone dancer. I’m guessing in the piece itself, all five dancers has their own dreams where they dance continuously until the end.

Splinter is a Japanese themed tradition where they bring hope, fortune, happiness, joy and war hatred. This piece makes me feel blessed and passionate about the story line plot itself where it can take you into a fantasy adventure of different words. This piece’s plot helps you understand more on what the eye can see through the dancers dancing.

Here are the venues they will be performing ‘Trespass’ at this year in 2012:

• Salisbury  - 22 Feb: Salisbury Arts Centre, Bedwin Street, Salisbury, Wiltshire SP1 3UT – £11 (concession: £9)

• Canterbury – 8 and 9 March: Marlowe Studio, The Friars, Canterbury, Kent CT1 3AS – £12 (concession: £11)

Hannah Sampson

Hannah’s thoughts on play time with Charlotte Vincent

On the 17th and 18th of October we had a new choreographer called Charlotte Vincent. Charlotte was really good, helpful and understanding of the work in our company and us as dancers.

It was really interesting for us as dancers in the company to see how she uses her body and our dancers bodies and technique moving around. Charlotte led the workshop with us with good interpretation of how her company works together.

In a couple of years from now we are hoping we’re going to see her company and her as a choreographer putting together a dance piece for the professional dancers or for all dancers in the company.

Hannah Sampson

Shine On!! weekend – Hannah

On the 8th and 9th October it was the Shine On!! weekend. On both days we had a lot of fun dancing and playing around.

We had lots of young teenagers and adults. The support workers Kat Ball, Joy St’ Denis, David Willdridge, Anna Pearce and Chris Pavia really helped out the young dancers. Our young dancers had lots of  laughs and had done really good dancing as well. I was impressed with how they’ve worked hard.

On both days we started out with a class led by the StopGAP team. After class we all played games and danced around using props and pictures on animals, shadows and mats. By using these props and pictures the dancers had split themselves  into partners or groups to do a dance. By this time we all put everything together into one big show.

We showed our dance in front of our family and friends. They all enjoyed the show in the end.

Hannah Sampson

Summer Schools

August was an important month for me, not only because we rehearsed SPUN Productions for the performance outside the National Theatre, as part of Liberty Festival, but also because I had the pleasure of leading two Summer schools.

The first Summer school was housed at the Ashcroft Arts Centre in Fareham, and was aimed at young teens with disabilities wanting to have fun through dance. So I took along my bottle of bubbles, my pieces of paper with different shapes doodled onto them; and my rubbery face to pull and contort in a way that has become somewhat of a trademark in StopGAP!

 

After 4 days of learning new ways of moving through different stimuli, we showcased our hard work to the participants parents, and were happy to find that not only had we built up a new movement vocabulary, but had created a short dance too.

 

The second Summer school took place at The Point in Eastleigh, a venue StopGAP knows very well having not only taught there at the Summer school the year before, but also Premiering StopGAP’s latest stage production Trespass.  The Point offers a weeklong course aimed at teaching participants about integrated dance practice.

 

I was asked to plan and lead the week, with Anna Pearce as my assistant (a partnership I look forward to continuing with StopGAP’s Youth Dance Group every Wednesday. But I digress).  Throughout the week we looked at tasks aimed at creating movement whilst working alongside one another in an inclusive manner. Each participant brought a wide range of abilities to collaborate and produce exciting movement material that I found a genuine pleasure to watch.

 

It was thrilling watching the next generation of contemporary dancers work with each other in an integrated way. After all it’s a natural thing.

 

Some of the StopGAP Youth Group members took part in the week, and having taught them for almost 3 years (through YG or workshops) it was amazing to see them come out of their comfort zones and grow in confidence.

 

The week’s tasks culminated in a sharing/performance to friends and family; and were met with loud applause and happy faces. Judging by the standard of dancing and the level of understanding in such a short amount of time, I’d say the week was a success. One that I look forward to re-creating next year…

SPUN Productions at Liberty Festival – Hannah

On the 3rd of September the StopGAP dancers were invited to do a performance on our piece ‘SPUN Productions’. When we all got there it was jam-packed with thousands of people and performance rehearsals. The weather was really hot and light windy which was perfect on the day. We performed our piece ‘SPUN Productions’ in the afternoon and the evening. Our performances were at 1.30pm and 6.45pm.

We performed by the London Waterloo train station, nearby the National Theatre. Our space was next to the National Theatre where there was a café, the river and the bridge.

When we performed the audience loved it and participated very well. At the end of the day people came up to us giving smiles, compliments and commented on our performances and our character insights in the piece itself.

While performing our piece we had an electric song and script board where our script lines and songs appeared. We didn’t know whether the audience were singing along or following our lines, but we all noticed some of the people dancing and mingling around like they were enjoying the piece full of comedy and chaotic drama.

Hannah Sampson

SPUN Productions Premiere – Anna

The premiere of Spun Productions came on a day of forecast showers and, certainly for me, some real nerves; for my own performance and for the Youth Company’s debut performance of new piece ‘Get Set, Go!’

What greeted us in Woking Town Square though, was something of a greenhouse effect, with the glorious sunshine bouncing off the front of the Peacocks centre and onto the performance space….we found ourselves almost wishing for cloud!

As is the nature of street art, the crowds began to gather during our rehearsal and were strictly told by Norma to come back later.

12 o’clock came around fast and the first performance began as soon as we left the dressing room. Holta (Laura), Cindy (Hannah) and Sandy (myself) made our way through the Woking Saturday crowds offering good quality make–overs, autographs from the star and invitations to be part of the hit TV show, ‘So You’re Not Sure If This Is Dance’. We were met with a range of reactions, including being asked for directions, being keen to be made-up like a star and being asked to pose for photos.

The crowds from the earlier rehearsal returned and the atmosphere felt great. The experience of performing outside is so different from being on a theatre stage and is something I’m loving more and more with each run through.

It was then time for the StopGAP Youth Company to take to the stage, and as this was the debut of the full version of their new piece, I had everything crossed for them. They did themselves proud and I received many comments on how professionally they handled themselves throughout the performance; well done guys!

It’s safe to say a good day was had by all in the StopGAP world, Here’s to sunshine for the rest of this season’s performances.

 

Anna Pearce

Sync Fun from Judith

As part of our involvement in SYNC South East (http://www.syncsoutheast.co.uk/) Joy and I went to Milton Keynes to be part of Pitch.  Although the dancers couldn’t be there as they were deep in rehearsals, they were in the form of our film of Trespass and the wonderful photos from Christopher Parkes (http://www.christophotographic.co.uk/) as you can see here:

Difficult to miss us ! Joy was fantastic and managed to get three pages of new signees to our mailing list and it was great to have time to chat with so many people. A good day in all despite transport difficulties… lots going on and  a range of art work to see.

 

Posted by Judith Hibberd

Youth Group Residency Week

The week of 18 April began with bubbles, dough, corn – flour and balls; a technique class with a difference! Our intensive week with the StopGAP Youth Group started by working with Sophie on discovering the qualities, dynamics and sensations to be found in our dancing; imprinting the floor with wide hands and feet, isolating body parts to pop bubbles, working sensitively rolling a ball between two people, and melting like liquid in floorwork…

The week continued with Youth Group members being paired up with StopGAP members to work on choreographic, technical and teaching skills. Working from origami games, and maintaining the qualities discovered the previous day, sequences of choreography began to grow.

It was refreshing to be able to be an outside eye observing the Youth Group members working, and it was a pleasure to watch as the partnerships allowed each person’s individuality to manifest in movement, which in turn encouraged StopGAP dancers to push and challenge their partners further.

Ollie and David’s floorwork became progressively more daring, Sarah and Chris’s movement partnership discovered more and more layers, Dermot and Sophie found fascinating ways to best compliment each other’s style, Nathan and Joy used their very different physicalities to create engaging solo’s and duets, and Nick and Kat’s sensitivity to each other grew and grew.

Hannah and I had the pleasure of working with Laura. It was great to have real freedom of playing with movement material, and things became particularly interesting with the addition of wheels!

Partway through the week, Hannah and I headed to The Point, Eastleigh, to perform ‘Shadowed Voices’ as part of an arts week that the theatre was hosting. We performed to a small group of disabled artists, who responded with shrewd and insightful questions and observations, about StopGAP, the making of ‘Shadowed Voices’, the wider dance world and everything in between; hopefully some of these are faces we will see again at our residency at The Point this summer.

Back in Farnham, and our week concluded with a sharing of the work created during our few days with the Youth Group. The young dancers ever – supportive parents were there, and the response was great. The week has left me with much food for thought for the newly named ‘StopGAP Youth Performance Company’’s continued development, which I am very much looking forward to being a part of.

Sho’s excitment about our new outdoor production “Spun”

StopGAP Dance Company started doing R&D for our new outdoor show ‘Spun Productions’ in December last year (2010). What we have got now is looking promising, and we are on course for our creation and rehearsals over May and June 2011.

‘Spun’ is being commissioned by Accentuate (Legacy Trust, South East), Woking Dance Festival and Foyle Foundation, and it will be a show full of surprises and wackiness, as most of our shows are…! The piece will be choreographed by Lucy Bennett, and is set to follow the rise and fall of a celebrity wannabe, and multi-layers of other characters’ stories our hero encounters along the way. The show will draw on how the media has encouraged ‘instant success culture’, and our surreal experience of our celebrity status in Albania! The show will also involve MacArthur Park sang by Richard Harris – courtesy of Universal Music and we think the lyrics are going to be very apt.

I’m excited about revealing and exploring how ‘being excellent’ involves hard graft and honesty, and it doesn’t just spring out of nowhere.

We are also very excited about our Apprentices Anna and Hannah being part of this project. They have developed so quickly this year, and we feel they are ready to take on this challenge.

Tour dates will follow soon!

Posted by Sho Shibata