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Re-Sampled at Sadlers

The hugely successful Sampled returns.

4 show preview

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Back to class

Between the ages of 3 and 19 I danced a lot. Modern & Ballet (RAD & ISTD) to Advanced, Greek dance classes as a youngster; National medals, Jazz medals. Dance troupe in the pantomime, 3 local dance festivals a year in multiple categories, dancing school group dances, choreography competitions, school shows, Operatic society chorus dancing. I’ve got an entire photograph album full of ridiculous costumes and make up. I loved it. I lived for it.

I was well trained and a decent dancer but not brilliant. Not truly talented. Hard working and committed. In my teens my dance teacher once revealed to my mother that she considered me a “useful little dancer”. It’s testament to the esteem I held my teacher in at that time that I considered this high praise indeed even though what that translates to is really “not good enough”. Still, I liked choreography and teaching and might well have gone that way if I hadn’t realised I was better at words and books and such and gave up training altogether for a boozy and unimpressive university undergraduate career.

Still, as an adult I dabbled in classes at a studio in Camden and later at the Place but I never regained the discipline and dedication I’d shown as a child. I stopped dancing completely and tried just going to the gym but good grief that was dull and a slog and uninspiring. So I stopped exercising. Stress kept the weight off for a time. Then I got happier. Then I started to put weight on. Being sensible (being 30) I knew it was time for action.

Back to class.

Good training stays with you. It’s incredible. Your body still understands and still wants to do it, although, time and inactivity certainly stunts flexibility, strength and stamina! I first went to a beginners’ class to make sure I remembered everything I thought I did – and was chuffed to bits I did and worked hard and sweated lots. Next time I joined an elementary ballet class. A good choice, it was full of late 20 something women all clearly with decent training behind them at some point and a choice selection of dancewear; all quirky tights, leg warmers, all in ones, actual leotards & pink tights – man, I thought I’d seen the end of them! I felt decidedly underdressed in my trackys and vest. Still, it’s all good. Plies and tendues and battements and fondues and releves, retires, pirouettes, ports de bras, sautes and jetes and all that and more still exist in my body’s vocabulary. And I still love to do it.

The cramps are devestating though! More practice required. Now, if only I could recapture the discipline of youth and decline those Tuesday night drinking sessions and I might actually get there. I might get on pointe.

Londonist does Outsider Dance

Here and I’ve got tickets.

Londonist does SPILL

Preview of the SPILL the UK’s newest festival of performance, live art and experimental theatre.

Londonist does dance film festival

Constellation Change Film Festival is on this week! Read about it here.

Londonist does ballet news

Carlos Acosta excitements & East London Dance/Royal Ballet flirtation covered here.

What a mess or ultra sex?

What do you think of London contemporary dance? Go here and fill out the short survey on behalf of the Place, Sadlers Wells and the South Bank Centre and be entered into a prize draw to win £100 of Amazon vouchers.

Do it.

Sensual information overload

Quartet
Musical Moves: a real time exploration that plays across the sense of the human body
The Great Hall at Barts, Saturday 17 February 2007

The project behind this performance is practically inexplicable and all the bumpf that I’d read in order to preview the event had not prepared me at all. In fact, the person who introduced the work at the start was far more helpful in saying that the project purpose was to develop two “interactive performance systems”. With this in mind it was possible to watch Quartet as a demonstration of the impressive technologies in development but it’s far from being an evening of entertainment or even any kind of art at this stage.

The presentation was split into duets, trios and ensemble pieces involving a live musician, a live dancer, a robot camera and a virtual dancer projected onto a screen. The humans were strapped up with various sensors that transmitted movement and sound information to the insensate participants and the sound system. The technology involved is baffling but at times it was possible to see the movement of the musician’s arm creating, at one point, a cacophony of electro bleeps and fuzz and then, influencing the movement of the virtual dancer (billed rather beautifully as an avatar of sensual information” but looking like an unfinished, undressed character in Second Life who hasn’t yet learned to walk properly). Equally, the live dancer performed some simple duets with the robot camera, whose design was evidently based on the adorable Johnny 5, which were at their best when she interacted with it, weaving around its moving limbs and staring soulfully into its camera eye, the images from which were projected onto the backdrop.

Disappointingly, the involvement of the choreographers, including Russell Maliphant and Lea Anderson, is not much in evidence but then it’s not about the choreography in itself but the interaction of the all the elements and there’s only so much a motion control robot camera can do without arms and legs.

The sound was element was stunning, although the electronic noise generated by the violinist and her arm was, at times, uncomfortable and alarming. I was sat next to an elderly lady with fruitcake breath and felt quite sorry for her; her breathing was getting short and I feared she was going to have a panic attack. Such an electronic sensory assault is possibly not what I’d recommend bringing your ageing mum too. However, the vocal section was hauntingly beautiful, the singer’s sounds being transmitted as her own backing track and pinging about the Great Hall in an amazing way.

In the feedback questionnaire (this is a research project, remember) I clearly ticked the box that described the performance as science, rather than art, dance or entertainment but it definitely engaged me cerebrally and the spoddery underpinning it all is intriguing. The potential for choreographers and musicians to use these systems is huge and I particularly like the robot camera eye view of the stage and the audience; it’s easy to forget how implicated an audience is in a performance. But I’ll be looking forward to the next stage of development rather than wanting to sit through this again.

Find out more about the Quartet Project here.