Archives
BA3 in performance
October 2014
Final year students on the BA (Hons) Contemporary Dance programme present four works by commissioned artists Lizzi Kew Ross, Naomi Lefebvre Sell, Struan Leslie and Anna Williams. The pieces are the result of intensive rehearsal periods, during which students experience the particular creative working processes adopted by each of the choreographers. The project challenges the students and often takes them into areas of performance that they have not encountered before.
Following these premiere performances at Laban Theatre, the students will tour the pieces to venues across London and further afield.
October 2014
Final year students on the BA (Hons) Contemporary Dance programme present four works by commissioned artists Lizzi Kew Ross, Naomi Lefebvre Sell, Struan Leslie and Anna Williams. The pieces are the result of intensive rehearsal periods, during which students experience the particular creative working processes adopted by each of the choreographers. The project challenges the students and often takes them into areas of performance that they have not encountered before.
Following these premiere performances at Laban Theatre, the students will tour the pieces to venues across London and further afield.
Midnight at closedown; chance of rain
2013
The poetry of RS Thomas, Carol Ann Duffy and Seamus Heaney have been important to me throughout the devising process. The dancers own connections with their memories, a sense of place, with notions of edges and pheripal sensations have influenced the movement language. Lizzi Kew Ross (choreographer)
From a very early stage in the process, measurements provided a huge inspiration, Imperial units of measurement in particular, measurements that actually exist because they relate to a natural feature, task or fact which we encounter daily. Josh Spear (composer)
2013
The poetry of RS Thomas, Carol Ann Duffy and Seamus Heaney have been important to me throughout the devising process. The dancers own connections with their memories, a sense of place, with notions of edges and pheripal sensations have influenced the movement language. Lizzi Kew Ross (choreographer)
From a very early stage in the process, measurements provided a huge inspiration, Imperial units of measurement in particular, measurements that actually exist because they relate to a natural feature, task or fact which we encounter daily. Josh Spear (composer)
Where We Are
2013
During the devising process, we visited Hughie O ‘Donoghue’s exhibition Artists’ Laboratory, Painting/Memory, at the Royal Academy of Arts, and also engaged in a drawing process as a means of working ideas and spatial connections. These experiences helped fuel both our thinking and the making of a particular texture for the work. Walter Benjamin writes, ‘ to live is to leave traces’; in this piece, the past of each individual meets on the present stage, where lines, traces and connections are created, leaving an atmosphere that is suspended and fragile.
2013
During the devising process, we visited Hughie O ‘Donoghue’s exhibition Artists’ Laboratory, Painting/Memory, at the Royal Academy of Arts, and also engaged in a drawing process as a means of working ideas and spatial connections. These experiences helped fuel both our thinking and the making of a particular texture for the work. Walter Benjamin writes, ‘ to live is to leave traces’; in this piece, the past of each individual meets on the present stage, where lines, traces and connections are created, leaving an atmosphere that is suspended and fragile.
Please Visit the Churchyard
2012
“The farther backward you can look, the further forward you can see.” Sir Winston Churchill
The ground upon which this churchyard and church stands has experienced many layers of history. Foster Lane was a Roman road, and the Parish schoolroom, a silk shop and The Fountain Inn all used to be upon this site. Please Visit The Churchyard seeks through music and dance to animate the space and help us reflect on the past underneath our feet.
Devised with: James Keane, David Leahy, Megan Saunders, Rosalie Wahlfrid, Peter Wilcox, James Keane (Composer) and Lizzi Kew Ross (Artistic Director)
See film below as part of the Celebrate the City Festival (2012)
2012
“The farther backward you can look, the further forward you can see.” Sir Winston Churchill
The ground upon which this churchyard and church stands has experienced many layers of history. Foster Lane was a Roman road, and the Parish schoolroom, a silk shop and The Fountain Inn all used to be upon this site. Please Visit The Churchyard seeks through music and dance to animate the space and help us reflect on the past underneath our feet.
Devised with: James Keane, David Leahy, Megan Saunders, Rosalie Wahlfrid, Peter Wilcox, James Keane (Composer) and Lizzi Kew Ross (Artistic Director)
See film below as part of the Celebrate the City Festival (2012)
Speak But One Word to Me
2012
Speak but one word to me was created specifically by Lizzi Kew Ross for the William Morris exhibition at Two Temple Place and featured an original composition by Ruth Elder.
William Morris wanted to design a pattern ‘which reminds us of life itself and which has the impress of human imagination strong on it’. Taking this idea of patterning and using music, touch and extracts from Morris’ poem Summer Dawn, Speak but one word to me sought to engage with the themes of the Morris exhibition and the glorious Pearson architecture of Two Temple Place in an exciting and relevant way. Dance United works with young people who are often disengaged and at a
tipping point. At the heart of our ambition is an unshakeable belief that every life should have meaning and purpose. This has driven us to work long and hard to model a powerful adaptation of contemporary dance training so that non-dancers can achieve immediate and tangible outcomes. For more information about the company visit www.dance-united.com
2012
Speak but one word to me was created specifically by Lizzi Kew Ross for the William Morris exhibition at Two Temple Place and featured an original composition by Ruth Elder.
William Morris wanted to design a pattern ‘which reminds us of life itself and which has the impress of human imagination strong on it’. Taking this idea of patterning and using music, touch and extracts from Morris’ poem Summer Dawn, Speak but one word to me sought to engage with the themes of the Morris exhibition and the glorious Pearson architecture of Two Temple Place in an exciting and relevant way. Dance United works with young people who are often disengaged and at a
tipping point. At the heart of our ambition is an unshakeable belief that every life should have meaning and purpose. This has driven us to work long and hard to model a powerful adaptation of contemporary dance training so that non-dancers can achieve immediate and tangible outcomes. For more information about the company visit www.dance-united.com
Plural
2011
A piece for 21 strings and 25 dancers to a new composition by composer James Keane, conducted by Nic Pendlebury (Smith Quartet) and photographed by Kyle Stevenson. Premiered at the Laban Theatre October 20, 2011.
Notes from:
James Keane, composer - I wanted to write something that was both beautiful and technical, about love and about mess. How people follow the same path in different ways, at different times and how they come together, move apart, how they clash and unify. And I like cano and variation forms, strictness and freedom, inevitability and evanescence'
Lizzi Kew Ross, choreographer -
Poetry has been important to me throughout the process of creating the wok with the dancers.
'For some it is all darkness:for me too
It is dark. But there are hands that I can take, voices to hear,solider than the echoes
without. And sometimes a strange light shines, pure than the moon...'
Groping
RS Thomas
2011
A piece for 21 strings and 25 dancers to a new composition by composer James Keane, conducted by Nic Pendlebury (Smith Quartet) and photographed by Kyle Stevenson. Premiered at the Laban Theatre October 20, 2011.
Notes from:
James Keane, composer - I wanted to write something that was both beautiful and technical, about love and about mess. How people follow the same path in different ways, at different times and how they come together, move apart, how they clash and unify. And I like cano and variation forms, strictness and freedom, inevitability and evanescence'
Lizzi Kew Ross, choreographer -
Poetry has been important to me throughout the process of creating the wok with the dancers.
'For some it is all darkness:for me too
It is dark. But there are hands that I can take, voices to hear,solider than the echoes
without. And sometimes a strange light shines, pure than the moon...'
Groping
RS Thomas
December 1952
2011
Earle Brown was a composer originally associated with John Cage and through his wife Carolyn Brown, Merce Cunningham for whom he wrote music. In Earle Brown′s performance notes for December 1952, he wrote of the piece existing as a ′field of activity′ and of his desire that the work should create an ′open and available form′. December 1952 is a graphic score with no indications of pitch, rhythm or structure and initially no indications as to how the score might be interpreted. The three dimensional sensation of the score seemed uppermost in his notebook:
′... to have elements exist in space ... space as an infinitude of directions from an infinitude of points in space ... to work (compositionally and in performance) to right, left, back, forward, up, down, and all points in between ... a performer must set all this in motion (time) which is to say, realize that it is in motion and step into it ...′
Earle Brown was influenced by the artists Pollock and Calder - the contrast and balance of Calder′s mobiles and the spontaneity of Pollock′s action painting. December 1952 has encouraged us all, dancers, musicians, lighting and costume designer, to create and think in challenging ways, and it has been our aim to keep the performance mobile and spontaneous. It has been, and will continue to be, a journey.
2011
Earle Brown was a composer originally associated with John Cage and through his wife Carolyn Brown, Merce Cunningham for whom he wrote music. In Earle Brown′s performance notes for December 1952, he wrote of the piece existing as a ′field of activity′ and of his desire that the work should create an ′open and available form′. December 1952 is a graphic score with no indications of pitch, rhythm or structure and initially no indications as to how the score might be interpreted. The three dimensional sensation of the score seemed uppermost in his notebook:
′... to have elements exist in space ... space as an infinitude of directions from an infinitude of points in space ... to work (compositionally and in performance) to right, left, back, forward, up, down, and all points in between ... a performer must set all this in motion (time) which is to say, realize that it is in motion and step into it ...′
Earle Brown was influenced by the artists Pollock and Calder - the contrast and balance of Calder′s mobiles and the spontaneity of Pollock′s action painting. December 1952 has encouraged us all, dancers, musicians, lighting and costume designer, to create and think in challenging ways, and it has been our aim to keep the performance mobile and spontaneous. It has been, and will continue to be, a journey.
Harmony of the Spheres
2009
Part of the Festival of Time and Space, commissioned by the Royal Observatory Greenwich and the National Maritime Museum. The historic site resonated with Harmonia Mundi as 70 earthlings animated a small corner of Planet Earth on both sides of the Prime meridian.
2009
Part of the Festival of Time and Space, commissioned by the Royal Observatory Greenwich and the National Maritime Museum. The historic site resonated with Harmonia Mundi as 70 earthlings animated a small corner of Planet Earth on both sides of the Prime meridian.
In the Moment
2009
In the Moment Festival of Improvisation took place in Feb 2009, with 350 performers over three days at The Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich and Laban in Deptford, with all the rooms and corridors of King Charles Court serving as different aspects of life, or as compartments of the brain / memory. It explored the breadth of improvisational practice in dance and music, from an improvised opera on the Herzog de Meuron designed Laban Theatre space , to more intimate performances in the underbelly of King Charles Court, Trinity College of Music. With professionals, alumni and current students and staff performing, it gave an opportunity to use architectural spaces in innovative ways. The Artistic Directors were Douglas Finch and Lizzi Kew Ross, and the Producer was Nick Green.
2009
In the Moment Festival of Improvisation took place in Feb 2009, with 350 performers over three days at The Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich and Laban in Deptford, with all the rooms and corridors of King Charles Court serving as different aspects of life, or as compartments of the brain / memory. It explored the breadth of improvisational practice in dance and music, from an improvised opera on the Herzog de Meuron designed Laban Theatre space , to more intimate performances in the underbelly of King Charles Court, Trinity College of Music. With professionals, alumni and current students and staff performing, it gave an opportunity to use architectural spaces in innovative ways. The Artistic Directors were Douglas Finch and Lizzi Kew Ross, and the Producer was Nick Green.