October 2009 Newsletter:January 2008 Newsletter ... - Dance Ireland

LD DANCE AT SHAWBROOK
Celebrating 25 Years of Summer School
Author: Annica Lowe
www.shawbrook.org
In 1984 a few brave young dancers (including Lisa
McLoughlin and Olwen Grindley) arrived at
Shawbrook, a working dairy farm for the first one
week residential summer school, cost: £25
We had a leaky tent, one stranded caravan, a dance
studio with dressing room (floor space used for
sleeping), one toilet, no showers or cooking facilities.
Anica taught classes, cooked, cleaned and managed
almost on her own. Every evening Anica took
everyone to the Inny River (bring shampoo) to “swim”.
Then hurry back to the farm, make a fire, eat barbeque
(no vegetarians then), sit on straw bales, tell ghost
stories, and go to bed (bed time was difficult in those
days). Make a fire in the morning, for toast, plenty of
raw milk (just scoop out of tank) for cereal, sitting in
sleeping bags with sleepy eyes. Class started at 10am.
Sometimes after dinner costumes will be rummaged
through, dances and stories made up. When Leonore
Medina arrived from Mexico we were introduced to
Cunningham and contemporary dance. That “Bird
Dance” with Philip Glass music, will we ever forget?
Unforgettable too was Mick M. Dolan’s interpretation
of Prince’s Purple Rain until 3 in the morning.
Now 2009 Shawbrook has just run 5 weeks of
summer school, 9 performances, attracting over a
hundred dancers, being taught by international
teachers. No more cows lots of trees, and in place of
milking Philip cooks hundreds of meals. Anica is there
to observe, learn, lend a hand, and make it all happen.
Do we still turn out as many dancers? Do we still
change people’s lives? Perhaps not so radically
anymore. But we introduce much more people to
much more dance.
And I hope to think we still make a difference and
give support to those who really want to dance
seriously.
Scholarships 2009
Week One:
Shauna McCormack and Eleanor Waldron (Anica)
Week Two:
Aoife O’Keefe (Rachel Goode) and Gwen
O’Driscoll (Emma Hayward)
Week Three:
Meagan Hoare (Debbie Allen) and Niamh Carey
(Phyllis and Judith)
Week Four:
Christina Cullen (Sylvia Behan) and Charlotte
Govier (Margaret Hunter)
LD Dance at Shawbrook
MERMAID ARTS CENTRE
The Curve Foundation Dance Company
15 October @ 8pm
Price: €16 / €14 Concession
www.mermaidartscentre.ie
Mermaid Arts Centre presents a triple bill by Scottish
dance company The Curve Foundation. These
performances will feature the Irish premiere of
Passomezzo by renowned choreographer Ohad
Naharin, the classic O Caritas by Peter Darrell CBE and
the eagerly awaited premiere of Close-Up by
Fernando Hernando Magadan of Netherlands Dance
Theatre.
CHOREOGRAPH.NET
From Framing Paper for ‘Still Open’ by Ellen Kilsgaard
I am experimenting with how much information we
can sense or receive from each other, how this
information passes between us and how the
processing of this information might come to have
dynamic and qualitative expression. I am questioning
how an embodied communication may become
performance or whether it is an approach to make
performance, or both. I try calling the work: embodied
connectivity in multiple directions as once.
I experiment with how the event of meetings and
non-meetings may be the instances that determine
spatial patterns and energetic dynamics. (Whatever
dynamics, emotions or ‘games’ arise I consider them
having an artistic potential. Also conflicts, clashes and
misunderstandings I find very potent in this context.)
I think of these ‘meetings’ as for example the meeting
of a magnifying glass and the sun. There is a series of
different elements which align, something dry,
someone to hold the magnifying glass and a building
up of intensity, a focusing of heat through the glass,
there is a ‘tipping point’ and a fire starts. Catching fire
is the instance of the meeting. The fire itself is what
you see as the material.
Source: Derek Speirs
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