Here is some brief news about dance/performance things I'm involved in over the coming months ...
1. World première of Because We Care by Colin, Simon & I
This is the product of a long period of research and development with the remarkable Colin Poole. It's an unsettling uncompromising work about care and violence between men, and I'm very much looking forward to the season at The Place. If you are in London (or close by) please come and check it out.
Friday 8 and Saturday 9 June 2012, 8pm
The Place: Robin Howard Theatre
17 Duke's Rd, London WC1H 9PY
Tickets £15/12
Q&A session following performance on 8 June
Bookings at www.theplace.org.uk/12736/whats-on/colin-simon-i.html or 020 7121 1100 (London)
Website: colinsimonandi.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/ColinSimonandI
Twitter: @colinsimonandi
Commissioned by The Place, with support from Arts Council England, Birdhouse Creative, Roehampton University. Made at The Place.
2. Gertrud
I'm presenting "Gertrud" as part of Roehampton Dance Festival on Tuesday 15 May (very soon) at 6:30pm. This is the Place Prize solo from 2008, and it will be presented as part of a mixed bill with work by Lalitarāja, Jenny Hill, Amaara Raheem and Linda Boninsegni. Details about the solo at www.skellis.net/gertrud, and festival details athttp://www.roehampton.ac.uk/dance/festival. Bookings are at http://estore.roehampton.ac.uk/browse/product.asp?catid=53&modid=2&compid=1.
3. Recovery
Recovery had another small development in Melbourne in March. The team – Nat Cursio, Shannon Bott, Pete Brundle, Ben Cobham (Bluebottle), Byron Scullin and I – are now preparing to present the work in Melbourne in early 2013. Details at www.natcursio.com/project/recovery.
4. I Think Not
In late August 2011 I traveled to Findhorn, Scotland to participate in Deborah Hay's Solo Performance Commissioning Project. I've had fantastic opportunities to present the work in London, Leicester, Melbourne and Auckland, and have started to plan a digital "off-shoot" of this project. www.skellis.net/spcp.
That's it for now.
All the very best, Simon
Twitter: @simonkellis
Blog: http://skellis.posterous.com
I'm a fan of Lucy Cash and Becky Edmunds. They make simple yet compelling films that test and prod at the edges of what we might understand the word 'choreographic' to be. Together, they work as straybird – www.straybird.org – and this coming week their festival "What Matters" is presented at Siobhand Davies Studio in London.
http://straybird.org/whatmatters/
I have the pleasure of performing my adaptation of Deborah Hay's "I Think Not" during What Matters, but mostly I'm looking forward to listening in on performed and installed conversations about what matters in performance and choreography.
Time lapse video of performance of my adaptation of Deborah Hay's solo "I Think Not". Held at Napier St, Melbourne, 23 March 2012.
Dear All Some brief news about some things I'm involved in over the coming months ...
1. Booth: A Dance Fair
Booth: A Dance Fair has been commissioned by The Place and Bloomberg SPACE as part of COMMA40. I've been working with Amy Watson and Heather Caruso to develop six dance booths: Solo, Social, Photo, Video, Talk and Lecture. The project includes work by (among others) Rosemary Lee, Katrina McPherson & Simon McPherson, Becky Edmunds, Lucy Cash, Doug Rosenberg, Stephanie Jordan, Erica Stanton, Bloom!, Luca Silvestrini, Dianne Reid, David Corbet, Mårten Spångberg, Sherril Dodds and Eva Recacha, plus I'll be having a bit of a groove (think Patsy Cline, Chuck Berry, KC and the Sunshine Band ...). Friday 25 November 2011, 11am to 2.30pm, Bloomberg SPACE, London EC2A 1HD (free). Details at skellis.net/booth and further information about COMMA40 at theplace.org.uk/11403/whats-on/simon-ellis-luca-silvestrini-filipe-alcada-darren-ellis-dance-on-film.html
2. Recovery
Recovery (alias, the never-ending project) has another set of legs (and they are very exciting), and the team – Nat Cursio, Shannon Bott, Pete Brundle, Ben Cobham (Bluebottle), Ben Cisterne and Byron Scullin – are currently inhabiting the rehearsal space at Napier St in Melbourne. I'm doing a bit of 'directing from a distance' and we'll pick up some more time in March 2012. A première is not far off (but I've written this before).
3. Colin, Simon & I Colin Poole and I spent two weeks bookending the summer in Choreodrome (The Place's biennial choreographic research project) and Colin, Simon & I is close to being ready to present. We showed 10 minutes in Touch Wood and are currently meeting to continue the project's development. On Wednesday 11 January 2012 @ 6pm, we'll present a pre-première of the work at Michaelis Theatre, Roehampton as part of Roehampton Dance's Dance Diary programme. We'll then première the work (proper) at The Place in Spring 2012. During the project's development and rehearsal we've had timely input(s) from Bob Whalley, Lee Miller, Chris Bannerman and Amy Watson. www.colinsimonandi.com
4. I think not In late August I traveled to Findhorn, Scotland to participate in Deborah Hay's Solo Performance Commissioning Project. I've wanted to participate in the SPCP for some time, and have long been inspired by artists such as Ros Warby, Rachel Krische, Atlanta Eke and Joe Moran who have worked with Deborah. Deborah developed a solo I think not which she taught us, and since then I've been practicing it daily in order to première the work next year. At this stage I'll be showing my adaptation of Deborah's choreography in Leicester, UK on 8 March 2012, and then again in Auckland, NZ in the week leading up to Good Friday (day to be confirmed). I'll also be presenting the work in London sometime in late February, and will look to show it off (never could words be more wrong) in Melbourne when I am there in the Antipodean Autumn. Details and research blog at skellis.net/spcp. Thanks again to everyone who commissioned the project – my singing may mean you wished you hadn't.
Lastly, I'm in Melbourne and Auckland in March and April for a number of projects and workshops, and hope to catch up with my Australian and Kiwi dancing friends.
That's it for now.
All the very best, Simon
Twitter: @simonkellis
Blog: http://skellis.posterous.com
COMMA40: THE PLACE
19 - 27 NOVEMBER COMMA is a dynamic series of commissions enabling artists to experiment and expand their practice in relation to the particular nature of Bloomberg SPACE. For COMMA40, ground-breaking artists from The Place, will populate the gallery with creative research, evolving installations and impromptu performances. Click HERE for listings: http://www.theplace.org.uk/634/whats-on/listings.htmlOPENING HOURS Mon - Sat, 11am - 6pm FREE ADMISSION NEAREST STATIONS Moorgate & Liverpool St. Bloomberg SPACE 50 Finsbury Square London EC2A 1HD www.bloombergspace.comFlyer: http://cl.ly/3n2d390d1Y110x1p123v:
I follow the blogs and social networking updates of a number of teachers around the world. They inspire me and and ask current and difficult questions about teaching and learning, often whilst willingly sharing ideas for working with students. Often these ideas are about attempting to make teaching and learning environments that give students the best possible chances of developing their voices – creative spaces that inspire, challenge, and help us to question our assumptions about the things we think we understand, and the things we might like to understand.
One such teacher – whom I have never met – is Shelley Wright, who teachers at secondary school level in Moose Jaw (which could only ever be the name of a place in Canada). At face value, our teaching practices have nothing in common: secondary versus tertiary, science vs (very) liberal arts, either side of the Atlantic pond ...
And yet Shelley's direct and very personal writing about her experiences of working with the students in Moose Jaw (just wanted to write that again) is provocative, inspiring and filled with possibilities for working with people who are curious about learning and ideas.
http://shelleywright.wordpress.com/
Thanks Shelley.
I was shocked by this story – but perhaps not surprised.
"Do you want people on the internet to see you crying?" She was shocked when the student immediately stopped crying. She didn't need to say another word. She didn't think it would make that much of a difference but it did. Later the 8 year old came to her and said, "Did you erase the part where I was crying?"
http://ideasandthoughts.org/2011/10/19/even-8-year-olds-get-it/
For some time I've been working with various kinds of blogs as part of my teaching and learning work. These have ranged from student-led blogs, summatively assessed individual blogs, group blogs, and module summary blogs. This year I've focused on two of these: module blogs that act as a hub for students to keep track of their activities and work, be nourished, check in with timetabling etc. I am using self-hosted Wordpress blogs for these (e.g. http://skellis.net/ed/dpar/autumn2011 and http://skellis.net/ed/choreography/resourceful2011/). The University of Roehampton – like many universities – uses Moodle as their online resource system for student communication and module details ( Blackboard is the other major player). Although Moodle seems to work just fine, I believe it fails on two levels: 1. ease of use; 2. e-portfolios. There is no comparison between Mahara (Moodle's e-portfolio software/application) and a blogging platform like Posterous. Not only does Posterous look good, it is easy to use (although not as easy as it used to be before it became Spaces – which has been confusing to my students), handles video content with ease (try embedding anything other than YouTube clips in Mahara), and is brilliant for uploading images (cf Mahara which forces users to resize images manually – something well beyond the technical know-how of most (?) undergraduate and postgraduate students). I've also started to lean towards having group run Posterous sites for small groups within modules (2-3 students). These encourage conversations and experimenting with writing styles, testing ideas and thoughts with peers, responding to class reading, photo-based tasks etc. I'd love to hear from some of my students here about your experiences of working with these blogs ... Perhaps the most critical part of building Wordpress (or other) module-based blogs is that they allow for potential students to obtain detailed insight into the nature of particular modules, as well as inviting other members of the (in this case, dance) community to see what kind of work goes on here at Roehampton Dance. This builds a sense of sharing and communication across Universities that is at odds with consumer-capitalist models of tertiary education that promote working in isolation, competition, and a terrible mis-trust of the potential of sharing resources and ideas.
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