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For this seminar we have invited a few colleagues working in dance from different corners of the world, to share with us some of their experiences of how Covid-19 changed the way they approached their work. They will each tell us about some of the projects that were born during the pandemic.

Deborah is a mover, maker and mother based in Cardiff. She is a self-producing independent dance artist, movement director and choreographer. Deborah is co-director of award winning company Light, Ladd & Emberton. Her work has been presented nationally and internationally including at UK showcasing platforms ‘British Council Showcase’ at Edinburgh festival, ‘British Dance Edition’ in Edinburgh and Bournemouth, ‘A Nations Theatre’ at Battersea Arts Centre ‘Spring Loaded’ at The Place London, and international touring platforms ‘Wales in India’ and ‘Dance Roads’. She has been a Creative Wales Award recipient and shortlisted as a ‘Place Prize’ semi-finalist. Deborah’s movement directing for theatre has included work for Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru, FranWen and Taking Flight inclusive theatre company. She has an extensive teaching practice and supports other artists as a creative assistant in dramaturgy, mentoring and producing roles. Deborah was a founder member of Groundwork (an artist led organisation offering training and development opportunities for dance artists in Wales) and has been part of the UK freelance taskforce for theatre and performance. She is also an Arts Associate for Arts Council Wales. Deborah lives in Cardiff and is the mother of 3 small children.

These are some of the projects that Deborah will tell us about during her presentation:

I. Who's in Charge - During lockdown we did a research project into making dance works for the very young. The original premise was to explore making a movement based performance for 1.5 – 3 yrs olds performed by 4-8 yr olds (and maybe their adults). This transformed into a family dance project for Karol (aged 43), myself (aged 40), Rowan (aged 8), Rozalia (aged 5), and Arwyn (aged 3). Our aim was to give ownership and autonomy to the kids. We have discovered how joyous it is when Arwyn, the littlest one of us, gets to be in charge. We have discovered that Rowan, the oldest child, is most engaged when he feels like he’s in charge. We have discovered that Rosie, the middle one, is actually in charge even when Karol (dad) thinks he is. Without me nothing would happen - does that mean I'm in charge?  These family dynamics, shifting status’, alliances and rebellions are visible in our dancing together.

II. Freelance Taskforce - During lockdown I took on a role as part of the UK Freelance Taskforce for Theatre and Performing Arts. This was initiated by FUEL whereby freelancers were sponsored by organisations across the UK to participate. The aim being to strengthen the influence of the self-employed theatre and performance community. The process has been both frustrating and productive and I have felt an almost overwhelming sense of responsibility towards my freelance colleagues. My energies have been focused on work specific to Wales, as both financial support packages for the arts and Covid-19 regulations are devolved from Westminster, and on the specific needs of dance artists. Work has included holding 'Greenrooms' with dance freelancers in Wales, consulting with Welsh Government, Arts Council Wales, Equity (performers union) on ways to navigate this crisis. I have authored a paper that highlights the chronic underfunding of and challenges that dance artists in Wales are facing. See more about it here: https://freelance.wales/dance

III. Light, Ladd & Emberton - Disgo Distaw Owain Glyndwr Silent Disco is usually an outdoor bi-lingual (Welsh and English) event in which audiences of up to a 100 people dance the rebellion of the last Welsh Prince of Wales. It smashes together club classics with medieval history and spectacle with participation. We were due to tour this in the autumn of 2020 to Dance Umberella - a major London Dance festival. This has all been curtailed and instead we took the disco on-line for the Greenman festival. The challenge was to retain the essence of the work - connecting with people and dancing together while telling a story, while working on a platform that was new to us. We decided to take it a step further than just choreographing on zoom and actually attempted to choreograph/zoom-in, in order to get closer to our audiences, this was a challenge! At the same time Light, Ladd & Emberton has also been doing initial climate focused research looking at how geological features in Wales, ancient folklore of land lost to the sea, and current threat of sea level rise on the coast of Wales might be connected in either online or socially distanced work. We are also rapidly developing plans for a Christmas socially engaged (and socially distanced) offer.

Gwyn Emberton is a dance artist originally from Wales, UK who recently moved to Malmö, Sweden. He has been working as a performer, choreographer, collaborator, teacher and dramaturg for the past 20 years. Gwyn created his own company Gwyn Emberton Dance, in 2013, and has since toured his mid-scale dance-theatre works across the UK which have also been presented at British Dance Edition and at Edinburgh Festival Fringe as part of the Wales in Edinburgh and This is Wales programmes. His solo work was also selected to be performed in the Dance Roads (European dance network) programme in 2015. Gwyn has also choreographed for several cross disciplinary arts projects in Wales, for music videos and for TV. Collaboration is a central part of Gwyn’s practice and since 2014 he has been involved in two collectives. The first with iCoDaCo (International Contemporary Dance Collective) in partnership with Swedish company ilDance in which he has participated as an artist, dramaturg and producer across three cycles of the project in Hong Kong, Israel and across Europe, and secondly with Light, Ladd and Emberton for which he performs, co-creates and co-directs sited and site-responsive work with a strong participatory edge. LLE’s works have been performed at Edinburgh Festival, A Nation’s Theatre festival at Battersea Arts Centre in London and at festivals in India and Scotland. As a dancer, Gwyn worked with choreographers and companies such as Akram Khan, Matthew Bourne, and Scottish Dance Theatre in the UK, and with Inbal Pinto in Tel Aviv, Israel. He has also worked with Russell Maliphant, Sadhana Dance Company and a range of early-years choreographers as a rehearsal director and dramaturg. He has taught for companies such as National Dance Company of Wales, Ballet Cymru, Scottish Dance Theatre and Inbal Pinto in Israel, and at many international schools, for example The Place (London Contemporary Dance School), Suzanne Dellal Centre in Tel Aviv, Hong Kong Contemporary Dance Centre, and Balettakademier in Gothenburg and Stockholm. Until recently Gwyn was also the Programme Director of Dance at University of Wales Trinity Saint David. 

Gwyn will talk about the following project:

I. In the summer of 2020, Light, Ladd and Emberton, were invited to move their silent disco about Owain Glyndŵr, the last Welsh Prince of Wales, and his rebellion against England online for the GreenMan Festival. Gwyn says: «We had the script, we had choreography and we had the performers. However, we didn’t have medieval castles to dance in, instead we had Zoom». Gwyn will discuss the intricacies of moving the collective’s bilingual, seven person, interactive, participatory dance/theatre show for audiences of up to 100 people online. 

Foto: Eurig Salisbury

Vikram Iyengar is an arts leader and connector based in Calcutta, India, and working internationally. He is a dancer-choreographer-director, curator-presenter, and arts researcher-writer. Co-founder and artistic director of Ranan Performance Collective, he also initiated and leads the Pickle Factory Dance Foundation – a hub for dance and movement practice and discourse. His scope of work spans practice, discourse, critique, ideation and management, and revolves around the central tenet of creating deep connections with and through the arts. In his performance work he trained in kathak by Padmashree Smt. Rani Karnaa, Vikram’s performance work is noted for the conscious bringing together of classical dance, movement, drama and design creating an experience of total theatre. His range of work spans choreography for stage and film, dance and theatre explorations, and performance collaborations. This diversity is linked by a fundamental and continuing engagement with the principles of the kathak form and the kathak informed body and mind, exploring and engaging in multiple dialogues to create fresh challenges within, and in relation to, the form. Vikram’s international credits include choreographer for Academy Award winner Florian Gallenberger’s film, Shadows in Time and co-choreographer on Helena Waldmann’s Faust prize nominated piece Made in Bangladesh. Since 2013, he has worked regularly with Indian contemporary dancer-choreographer Preethi Athreya on solo and group projects. Academics and Research: An INLAKS scholar with an MA in Performing Arts from the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, Vikram has taught Asian and Intercultural Theatre at BA and MA levels in the UK. He regularly contributes articles and papers to various publications and international seminars, conducts a variety of workshops, and works on arts research projects for institutions in India and abroad. Empaneled with the Indian Council for Cultural Relations and various other national bodies, he is a recipient of the Government of India National Scholarship and National Junior Fellowship for Dance. He was co-editor of the India Theatre Forum's web theatre journal, e-Rang from 2009 to 2015. He has conducted guest lectures regularly at Jadavpur and Presidency Universities, Calcutta.

Here is some of the work that came out of Covid-19 and that Vikram will present to us:

I. Contagion: Performance, Space, Community was a series of 8 curated conversations and presentations addressing the live performance experience as an art and part of the human act of assembly. The series investigated gathering spaces as a societal need, the uniqueness of the live performance experience, and possible ways forward for artists, audiences and venues to build and celebrate strong and empathetic communities.   

II. Body Languages was a partnership between Pickle Factory and Topcat CCU as part of their Livecast series which ran for ten weeks, bringing Facebook Live audiences face to face with dancers and movement artists from across the world sharing their work and creative process through dance and discussion.

III. A Sudden Strangeness was a weekend marathon of short dance responses from across the globe sent in response to Pablo Neruda's poem, Keeping Quiet. The selected videos were posted on the hour for 12 hours a day - 24 videos in 48 hours. 

Yaniv Cohen (1977 Israel) is a dancer, choreographer and photographer based in Oslo, Norway. Yaniv started his dancing career at the age of 22 after studying at the Bat Dor school of dance in Tel Aviv. He was part of 'Hakamery Theater' in Tel Aviv and participated in different theater works. As freelance dancer he danced for Javiar De Frutos (UK), Yasmeen Godder, Sahar Azimi, Paul Selwyn Norton (UK) and Per Jonsson (SW) and Alexander Ekman (Norwegian National Ballet). After dancing ine one project with the Iceland Dance Company (2005) he joined the Norwegian based dance company Carte Blanche, with whom he danced for 8 years until 2013. Working with choreographers such as Ina Christel Johannessen, Ohad Naharin, Ingunn Bjørnsgaard, Alan Lucien Øyen, Örjan Andersson, Bruno Listopad, Sharon Eyal & Gai Behar, DansDesign, Hofesh Shechter and more. In 2009 Yaniv created his first solo work and he has been making his own work ever since, performing in Norway, Germany, Israel and the Czech Republic. He won 3rd prize in the Hannover International Choreography Competition 2012 for his duet “I wish I was Johnny Cash”. Yaniv has created short duets, solos as well as full evening pieces. Yaniv is an autodidact photographer and cinematographer, exhibiting in galleries and at various festivals. Yaniv creates short art movies, documentary films, promos and cinema ads for institutions and companies, such as Carte Blanche and the Norwegian National Ballet as well as for freelance choreographers such as Marsja Abrahamsen, Ina Christel Johannessen, Ella Christina Fiskum, Hillel Kogan and many more.

Yaniv will talk to us about his concept FLEKK:

I. FLEKK
Flekk is a dance performance that makes a surprise entry into places for children, such as kindergartens, children's natural habitat, joining and engaging their own rich imagination in order to create a moment of unforgettable magic. It is an adaptable production, fit for these times of precarity. Flekk conceals traits of personal and cultural identities, giving the child’s mind more room for diving into sounds, colors, and abstract forms. As opposed to sitting in a theater with stricter social codes, Flekk transforms the kindergarten environment into an immersive stage that allows the children to engage more directly and intuitively with the performance. They become both hosts and guests, experiencing the dance as a gift meant especially for them.

Yaniv will be joined by dancer Ellinor Ødegård Staurbakk who is one of the performers in FLEKK. She performed in FLEKK at the recent Bodø Bienale.