DANCE TEK WARRIORS

Education Resource Pack

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RESOURCE PACK CONTENTS

Union Dance ....................................................................... 3 Corrine Bougaard, Artistic Director .......................................... 5 Company Dancers................................................................. 6 Chronology of Collaborations and Productions ........................... 9 Dance Styles and Techniques .............................................16 Union Dance Identity............................................................. 16 Contemporary Techniques...................................................... 18 Martial Art Forms.................................................................. 19 Street Styles ........................................................................ 22 Sensing Change .................................................................24 General Information .............................................................. 24 Notes by Corrine Bougaard..................................................... 25 Interview with two of the dancers ........................................... 26 Press and Audience Responses ............................................... 28 Choreographic Features ......................................................... 30 Choreographers..................................................................33 Mavin Khoo.......................................................................... 33 Bharat Natyam ..................................................................... 33 Rafael Bonachela .................................................................. 36 Choreographic Process........................................................... 39 Soundscape ......................................................................... 40 Body Map ............................................................................ 41 Design for Sensing Change ................................................42 Set Design ........................................................................... 43 About Isadora ...................................................................... 44 Design Collaborators ............................................................. 45

Multimedia.............................................................................. 45 Costume................................................................................. 46 Light Wear.............................................................................. 49

Further Information ...........................................................50 Union Dance Education .......................................................... 50 Workshop Ideas.................................................................... 52 Contacts .............................................................................. 54

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Background

This is a company excited by movement… on the cutting edge of contemporary dance. They provide a mixture of pop culture and street dance moves in a fresh and interesting mix that invigorates the audience.The Stage, May 2005 Union Dance’s founder and Artistic Director is Corrine Bougaard. The Company’s first performances took place in 1983, and in the last two decades Union Dance has become internationally acclaimed for its eclectic mix of contemporary dance, hip hop, martial arts and streetwise wit, communicating the world’s rich cultural diversity through breathtaking movements and stunning visual effects. The Company's philosophy is to explore movement as a multifaceted language to reveal, celebrate and question perceptions of modern society.

The Company is remarkable for its stylistic versatility. The Times

Former members: Michael Joseph, Jedda Donnelly, Garry Benjamin, Simone Noblett, Will Thorburn, Susanna Cole

Photo: Charles Dragazis

In 1992, a dance journalist observed, Contemporary dance companies are struggling to keep their niche in this increasingly conservative ecology. Only those with something urgent to say are likely to survive. Union Dance should be among them because its Director, Corrine Bougaard, is determined to present work that reflects cultural influences outside the white European mainstream. Jan Parry, The Observer, 1992

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Unity through diversity

The Company has developed a strong style and identity, which has been contributed to by the dancers and the choreographers who have worked with Union Dance over the years. Artistic Director Corrine Bougaard actively seeks to collaborate with artists from a variety of cultures, frequently non-Western. The dancers tend to remain with Union Dance for a significant part of their career and their diverse backgrounds and experience considerably influence the Company’s productions. Throughout its 20 year history Union Dance has focused on collaborations with choreographers, composers and designers, often presenting a multi-media performance on stage. Due to the range of different artists and art forms involved in its productions, Union Dance has evolved an eclectic style, which is informed by many dance techniques and styles, and also draws on martial art forms. The Company trains primarily in contemporary techniques, but is also influenced by hip-hop, club styles and capoeira, and has used African and other world dance styles in its vocabulary. (See the section on Styles – p. 16 - for further information.) Union Dance has collaborated on original productions with a range of artists including dub poet Benjamin Zephaniah, composer / musician Steven Williamson, Kora player Tunde Jegede, major choreographers such as Afro-American Bill T Jones and from the UK, Laurie Booth.

In addition some of the Company’s highly successful touring and education projects have included collaborations with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, English National Opera, The Serpentine Gallery, The Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) and The Tate Gallery. The Company tours nationally and internationally, recently performing in Malta, Italy, New York, Bosnia, Barcelona and Vienna.

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Corrine Bougaard - Artistic Director

Corrine founded Union Dance with a mission to explore and express an identity through dance which reflects the growing cultural fusion of contemporary British society. I created Union Dance because I wanted to explore, as a dancer and choreographer, the varied cultural references that make up my background. This need resulted from a long-standing sense of concern at why these important creative traditions had become misunderstood and discriminated against, consequently downgrading them and making them seem less valuable. (Corrine Bougaard, 1993) Born in South Africa, Corrine trained at the London Contemporary Dance School and at the Alvin Ailey School in New York. After performing with Ballet Rambert (now Rambert Dance Company) from 1975-6, Corrine became a founder member, choreographer, teacher and Associate Director of Extemporary Dance Theatre. Awarded the first Arts Council bursary for an Artistic Director of Dance, she identified the need to promote dance which would speak to a contemporary culturally diverse society. Corrine was a recipient of the Winston Churchill Fellowship and became the first British choreographer to research contemporary dance in Cuba. She most recently choreographed Dance Divine Dreams for Dance in House, Union Dance’s 2001 production and for the Henley Festival 2004. Corrine is also interested in the developing field of new technologies with dance, which she is currently exploring as a senior lecturer on the MA course in Design at Central St Martin’s College of Art & Design, London.

Corrine Bougaard (right) dancing with Henrietta Harris in 1983.

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Dance Tek Warriors

To become a spiritual warrior means to develop a larger vision, a special kind of courage, fearlessness and genuine heroism.

Dance Tek Warriors is a full evenings dance production, structured in three different parts originally comprising four choreographies commissioned to a theme, united by shared music, design, technical and thematic elements.

Artistic Concept: Corrine Bougaard

Company Dancers: Michael Joseph, Charemaine Seet, Andrea Whiting, Simone Noblet, Garry Benjamin, Curtis James

Commissioned Music: Tunde Jegede

Lighting Designer: Bill Deverson

Animation Designer: Katie Dawson

PROGRAMME

Fallen From Grace

Mass Equilibria in the Sea of Tranquillity

Travellers learning from ancient forms to become new warriors

Phase 1: Dawning

Phase 2: Middleway

Phase 3: Maalstrom

Choreography & video 8: Michael Joseph

Music: Entroducing by DJ Shadow,

Track:Stem / Long Stem

Future Sound Of Jazz Vol 3 Frank Zeffa,

Track: Garsaaidi

Super 8mm by Michael Joseph

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Three Young Blades

Choreographer: Charemaine Seet

Music: Beethoven’s Opus 130 (Cavatina)

Original music by Rick Koster

Choreographers Notes

A dance made in response to the title Fallen From Grace. Begins with the idea of disparate souls poised and waiting to move on or return somewhere. Evoking a subverted image of nostalgia and displacement through deconstructing ‘stylistic sentimentality’ borrowed from traditional Chinese martial arts/morality tales. The human confusion and vulnerability is expressed as emotional vertigo created in the dance through physical awkwardness, spinning and disorientation.

Premiered in 1996, commissioned by Studio Theatre and reworked for Dance Tek Warriors 1997/98.

Hard Edged Hope

“The Spirit of the Dance is inseparable from the human condition”

Eye Open, Path Chosen

Choreographer: Abdel R Salaam, created with The Company

The doors of perception are open in the vision of experience. How in an distrustful age do we find the way that is necessary to follow a spiritual path.

Original music for 1st and 2nd sections by Abdel R Salaam and David Lawson

Music: Tunde Jegede

This section of Dance Tek Warriors was only on occasion programmed into the evenings performance.

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Transformation

To enter the transforming field of that much vaster vision is to learn

how to be at home in change, and to make impermanence our friend.

Bright Flames In Dark Waters

Choreographer: Doug Elkins

“Dancing is not getting up

painlessly like a speck of dust

blown around in the wind

Dancing is when you rise above both

Worlds, tearing your heart to pieces, and

giving up your soul,

Dance where you can break yourself

to pieces and totally abandon your

worldly passions

Real men dance whirl on the battle field

They dance in their own blood

When they give themselves up, they clap

their hands

When they leave behind the imperfections

of the self, they dance

Their minstrels play music from within: and

whole oceans of passions foam on the crest

of the waves “

Rumi, Persian poet, the choreographer originator

of the Whirling Dervishes

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Music:

Album: Three Years, Five Months and Two Days In the Life of Arrested Development, Track: Mans Final Frontier

Album: The Forest, David Byrne

Track: Ava, Macchu Picchu

Album: Jungle Massive Vol 1, track: Sweet Vibrations

Album: Devotional and Love Songs by Nusrat Fetah Ali Khan and Party, Track: No 5

The last section of this choreographic work within the Company became known as The Golden Section. Made with financial support from Northern Arts, with assistance from Darlington Arts Centre. Union Dance is funded by The Arts Council England and The Borough of Westminster.

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Dance Tek Warriors – Postmodern Deconstruction in Dance-

Charemaine Seet Maybe Oscar Wilde said it best, for he anticipated postmodernism's insights decades before it arrived: “Art can never really show us the exterior world. All that it shows us is our own soul, the one world of which we have any real cognizance…it is art, and art alone, that reveals us to ourselves.” In Dance Tek Warriors, Union Dance embarked on a project, with 7 dancers working in collaboration with 3 choreographers: Michael Joseph, Charemaine Seet and Doug Elkins. Each choreographer was asked, by the artistic director, Corrine Bougaard, to create a section of dance which would deconstruct: (take apart and examine the assumptions and meanings of) the popular video phenomenon PlayStation, in particular the game of Tekken. Michael Joseph’s “Mass Equilibrium in a Sea of Tranquility” is shaped like a narrative, and begins at the end of “battle”. Warriors return from a Virtual fight, recount in movement their experiences, and finally collapse/decay. The characters in the dance represent computer animations. Their movements are robotic (borrowing from the street vernacular form of the 80s) and often begin and end with simulated ”hydraulic movement” jerkiness. Joseph also quotes shapes and poses from martial arts as a reference to the overall theme, Tekken.

The music by DJ Shadow brought the piece into a contemporary popular culture (late 1990s) context. Michael has a very particular relationship to the animated image. He is a filmmaker and photographer as well as being a dancer. His imagination inhabits the digital world easily. This makes the piece feel like a section edited out of a movie..open ended but a densely detailed construct of a different world. In “3 Young Blades”, Seet takes the idea of “warriors”, swordswomen and swordsmen, and immerses them in a viscous atmosphere of slow motion and pregnant pauses. The music is an old, crackly recording of Beethoven (the particular piece played uncharacteristically slow) which is another contradiction in cultural terms.

The aesthetics are Asian, borrowing from the new filmmakers of China and Japan. A trio of dancers move in and out of awkward tableaus which incorporate modern dance clichés, a soupy and naïve palette of Western dance movement.

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This “melodrama” out of context, again aesthetically Asian, nails down the atmosphere of disassociation and ultimate melancholy. The piece teeters between being choreography and performance art. Costumes further the stylized experience by using exaggerated pop culture artificiality as a texture as : Originally 2 dancers wore long, ungainly long wigs and PVC bodices.

Doug Elkins “Bright Flames in Dark Waters” is a suite of fluid, athletic and joyous dances for the whole company. Elkins collaborates with the talents of each performer and weaves a complex and unpredictable series of movement encounters on stage. The varied music for this work is from the albums Jungle Massive Vol 1 track 1, Sweet Vibrations, the album, The Forest by David Byrne using the tracks Ava and Macchu Picchu, and the album Devotional and Love Songs by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Party, track 5.

Doug’s musical choices reflect the varied cultural influences within the company and contemporary urban culture. Elkins uses several dance vocabularies simultaneously, seamlessly moving from one to another. In the hands (and bodies) of skilled performers this emerges as a finely integrated tapestry of cultural images. Individual interpretations of the choreography by each dancer, enriches the whole. Elkins, who is dedicated to this “dance conversation”, easily navigates the currents of improvisation and creativity that he initiates in the work.

Elkins deconstructs dance forms with the irony that characterizes post-modernism, but through a lightness and affection for the material he imbues it with joy and makes it accessible to everyone.

As a critic in NYC once remarked, “the dance looks as delicious to dance as it is to watch”..approximation of quote. I can definitely attest to that from experience. Dancers who have had the privilege to work with Mr.Elkins love him for his creative generosity and genius…a rare combination. Union and Dance Tek Warriors under the leadership of visionary artistic director, Corrine Bougaard, allowed younger company choreographers the opportunity to fully realize their ideas. They were given total artistic freedom within the framework of the theme and allowed to make works that were un-conventional and risky. These works were premiered alongside the more seasoned work of Doug Elkins to a critical London audience.

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Useful definitions and other resources: What is post-modernism in dance? The dance movement coming after ballet and expressionistic dance of Germany and USA (Martha Graham). Merce Cunningham the American choreographer is the first renown post-modernist. Susan Foster: 2 types of postmodern dance Objectivist dance – focuses on the body’s movement – like Merce. Reflexive choreography – the body will inevitably refer to other events and because of this asks how those references are made. Reflexive choreography works with the conventions of dance to show the body’s capacity to both speak and be spoken through in many different languages – like Doug and Laurie Booth Deconstruction in dance training. A Postmodern attitude to physical training involves a period of ‘detraining’ the dancers habitual structures and patterns of movement. The post-modern body is not a fixed immutable entity but a living structure which continually adapts and transforms itself. The body dancing can challenge and deconstruct dominant cultural inscription. Ref: Elizabeth Dempster “Women Writing the Body” From Bodies of Text – Ellen W Goellner, Jacqueline Shea Murphy. What is deconstruction? Deconstruction, is the more general process of pointing to contradictions between the intent and surface of a work and the assumptions about it. A work then "deconstructs" assumptions when it places them in context. For example, someone who can pass as the opposite sex may be said to "deconstruct" gender identity, because there is a conflict between the superficial appearance and the "reality" of the person's gender. Wikipedia

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Questions & Answers

1. What are the different styles used in this piece? All four Choreographers used different styles to convey their personal idea of The Warrior theme. Michael Joseph used Capoeira, B-boying (Body Poppin', Robotics) Partnering and Contemporary Techniques; Charemaine Seet worked with Contemporary techniques especially Cunningham; Abdel R. Salaam used African mixed with Contemporary and Doug Elkins as a Chinese American created with as Michael, similar various styles like B-boying, Capoeira, Asian Martial Arts and Contemporary Techniques such as Release Work and his own take on Cunningham. 2. How and why are the costumes different in different sections? Each section builds up to the making of a Warrior and all the Choreographers had a brief to follow, so individually they had their own idea on what their costume should be. Each costume designed by Ursula Bombshell with her idea of what each choreographer wanted and to also convey the feel for each section. Michael and Charemaine's were loosely based on Super Heroes and Tekken (Playstation Game) so it had a very futuristic theme.

Abdel was Monk like in feel and had transparent back packs. Doug was all based on Golden colours. The opening sections 'Mass Equilibria in The Sea of Tranquillity' and 'Three Young Blades' were the new beginning from Heroes 'Fallen from Grace' travelling and settling in a new land. Abdel was a transition between opening section and last section, which was the completion of the Warrior.

3. What do the costumes represent? They represent an additional idea and an extra layer for each Choreographer. The layers are choreography (movement), music, lighting, multi-media and costume. 4. How are contrasts set up between the sections?

They are set up by use of music, costume changes to convey different moods, and, especially different lighting (Bill Deverson) states so it compliments the original brief for each section. 5. Why is 'Bright Flames in Dark Waters' placed last?

It is last because the Warrior is now complete and has encountered many journeys (sections) to get there. There are always struggles in Life, but it is the struggles that make you what you are, such as with roses with it's thorns and pearls made from grit.

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6. In what way is 'Bright Flames in Dark waters' a finale? There is always hope even in dark times. It is also a celebration of becoming a Warrior and Doug is very experienced working with the Dancers to achieve a good balance of enjoyable dance.

7. What do the floor patterns represent?

Different ways of using space as in folk dances and also allowing the audience to see and recognise patterns and rituals that they have seen through repetition.

8. How do the sections link to the overall theme and the title of the production? 'Dance Tek Warriors' is based on Sony PlayStation game 'Tekken' and Sony sponsored Union Dance to give away (by raffle) PlayStation 2 and Tekken 3 to an audience member each time thy performed 'Dance Tek Warriors'. Union Dance were also allowed to use CGI footage during the show, so the overall theme was about the Warrior and each choreographer displayed their own take on it.

9. What political points are being made in this dance?

Everyone has struggles and you have to believe in yourself to achieve what you want in Life. It is about inspiring people to get up and do something for themselves.

10. What do you understand by the term 'the global citizen'?

In this age of computers you can be in contact with anyone via the internet, so land boundaries do not exist anymore. There was a time when you had to travel by foot, car, boat, train or plane to see someone from another country but with a laptop and camera you can have a dialogue and not even leave your home! It is also accepting that we are all different but with that difference we can all be equal.

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Choreographers for the Production

Michael Joseph. Photo: Charles Dragazis

Michael Joseph, Rehearsal Director, Soloist & Teacher

Michael trained at the Rambert School and joined Union Dance in 1986, after working extensively as a dancer with English National Opera and appearing in numerous TV and video productions. He performed with Bunty Mathias’ Harlemation Dance Company and Doug Elkins’ Dance Company at the Riverside Studios. Michael is a recipient of the Arts Council Dance for Camera Traineeship Award, has worked on two films specifically in dance cinematography and made a major contribution to the creative video work in LifeForms. Michael has choreographed for Union Dance’s productions Dance Tek Warriors and Dance in House, and created works for Nubian Steps at the South Bank Centre and The Mission.

Michael teaches extensively for Union Dance both nationally and internationally. He also frequently choreographs and teaches for Union Too, Union Dance’s youth company. In 2004 Michael co-choreographed a new work for the Company commissioned by The Henley Festival of Music & The Arts and 'Are you right, and I'm wrong?' for Contact Dance Company in Malta.

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Photo; Dancers: Charemaine Seet & Curtis James

Charemaine Seet - Choreographer and Soloist

As a dancer, choreographer and teacher since 1983, her career has spanned 4 continents. She has trained in and researched many diverse styles of movement including classical ballet, Graham technique, Cunningham technique, Klein (release) technique, Bharata Natyam (Indian Classical Dance), Baroque dance, Capoeira, contact improvisation, hip hop and b-boy.

She also studied Iyengar and Astanga yoga, and Tai Chi. This experience and knowledge informs her creative dance work today. Most recently she has been a member of the Doug Elkins Dance Company in New York City, formerly a Union Dance member from 1993 – 2000. Charemaine created 3 Young Blades” for “Dance Tek

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Warriors”. Charemaine Seet moved to New York and now lives with her family including her son and daughter in Australia

Doug Elkins- Associate Choreographer

American choreographer Doug Elkins was Union Dance’s Associate Choreographer during the late 1990s. Like many of the choreographers Union Dance works with, he liked to create movement in collaboration with the dancers, allowing them to contribute to the choreographic process. He regarded himself as a facilitator in the rehearsal studio.

Doug Elkins has worked with Batsheva Dance Company, Pennsylvania Ballet, Pittsburgh dance Alloy, the City Opera Ballet in Graz, FLY Dance of Houston and Candoco. In 1997 he received a New York Dance and Performance Award (a Bessie) and in 2001 the Cho-San Goh and Hichard H. McGee Foundation Award for Choreography. As Associate Choreographer for Union Dance, Doug received critical acclaim for works such as Dance Tek Warriors, LifeForms and Dance In House.

He has been ‘recognised for walking the walk as well as talking the talk, not to mention utterly tanking what's left of post-modernist pretension, all the while fashioning a singular provocative poetics of dance’.

Elkins is getting better and better all the time, the clever allusions blend more silkily and bite deeper into the texture of the dancing. The break-dancer movers are less a novelty and more an impudent take on the world.

(The Village Voice, New York City)

The whole thing was a breath of fresh air.

(The New York Times)

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Dance Tek Warriors, Bright Flames In Dark Waters by Doug Elkins, Union Dance

In Dance Tek Warriors, Bright Flames In Dark Waters is the last choreographic section from an original full evenings dance production. It was inspired by Super Heroes, Tekken a Playstation game and a poem by Rumi, a Persian poet, the choreographer, and originator of the Whirling Dervishes. Doug Elkins deconstructed some of the ideas see essay by artist Charemaine Seet.

Union Dance dancers as artists had taken from the movement starting points and this final piece using those ideas as choreographic content.

There are six dancers, three male and three female, in the work which has four sections of different lengths and the work lasts approximately 27 minutes. There are several different performance styles within Dance Tek Warriors: B-Boying, Capoeira, Asian Martial Arts and different contemporary techniques.

The overall theme:

“To become a spiritual warrior means to develop a larger vision, a special kind of couragw, fearlessness and genuine heroism.” Union Dance.

Section 1

This has 6 small sections within it.

A group dance for all six dancers with a rap accompaniment and a Street performance style. Two trios in horizontal lines perform different motifs, with different speeds, energy and actions. They are all wearing gold costumes that were created by fashion costume designer Ursula Bombshell, infliuenced by her time spent in Asia. . The dance is very rhythmic and closely visualises the mood of the accompaniment: Man’s Final Frontier.

The set has a projection of many small squares onto a cyclorama within a gold light. Floor and sidelights can be seen, and shadows appear over the cyclorama throughout this dance. The lights all fade as the dance finishes.

A solo by Andrea Whiting to a ‘cello accompaniment. This has a mixture of attacking and fluid gestures to a smooth strings melody. This leads into a womens duet with two movement themes shown at the same time. The movement is sophisticated and the use of suspension is clear. The dancers occupy the same space but have no relationship between them.

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Two male dancers enter, each joining one of the two females; 2 contrasting short contact duets happen with no relationship one duet to the other. One male leaves and his partner follows. The remaining male dancer (Michael) walks around and past his partner (Simone) who dances earlier motifs mainly at low level.

Charmaine enters as the last duet exits with fluid movement, including curves, slow attacking gestures, street freezes and movements arising from impulses to rippling actions. There is a very relaxed, release style feel to this solo. The accompaniment has changed and we hear a human voice humming or non verbally chanting as she moves.

Curtis joins her on stage and they first dance in unison, with the occasional under and over each other moments. The US lighting changes from blue to a pinky red. Shadows appear on the cyclorama and we see a great amount of contact work with Curtis lifting, lowering and carrying Charemaine.

Michael enters with a simple skipping motif, joined by Andrea and the four dance together. They perform in unison, variations of motifs seen in the earlier solos and duets. They move into duets briefly as the remaining two dancers enter leading into a 6 person canon. The shadows effect is again used well, seemingly filling the stage with lots of dancers. They exit in canon as the lights lower to blackout to conclude this opening section.

The accompaniment for the sections b), c) d) e) and f) is from the album The Forest by David Byrne using the tracks Ava and Macchu Picchu.

This section is performed to Sweet vibrations, track one, on Jungle Massive volume one.The US lighting has changed back to blue but the scene is made brighter with additional white light. There are four dances within this section.Five dancers perform swinging, skipping, hopping loose style of movement with a mixture of small arm gestures and steps. The accompaniment starts with rhythmic drumming with a male voice adding a layer of rap. There are 2 duets and a solo each perform in their area of the stage and do not relate other than to their partners. Two duets now happen simultaneously, the pair downstage right using movements linked with Capoeira and the upstage right couple dance street, rippling gestures in unison.The section ends with Andrea and Charemaine involved in a battle downstage. Six dancers perform a hand motif seen earlier in the work, in unison, very slowly and in direct contrast to the rhythms of the drumming and rap accompaniment. The music changes on ‘hey, hey, hey, hey’ and the dancers’ speed of movements is faster and sharper and they divide into smaller groups, leaving a solo by Charemaine travelling around a duet with smooth fluid contact work to end this section. The skipping motif returns, followed by two duets with different actions in Street and B-boying styles. Couples enter and exit, soloists perform separately and together in threes,before all dancers return and bring back various motifs, with pauses, and gradual slowing down until music stops and a blackout.

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This section is performed to the album The Forest by David Byrne using the tracks Ava and Macchu Picchu.

The US lighting has changed back to blue but the scene is made brighter with additional white light. There are four dances within this section.

Five dancers perform swinging, skipping, hopping loose style of movement with a mixture of small arm gestures and steps. The accompaniment starts with rhythmic drumming with a male voice adding a layer of rap. There are 2 duets and a solo each perform in their area of the stage and do not relate other than to their partners.

Two duets now happen simultaneously, the pair downstage right using movements linked with Capoeira and the upstage right couple dance street, rippling gestures in unison.The section ends with Andrea and Charemaine involved in a battle downstage.

Six dancers perform a hand motif seen earlier in the work, in unison, very slowly and in direct contrast to the rhythms of the drumming and rap accompaniment. The music changes on ‘hey, hey, hey, hey’ and the dancers’ speed of movements is faster and sharper and they divide into smaller groups, leaving a solo by Charemaine travelling around a duet with smooth fluid contact work to end this section.

The skipping motif returns, followed by two duets with different actions in Street and B-boying styles. Couples enter and exit, soloists perform separately and together in threes,before all dancers return and bring back various motifs, with pauses, and gradual slowing down until music stops and a blackout.

Section 3

This is a longer duet performed by Charemaine and Michael Joseph. The lighting is a deep blue with a white flood into which the dancers move. The sound is smooth, chilled slow music which complements the movement vocabulary.

The dancers seem to hang loosely and move in a relaxed easy manner in a unison duet with contemporary and street dance styles both present. This changes as they make physical contact and move one another around, under and over the other. Michael supports Charemaine in various unusual positions, from which she always moves away smoothly and calmly. “This supportiveness and sensitivity allows the transformation to resolve their spirits,“ Union Dance. The release feel in the movement then speeds up ( although the accompaniment maintains the calm atmosphere) and there is a sense of increased aggression between them before the duet concludes with an unusual balance with Michael supporting Charemaine’s neck as she gently sways as the lights fade to blackout.

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Section 4 The Golden Section

This last section with the blue lighting set starts with all 6 dancers walking on to create 2 lines of three. The accompaniment is again different to the previous sections and is to track 5 from the album Devotional and Love Songs by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Party. There is a male singer with lyrics in Urdu and an Asian feel and tempo to the music. The dancers skip and walk in a relaxed manner, echoing the fluidity of the music. There are significant hand and arm gestures used as they travel in their threes. Motifs from earlier in the work are repeated and varied from the street, B-boying,voguing and contemporary styles as solos, and duos interpersed with walking and additional skipping motifs. As trios they intermingle with travelling, asian hand and arm gestures in a manner that gives a spiritual feel to the street dance style;followed by a unison motif as a six which is very fluid with sinuous rippling through the body and arms. They skip into three duets and as identical couples bring back the various styles including capoeira. As threes they contrast each other briefly, move into twos again for a canon which flows from USL to DSR. They dance in a small circle before reurning to capoeira style movements and the work ends with all lying down.

Costume

The costume designer is by Ursula Bombshell.

All the dancers are wearing trousers of varying styles and shades of gold through to a dull red. Their tops are in varying styles and tone in with their trousers. Some are sleeveless, others longsleeved, some are close fitting and other hang loosely.

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ANDREA WHITING

CURTIS JAMES

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COMPANY Dancers FEATURED IN DANCE TEK WARRIORS MOTIFS

Vanessa Abreu Having completed an MA Choreography from Laban,Vanessa has been developing her work alongside composer Matthew Orange and video artist Andrej Gubanov, directing, choreographing

and performing mainly solo works. She has performed and taught for Union Dance in 2008-09.

Naomi Deira (Apprentice Choreographer & dance performer

/ teacher).Naomi is an experienced dance teacher, who is graduating from the Amsterdam School of the Arts. She has studied at the Alvin Ailey in

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New York and danced at the Fall Festival with her own choreographic work. Naomi is a qualified teacher of dance in educaton.

PAST COMPANY DANCERS

Garry Benjamin, Assistant Rehearsal Director, Soloist and Teacher Garry was born in Huddersfield and trained at the Thamesdown Dance Studio, Swindon and the Northern School of Contemporary Dance, Leeds. Before joining Union Dance in 1996, Garry enjoyed a successful career at Dundee Rep Dance Company (now Scottish Dance Theatre) and completed six months of touring in Thailand. He choreographed and performed in the Paris Fashion Week and TV Live, Albert Hall. In 2001, Garry choreographed original works for Nubian Steps, Union Too and Union Dance, and in 2002 was appointed Assistant Rehearsal Director. Garry has performed and taught in Macau and for Union Dance in Barcelona (including Dies De Dansa XII), the Black Dance Festival in Vienna and the Kuopio Dance Festival in Finland.

Garry Benjamin. Photo: Charles Dragazis

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Susanna Cole, Associate Dancer and Teacher Born in Lisbon, Susanna trained in dance at the Roehampton Institute in London. She has worked with Generation Dance Theatre, The Douglas Bros with Mathew Hawkins, Garcia Baxe, Neti Neti Theatre and Compound Productions. She has completed an MA in Choreography and received the Arts Council / Jerwood Traineeship Award in Dance for the Camera. She and Michael Joseph are mainly responsible for filming and editing on Union Dance Film projects. She has taught extensively both independently and for Union Dance, as the Company’s Education Officer. Susanna first performed with Union Dance at the Henley Festival in 2004.

Susanna Cole. Photo: Charles Dragazis

Jedda Donnelly, Soloist and Teacher Having trained at the Laban Centre, Jedda has worked extensively as both a dancer and teacher. She has performed for Nubian Steps at the South Bank, in the West End production of The Lion King, Aspects of Dance, the Black British Dance Festival and with the late William Louther Dance Company. Jedda has also danced and modelled for a number of commercial companies including Vodafone, Toni & Guy, Marks & Spencer and Ikea. Jedda was a recipient of an Arts Council Fellowship in Arts Management and worked as an Education Officer for the Croydon Clocktower before joining Union Dance in 2002. She is due to leave the Company in 2006. In addition to performing, Jedda works as a freelance project manager running media based training for young disengaged people.

Photo: Will Thorburn and Jedda Donnelly Photo: Charles Dragazis

Will Thorburn Soloist and Teacher Will trained in contemporary dance at London’s Laban Centre and has worked for Metallized at The Place and Scottish touring with Freshmess. He received the Lisa Ullmann scholarship and

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travelled to Brazil in 2002/3 to research capoeira. Outside Union Dance, Will is currently an apprentice capoeira instructor for Group Senzala in the UK. Will’s choreography includes work for Union Too, World Beat Festival, for television with HipHoda, and film work with Bedlam and Reel Dance in Aberdeen. Will joined Union Dance in 2000, developing his interest in hip hop, capoeira, martial arts, classical and contemporary techniques.

Gerrard Martin, Soloist & Teacher Gerrard was born in Northampton and studied at De Montfort University (BA Hons in English Literature and Performing Arts), and at the Northern School of Contemporary Dance. He performed in the West End cast of The Lion King and toured nationally with Phoenix Dance. Gerrard has also danced at the National Theatre, English National Opera, the Royal Opera House and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. He has danced commercially for artists such as Lionel Ritchie, Eternal, Shola Ama and Shaggy, has performed at the Resolutions platform and for Nelson Mandela on his Celebrate Africa state visit. Gerrard joined Union Dance in 2004. Dee Ovens, Soloist and Teacher Dee trained at The Alvin Ailey School (New York) and London Studio Centre, graduating in 2004. Since then Dee has toured throughout Britain with Ace Dance and Music, Ruff/Cut Dance Company, H2O, and performed at the Big Mission in 2005. She joined Union Dance in January 2006, to replace Jedda Donnelly. Hian Ruth Voon, Soloist and Teacher Ruth trained at Lewisham College and Northern School of Contemporary Dance and toured with South East Dance and The Dance Movement performing works by Henri Oguike and Jeanette Brooks amongst others. Ruth went on to dance with Stephan Koplowitz (Dance Umbrella 1998), Stephanie Schober Company, Cathy Seago & Dancers and The Classic Individuals. She has also worked in arts management with several organisations including Arts Council England, and is currently training to be a massage therapist. Ruth joined Union Dance in 2005.

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CHRONOLOGY OF COLLABORATIONS AND PRODUCTIONS: 1983-85 VISIONS OF RHYTHM Premiere at Battersea Arts Centre ‘Dance Days’ 1983 Combining classical Indian, jazz, and modern contemporary dance Original Programme: No Man’s Land and No Boundaries Performers included: Corrine Bougaard, Chitra Sundaram, Shobana Jeysingh 1985 UNION CITY A special commission for Central Television, Autumn 1985. Choreography: Corrine Bougaard and Stuart Thomas. 1985-87 SPIRIT AND ENERGY Programmes included: The Old Landmark by Garner Harris. Shakka by Corrine Bougaard. Story Time, Dance Time by Thomas Pinnock. Slapstick, Courage Best, Union City by Stuart Thomas. Een Geloof by Tracy Sue Coleman, Free Them by Bougaard. Dancers: Corrine Bougaard, Garner Harris, Desmond Harris, Henrietta Harris, Stuart Thomas, Michael Joseph, Karen Estabrook. 1987- 88 JUST UP THEIR STREET The Tabernacle, London, July 1987 Programme included: Delerium by Jon Smart, Outlaw by Jawole Zollar and Abstractions by Claud Paul Henry. 1989 KICKING THE BLUES Programme included: Blue Pictures - A Day In The Life Of by Jon Smart. Worldweave by Corrine Bougaard, Safety in Numbers by Chantal Donaldson, Distant Ending Daze by Brenda Edwards, Abstractions by Claud Paul Henry. 1988 DUB AND DANCE Premiere at The Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, 15th September 1988 Programme: Benjamin Zephaniah, Union City, Outlaw by Jawole Zollar and Delerium by Jon Smart. Union Dance has a long history of collaborating with artists from other art forms. In Dub and Dance the Company worked with rap poet Benjamin Zephaniah. 1990 AS YET UNTITLED London premiere at BAC 23 June 1990 Programme: Blue Pictures, Duet. 1992 URBAN CLASSICS Programmes included: Two Track by Corrine Bougaard and Bunty Matthias. Kicking in Mid-Air by Tom Jobe. Urban Classics by Floyd Hendricks. Tributo A by Cuban choroeographer, Eduardo Rivero Dancers: Hopal Romans, David Nurse, Jason Germaine, Nicola Hilton, Michael Joseph.

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1993 DRIVING FORCE

Premiere at Spring Loaded, The Place, March 1993 Driving Force by Denise Wong and Bunty Matthias, British Jungle Dances by Jacob Marley and Soon by Bill T Jones. Dancers: David Nurse, Hopal Romans, Charemaine Seet, Jason Germain, Nicola Hilton, Michael Joseph, Floyd Hendricks. Soon was a tribute to Arnie Zane who died of Aids related lymphoma in 1989 leaving Jones mourning the loss of a professional partner and friend. ‘When Arnie was gone, I felt I had to go back to the studio. I suddenly had something very clear that I wanted to express.’ (Bill T. Jones 1992.) British Jungle Dances was a witty satire on British colonialism, with male and female dancers in white male formal dress.

1994 - 95 THROUGH DANCE COLOURED GLASSES

Programme: British Jungle Dances by Jacob Marley, Delirium by Jon Smart, Red, Blue and Ochre by David Nurse, A Knot Annulled by Doug Elkins. Dancers: Michael Joseph, David Nurse, Karl Sulivan, Hopal Romans, Andrea Whiting, Simone Noblett, Charemaine Seet and Nicola Hilton.

A Knot Annulled was a series of vignettes, blending street dance with Mozart opera music and contemporary and capoeira. The music ranged from Mozart to hip hop.

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1994 – 95 THE FICKLE FRIEND Choreography: Floyd Hendricks. Performed by the Company. Premiere: Jacksons Lane, London 1994. A full length narrative show for children. In some venues, children from the Company’s education workshops were incorporated into the performance, having learned some of the repertoire in their workshop. 1995-97 MOTIVATE THE ERA Tenth Anniversary Touring Season. Programme: A Knot Annulled by Doug Elkins, Soon by Bill T Jones, The Thrill is Gone by Charemaine Seet, British Jungle Dances by Jacob Marley, Red, Blue and Ochre by David Nurse, Arroz Con Mangos by Isabel Bustos. Dancers: Michael Joseph, David Nurse, Hopal Romans, Andrea Whiting, Simone Noblett, Garry Benjamin, Charemaine Seet. The fact that the 10th Anniversary tour lasted two years is not surprising, given that the date of Union Dance’s inception is a little vague… However, for the purposes of the 10th Anniversary, it was agreed that the Company had been properly inaugurated in 1985. 1997 DANCE TEK WARRIORS Programme: Mass Equilibria in the Sea of Tranquillity by Michael Joseph, Three Young Blades by Charemaine Seet, Eye Open, Path Chosen by Abdel R Salaam, Bright Flames in Dark Waters by Doug Elkins. Dancers: Garry Benjamin, Curtis James, Michael Joseph, Simone Noblett, Charemaine Seet, Andrea Whiting. 1999 DTEK 23 - CLUB MIX

This innovative programme took excerpts from Dance Tek Warriors into nightclubs to reach new audiences for dance. DTek23 – Club Mix was an eclectic mix of urban culture, featuring a continuous combination of cutting edge beats: drum ‘n bass, projected visuals, computer animation, and positively up tempo contemporary dance. It was inspired by a PlayStation game ‘Tekken’. The contemporary movement was based on the spirit of ancient Asian and Brazilian martial arts, Capoeira, Aikido, and Street Dance and today’s energetic club culture.

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2000 LIFEFORMS

Programme: Generic Signatures by Laurie Booth and Starlings Scatter by Doug Elkins. Premiered at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, November 2000.

Laurie Booth’s Generic Signatures took its starting point from capoeira, whilst Doug Elkins’s Starlings Scatter contrasted street dance with the renaissance music of Monteverdi. Dancers: Charemaine Seet, Bawren Tavaziva, Marcia Pook, Michael Joseph, Garry Benjamin, Jedda Donnelly, Simone Noblett, Will Thorburn,

2001 DANCE IN HOUSE Premiered at the Lilian Baylis Theatre, Sadlers Wells, London, Autumn 2001. Programme: Quintessential Vibes in Music by Garry Benjamin, Zenith and Nadir by Michael Joseph, Dance Divine Dreams by Corrine Bougaard, Be Cat, See Spot, Run (Tiger’s Pursuit) by Doug Elkins. Dancers: Garry Benjamin, Tracy Bradley, Michael Joseph, Simone Noblett, Charemaine Seet, Bawren Tavaziva, Will Thorburn. Dance In House consisted of four short pieces by Company choreographers and long-term dance artists with Union Dance; Doug Elkins, Michael Joseph, Garry Benjamin and Artistic Director Corrine Bougaard. The four parts explored ideas of identity, branding, reality and personality through music, film, dance and the digital imagery of former MTV director/producer Peter Emina. The choreographers ‘played with the identities of the dancers, mixing up their distinctive features and styles’. Music ranged from Coldcut’s cool collective of DJs to funky jazz.

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2002 IMAGING THE INVISIBLE

A ‘multimedia installation’ with choreography by Doug Elkins and Andile Sotiya. Using illusions, projection and dance the production team, (including a photographer / video artist, a multi-media artist and an installation designer as well as the choreographic and performance team) demonstrated how the world is seen in different ways by different people, using movement as a trigger for memories. A metaphorical journey from childhood to adult, Imaging the Invisible took a cultural perspective on the individual and changing perceptions of the everyday.

Celebrating racial harmony in a racially divided society is a tough task, but this ensemble – a racially diverse combo, have been doing exactly that for 15 years. (The Guardian Guide, 2001)

2003 – 2005 PERMANENT REVOLUTION V2R Programme: Fallela by Vincent Mantsoe, Holla by Bawren Tavaziva, Fractured Atlas by Doug Elkins. Dancers: Michael Joseph, Garry Benjamin, Galia Delgada, Jedda Donnelly, Simone Noblett, Will Thorburn. Permanent Revolution V2R (Virtual to Reality) was another Union Dance collaboration with media artists Thomas Gray and Derek Richards. Along with the three choreographers, Elkins, Mantsoe and Tavaziva, they created a ‘world in which memory and place collide to challenge our notions of identity.’ The choreography drew on contemporary, African, street dance and even salsa to explore how migration and transition can effect cultural change and impact on our lives.

Union delivers its most ambitious project to date... As movement of a thousand impulses it’s an impressive show… The result is a showcase for world dance, which starts like a prayer and ends like a party. (The Times, 2003)

Dancers: Michael Joseph & Garry Benjamin

Image: Thomas Gray

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2004 – 2005 URBAN CLASSICS II

A programme of excerpts from recent productions; Dtek23 Club Mix, Imaging the Invisible, Dance In House, Dance Tek Warriors, Motivate the Era (A Knot Annulled), and LifeForms. Dancers: Michael Joseph, Garry Benjamin, Simone Noblett, Will Thorburn, Jedda Donnelly, Galia Delgado, Susanna Cole. Urban Classics II provided an accessible introduction to contemporary dance for many new audiences and smaller scale venues. At the same time, the Company continued touring Permanent Revolution to larger venues.

Photo: Thomas Gray 2005 – 2006 SENSING CHANGE Programme includes: Pure C by Mavin Khoo and Silence Disrupted by Rafael Bonachela. Dancers: Michael Joseph, Garry Benjamin, Will Thorburn, Gerrard Martin, Hian Ruth Voon, Susanna Cole, Jedda Donnelly

Photo: Charles Dragazis

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DANCE STYLES AND TECHNIQUES Union Dance Identity The versatile mix of dance styles that Union Dance expresses, ‘from the street to the studio’, is an important statement of identity and culture. Union Dance is internationally acclaimed for its eclectic mix of contemporary dance, hip hop, martial arts and streetwise wit, which aims to communicate the world’s rich cultural diversity through movement. Union Dance’s identity comes from this eclectic mix of dance styles, which are reflected in the Company’s own training and in education work undertaken in the UK and internationally. A cycle of influence can be seen in full effect at Union Dance Company who incorporate a mix of club, capoeira and contemporary dance styles. All with different nationalities, the personal experience of each dancer has a direct influence on the company’s work. Dance can be a space for ‘serious debate’ about issues of cultural identity. The cycle of influences within this company – club culture, capoeira, breaking, contemporary dance, martial arts, Indian dance and yoga – slashes the negative connotations of appropriation and creates a positive sharing of inter-cultural wealth. Pride magazine 1995 The experience of the dancers is an important aspect of Union Dance’s style. They come from a range of backgrounds and some, as Company members for many years, have influenced the development of the style. All the dancers have trained professionally in contemporary dance, however some, like Michael Joseph and Garry Benjamin, came originally from a street dance background. Others, like Will Thorburn and Susanna Cole, have trained extensively in Capoeira. Similarly, the choreographers who have worked with the Company over the years have contributed their own styles and helped in the development of the Union Dance style. In particular, the American choreographer Doug Elkins, who worked with the Company on productions between 1995 and 2003, was very influential, incorporating Capoeira and street dance moves into his contemporary based choreography. With their street dance backgrounds, many of the dancers felt very comfortable with being upside down and low to the floor. Doug Elkins’ works remained in the repertoire for some time and were used as a basis for many workshops, as the style was particularly accessible for young people. This meant the dancers were working in the style on a daily basis, allowing it to become ingrained. Repertory Company Union Dance is a repertory company, which means that the Company tours a repertoire of works by different choreographers which changes every year, occasionally every two years. The Company visits a variety of professional theatre venues in the UK and overseas, some of which are small scale (university studio theatres for example) and some middle to large scale (such as Richmond Theatre or the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London). Although the dancers are continually working with different choreographers, and learning new styles (such as Mavin Khoo’s Bharat Natyam influenced movements), what the dancers themselves bring to the process of making a piece is very important. Most of the choreographers the Company works with do not treat the

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dancers as a blank canvas, but instead work with their strengths, incorporating their own ideas and movement vocabulary (for instance, Rafael Bonachela, the choreographer of Sensing Change production setting tasks for the dancers to create movement within his choreographic structure). Consequently, although Sensing Change does not use the same amount of hip hop inspired movement as previous shows, there are still strong elements of Union Dance’s styles. The Company’s unique identity also comes through strongly in the education work. The next section details some of the styles Union Dance has worked with over the years, which have influenced the choreography.

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CONTEMPORARY TECHNIQUES Union Dance works in many contemporary techniques as well as ballet, which all our dancers studied at college for at least three years. Union Dance’s daily class is frequently based on Cunningham technique.

Cunningham Technique The American choreographer Merce Cunningham is recognised as one of the most innovative and influential choreographers of the 20th century. Born in 1919, he performed with the Martha Graham Company from 1939 to 1945, establishing the Merce Cunningham Dance Company in 1952. The technique he developed to train his dancers is widely used today and is characterised by elements from ballet - vertical stance, fast footwork and high leg extension - and from modern dance - the curves and twists of the torso. Cunningham’s choreography is abstract; the dance, music and design do not necessarily relate to one another and in some of his works these elements meet up for the first time in the opening performance. His work explores random ideas of indeterminacy and chance. The costume, design, number of dancers or order of sections may alter from one performance to another. The order of sequences, or movements, could be decided by chance procedures, such as tossing a coin. Cunningham also incorporates everyday movements and quirky gestures into his dances. His movement phrases tend to be based on very complex rhythms and can involve different parts of the body doing very different movements simultaneously. Contact Improvisation Contact Improvisation is a form of movement devised by the American dancer Steve Paxton. Born in 1939, Paxton was a member of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company in the early sixties. In 1972 he gave the name ‘contact improvisation’ to a form of duet in which the movement is invented by the dancers as they go along, the only rule being to keep in close contact with one another’s body. Any part of the body can be used to balance on, lean against or hang on to and the movements range from rolling over or lifting each other to pushing, pulling, throwing and catching. The dancers need to develop trust, agility, alertness and relaxation, so that they can follow their partner’s momentum or change its direction, going where the movement takes them. Unlike classical ballet it involves no distinction of gender roles and women lift and support men as often as the other way round. Part of the ‘post-modern’ or ‘new dance’ style, Contact Improvisation has provided a vocabulary and principles for many choreographers. The movement style is characteristically relaxed and informal, with less attention paid to traditional classical technique, such as the extended bodyline. However, taking each other’s weight and going upside-down are features of the dance form and these require strength, flexibility and thorough understanding of anatomy. Like Union Dance, Paxton himself uses Yoga in his training to build upper body strength and control and to maintain suppleness. In a Contact Improvisation performance, the dancers would often be casually dressed and perform as a ‘round robin’, whereby only one dancer would change in each successive duet. This has similarities to Capoeira and indeed post-modern dance derives some of its movements from martial art forms, such as Aikido falls and rolls, as well as sports and pedestrian movement - Steve Paxton has created dances based simply on walking.

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The movement vocabulary of Contact Improvisation has been absorbed into Union Dance’s style, partly because it merges very well with capoeira, utilising inversions and close partner work. Choreographer Laurie Booth combined it with capoeira in his piece Generic Signatures (performed as part of Union Dance’s LifeForms programme in 2000) and the style was also used in many of the duet and trio sequences in Doug Elkins’s choreography for the production Permanent Revolution V2R (2002). MARTIAL ARTS Kung Fu Kung Fu is a general term, which simply means ‘skill’. The term covers both ‘hard’ disciplines such as Wing Chun (which uses kicks and punches), and ‘soft’ versions such as Tai Chi, which is based on Taoist ideas of yin and yang – balance or harmony. Tai Chi’s graceful movements are designed to encourage the flow of chi, or energy around the body. At its core is a series of flowing movements, performed as a dance-like solo, linking mind, breath and body. In their training, Union Dance often use ‘katas’ from Qi Gong; slow moving, breathing, fluid sequences to prepare and focus the body. Despite its pace, Qi Gong requires mental sharpness and internal control and, after several repetitions, the mind, the breath and the movements synchronise and the body begins to act intuitively. The aim is for the body to remain elastic and the mind focused when the progressing to the very physically demanding training of Gong Fu. Aikido A precise martial art based on the idea of letting opponents defeat themselves by exploiting their weaknesses. Union Dance often uses martial art styles in partnering work, as well as solos, often combined with other dance styles. In the production Urban Classics II, Michael Joseph performed a solo full of fluid, liquid forms from martial arts, mixed with b-boy freezes, locks and floor work.

Dancer: Garry Benjamin in Dance

Tek Warriors. Photo Eric Richmond

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Capoeira Capoeira is a style of combat which originated among African slaves held by the Portuguese who colonised Brazil from the fifteenth century. It was originally devised as a technique of fighting using the feet and legs, as the slaves’ arms were often chained. Capoeira features kicks, foot swings and leg locks and combatants sometimes even held weapons, such as razors, between their toes. Over four million African men, women and children, many from Angola in West Central Africa, were shipped to Brazil to work on huge plantations, forced to learn Portuguese and to convert to Catholicism. Many slaves escaped to the jungle, where they formed communities called Quilombos. Those who escaped were known as capoeiras. In 1888 slavery was abolished in Brazil and relevant documents were destroyed, so the history of Capoeira has mostly been passed on verbally. There are thought to be similarities, however, between Capoeira and n’golo, a traditional African dance from Angola. With the abolition of slavery Capoeira spread to all the major cities, but it was then forbidden in Brazil until the 1930s, because it was seen as a threat to society. It was still practised by descendants of African slaves. When the ban was lifted the first Capoeira training schools were formed. Disguised as a religious dance On the plantations fighting or the carrying of weapons was forbidden, so the slaves disguised Capoeira as a form of dance, just as they disguised their own African gods as Catholic saints and a new religion evolved. Some of the rituals from their religion, like the circle formation and the music, became essential elements of Capoeira. Catholic symbols, such as crossing themselves at the start, were also used, but not necessarily with the same meaning. (This can be seen at the start of a capoeira inspired duet in Doug Elkins’ A Knot Annulled.) Structure Capoeira always takes place in a circle. As the music begins two people at a time go in to the circle and ‘play’ close together and at the end they shake hands. The music is played by the Master, on an instrument called a berimbau, a metal stringed bow amplified by a hollow gourd, originally from Angola. The music is haunting, with strong rhythms and the speed dictates the action of the game. Singing is another important element, with melancholy songs relating the history of the captive slaves. Everyone around the circle sings, or at least joins in the chorus,

Dancers: Michael Joseph and Jedda Donnelly Photo: Thomas Gray

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like a chant. The songs tell the players what to do by their tempo and mood, but their intention was originally disguised as religious. There are two different styles of capoeira, Regional and Angola. In the 1930s a Capoerista (Capoeira expert) called Master Bimba developed the Regional style and everything before that was termed Angola. The Regional style became more formal and widely respected. As capoeira moved beyond Brazil and spread across the world, practitioners became anxious to preserve its traditional roots and returned to the original Angolan style, which is more theatrical, using slow movements low to the ground, with the players in close contact. The Regional style uses a more upright stance with kicks and aerial movements. A new dance vocabulary Union Dance began using capoeira with choreographer Doug Elkins, who blended movements from capoeira, street dance and contact improvisation to create a new dance vocabulary for the piece. The dancers felt the form suited their style. Having used yoga and b-boying in their training, they were strong in their upper bodies and felt quite comfortable in being upside down with all their weight on their hands. Like classical dance, the grace and fluidity of capoeira contrasts with the strength necessary to perform it well. Garry Benjamin, one of the dancers with the Company, believes ‘capoeira is a state of being…it connects to everything I’ve done in dance so far and allows me to extend my vocabulary and do things slightly differently…we need to do it justice. You have to keep it true.’ Many acrobatic and aerial movements from capoeira are very similar to those in b-boying or ‘breaking’. It is generally thought that capoeira is the ‘grandfather’ or ‘backbone’ of breaking. Dancer and Rehearsal Director Michael Joseph says, ‘I’m certain that B-boying moves emanated from the fathers who were practicing capoeira and their kids just took it to another form, took it more to the street…and so it just evolved’. Capoeira has been used in various Union Dance productions, including Motivate the Era, Dance Tek Warriors and Permanent Revolution V2R. Sensing Change draws on elements of capoeira from the dancers’ movement vocabulary, but does not recreate it as such. Yoga Union Dance performers often train in Yoga to stretch and strengthen the body and prepare the body for movement. It is also important for training the body for inversions (upside down movements), and floor work - taking weight into the arms and hands and strengthening the upper body. Although there are many styles of yoga, the differences usually relate to emphasis, such as focusing on strict alignment of the body, co-ordination of breath and movement, holding the postures, or the flow from one posture to another. All of the styles share a common lineage. No style is better than another; it is simply a matter of personal preference.

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Dancer: Michael Joseph in Permanent Revolution V2R Photo: Shoza Lak

STREET STYLES B-Boying B-boying is a form of hip hop dancing, popularly known as breakin’. It consists of movements known as top or up rock, down rock, footwork, spinning and power moves and freezes. B-boying originated in the Bronx, New York in the mid 1970s. The term ‘B-Boys’ stands for ‘break boys’, so called because they danced to the break part of the music. It is thought to have begun as a way for rival gangs to mediate differences and set the location for forthcoming ‘rumbles’ (gang fights). Gangs met on neutral territory for a party, the day before a rumble was due to take place. The dance-off, which pitted the gang leaders against each other, mirrored the confrontation and determined whose turf would host the rumble. The gang leaders would literally dance out the moves they expected to make in the fight, stabbing, punching, swinging a chain or hitting with a stick. The winner was the person who came up with a new move that hadn’t been witnessed before, so b-boys spent much of their time developing new moves. An earlier origin is thought to be James Brown’s song Get on the Good Foot, which inspired crowds in the late 1960s to imitate the singer's dance moves. Breaking turned into a new phenomenon when b-boys began spinning on their backs, heads and hands. The popularity of Kung Fu films during the 1970s also had a great impact on the b-boying style, incorporating a large number of martial arts moves. Breaking featured in several films, such as Flashdance.

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B-Boy styles include locking (robotic type movements inspired by TV robots, cartoons and mime artists) and popping (electric boogie). In locking the body apparently moves out of control then back into control, snapping into position, collapsing, then snapping back. Electric Boogaloo (or boogie), a style of popping, combines locking with smooth, controlled movements from mime, passing energy through the body, popping and snapping elbows, wrists, necks, hips and body joints along the way. A movement that Union Dance sometimes teaches is ‘twist a flex’ – separating sections of the body and moving them in isolation to each other. Garry Benjamin’s dynamic solo in the production Urban Classics II demonstrated these B-Boying styles. The four elements of Hip Hop are B-Boying, Graffiti, MCing and DJing. The music element of Hip Hop, where music is sampled, mixed and scratched and ‘breaks’ emphasised or repeated, is also an important influence in Union Dance’s work, seen in the last section of Permanent Revolution V2R and in A Knot Annulled. Workshop ideas for street dance styles are included in the Education section at the end of this pack.

Further information: The London School of Capoeira, Unit 1-2 Leeds Place, Tollington Park, London N4 3RQ Tel: 0207 281 2020 www.londonschoolofcapoeira.co.uk Information on break dance and hip hop styles can be found on: www.worldwidedance.co.uk www.yogasite.com

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Dancers: Hian Ruth Voon, Gerrard Martin and Will Thorburn.

Photo: Tristram Kenton

SENSING CHANGE

Identity is fluid: the self can be reinvented ‘One of the best choreographic commissions of Union Dance’s twenty year history’ The Times Corrine Bougaard’s Union Dance retains its tradition of exploration through collaboration with two internationally diverse choreographers: Rafael Bonachela and Mavin Khoo create Sensing Change – an investigation of dance, music, light, video projection and acoustic space. Sensing Change builds on Union Dance’s twenty year’s of experience and expertise at mixing contemporary dance, hip hop, martial arts and streetwise wit, whilst demonstrating through performance how 21st Century culture embraces and celebrates transformation. With grace, fluidity and always a little edge, this 7-strong culturally diverse company made up of superb dance technicians, explores and celebrates change. ‘A rocking group number, keeps the dancers moving in sensitive, edgy dialogue with each other’ The Guardian

Sensing Change premiered at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, part of London’s South Bank Centre on 11 May 2005. Since then, the show has toured the UK, performing at large and middle scale theatre venues. These two abstract pieces have different moods and blend modern dance, music, video and design to create an eye-catching production. There are seven performers in the cast, three women and four men. The music for the show is pre-recorded and consists of an original mixed soundtrack and specially commissioned electronic soundscape. The performance lasts approximately one hour and twenty minutes, including the interval. Pure C Choreography: Mavin Khoo Music: Digital 77 Costume Design: Jessica Bugg Light Pieces: Ulli Oberlack Film & Digital Technology: Derek Richards Lighting Design: Bill Deverson Costume Making: Annie Robinson Interval Silence Disrupted Choreography: Rafael Bonachela Soundscape: Santiago Posada Costume Design: Jessica Bugg Light pieces: Ulli Oberlack Film & Digital Technology: Derek Richards Lighting Design: Bill Deverson Costume Making: Annie Robinson

The production of Sensing Change was kindly supported by forum twenty eight, Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria.

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Notes on Sensing Change by Corrine Bougaard, Artistic Director Through non-European dance styles, digital technology and live performance, Union Dance aims to shift perspectives by exploring and expressing an identity that reflects the growing cultural fusion of contemporary society. Union Dance has continually focussed on the uniqueness of identity, with different manifestations of this theme, including migration and displacement. The Company’s productions concentrate on how the body functions within the world around it; making sense of our surroundings both in terms of physical space and environment, together with the cultural and social circumstances that effect it. Sensing Change reveals how twenty-first century culture embraces and celebrates transformation. This exhilarating double bill investigates our rapidly changing ideals through dance, music, video and eye-catching design.

I am a part of the past, but I look to the future Issey Miyake

Sensing Change is a programme of work that embraces the notion of collaboration on a creative level with the intention of conveying both immediacy and timelessness. It reflects this with work devoted to the concept of change. Layered textures and fluid transparencies unite the simple and the complex with sophisticated images and delicate intimacy. As the basis of the creative process, collaborators on this production discussed the many ways contemporary ideas reinterpret traditional forms. The work engages ideas of sharing broader perspectives, proposing new ways of thinking, dichotomy, combining the body with technology, East and West, urban contrasting simple beauty. Sensing Change is a transitional programme for Union Dance – which looks back over the past century and the Company’s journey, but takes on board the possibilities of the new century, in terms of design and new technology. Union Dance has always explored different genres and styles, incorporating them into a fresh new identity, which celebrates cultural diversity.

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INTERVIEW Jedda Donnelly and Gerrard Martin were interviewed by fellow dancer Susanna Cole during the production week at Barrow-in-Furness: JD: It’s been an extremely challenging process, physically. We’ve challenged ourselves to work in a new style, which is a mix of contemporary, distorted images, quirky motifs, a lot of physicality, fused with classical ballet. This is an exciting time for Union Dance, because we’re going through a process of re-invention. We’re working with multi-media artists on the project, as well as soundscape artists, film, wearable lights and fashion designers. There are lots of collaborators and it’ll be interesting to see how it’s all pulled together this week in Barrow. We’re going through a process of change, hence Sensing Change, but we all get on really well together, we’re very close. Everyone’s there to do a job, but we also have fun with it and we work as a team.

GM: It’s like a fusion of people and dance styles, because everyone’s come from a different background. Some people have a B-boying background, like break dancing, hip hop. Others are more balletic or contemporary trained.

JD: Working with these two particular choreographers was interesting. Mavin, in particular comes from a kind of neo-classical background, but he was able to look at club culture and explore that through his material – through the music, the images and the set.

GM: Rafael works with very contemporary companies like Rambert but pop artists like Kylie Minogue as well.

JD: They come from different backgrounds, and in many ways their styles are really contrasting, but in other ways there are similarities in the way that they move.

Dancer: Jedda Donnelly Photo: Charles Dragazis

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GM: There’s distortion, they’ve got a lot of distorted imagery in their vocabulary and also the clarity of lines, they’re both quite angular. I think it’s their ballet background – they’ve got a sense of line and form. JD: Lines, form, shape. The most wonderful moment for me is when I’m being lifted by the four men on a podium (in Pure C), because I have to be really regal and dramatic and almost floating on air. I love it! GM: I liked doing the video work which will be in Mavin’s piece. I also get lifted by the three women. As a taller, male dancer I usually get to lift other men or women in the Company, so it’s nice to have that feeling of weightlessness myself. JD: The whole process has been really challenging, we’ve been doing some serious press-ups, the whole cardio-vascular thing. Almost like we’ve been going back to basics. We’ve discovered ourselves in a way. When we go on tour with Sensing Change we’re looking forward to keeping up that level of intensity.

Dancers: Gerrard Martin and Jedda Donnelly in Silence Disrupted Photo: Rick Kwan

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Press and Audience Responses to Sensing Change The premiere for Sensing Change at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on 11th and 12th May 2005 was reviewed by dance critics from The Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian and The Stage newspapers. One of the best choreographic commissions in Union’s 20-year history… impressively made and executed, Bonachela’s dance is like a spray of bullets that hit their target The Times, Donald Hutera 2005 a company excited by movement and on the cutting edge of contemporary dance The Stage, 2005 hyperextended legs, sharply torqued angles, swivelled hips and exotically coiled arms The Guardian, Judith Mackrell 2005 a rocking group number, keeps the dancers moving in sensitive, edgy dialogue with each other The Guardian, Judith Mackrell 2005 pop culture and street dance moves in a fresh and interesting mix The Stage, 2005 impressively made and executed, Bonachela’s dance is like a spray of bullets that hit their target The Times, Donald Hutera 2005 a sophisticated, rich movement texture buzzing with liveliness The Stage, 2005 Union Dance has always had one foot on the street and another in contemporary dance and this double bill is no exception. Combining hip hop, urban flavours, break dancing, martial arts and stylised contemporary movements, Sensing Change charts the development of 21st century culture and how it embraces change and transformation. The powerhouses behind the choreography are Rafael Bonachela, renowned for combining art and popular culture in his work with contemporary icons such as Kylie Minogue and Primal Scream, and Malaysian-born Mavin Khoo who also likes to blend dance styles by merging modern and classical dance. The double bill begins with Pure C by Khoo. Sharp, angular, distorted arm lines and hyperextended legs dominate the choreography. At times during the piece this looks exotic and at other times out of place. The backdrop is minimal with disco style flashing lights, podium style platforms and futuristic video projection. Bonachela’s work, Silence Disrupted, is edgy, fast-paced, acoustic and appears to want to shock. The dancers work through the beat and the partner work is athletic and faultless. Although it is exciting to witness change, just as with 21st century culture, you sometimes wish you could slow things down and take a look at what is going on behind the chaos. This evening does not allow the audience that depth, but does allow them to sense different movement qualities and dynamics and also experience the transformation the body can go through by using sound, light, music, silence and interactive technology. Lucy Wallis, The Stage, 3 November 2005

The response from audiences throughout the Sensing Change tour has been extremely positive. Union Dance’s work appeals to a wide cross section of the public and its work tends to attract younger audiences, including more people from ethnic minorities than other more mainstream companies. This is due to the Company’s strong identity which is associated with diversity of culture, urban style and more accessible choreography.

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I was really impressed again (I saw Urban Classics last year). Your group is so much more innovative, vibrant and energetic than many of the bigger names that come to Cambridge. Mumford Theatre, Cambridge, 2 November 2005 I went to see Sensing Change at the Swan Theatre and I was blown away. I thought it was amazing. Swan Theatre, Worcester, 18 October 2005 Union Dance Audience Profile: A recent survey suggested that young people between the ages of 18-29 make up the highest percentage of Union Dance’s audience – 31.6%. 12-17 year olds comprise 17.8% of the audience. The over 50’s made up the next largest group. The survey concluded that this might not be a true reflection, as the over 50s might have been more likely to complete the questionnaire. 21% of the audience had seen Union Dance before, while 78.9% had never previously seen the Company. 40.8% of the audience did not attend dance events often if at all, which is unusual for a contemporary dance performance, as audiences tend to be dedicated attenders. The audience were exceptionally happy with the quality of their experience, with 85.5% rating the show as ‘very good’ and 90.1% wanting to see Union Dance again in the future.

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CHOREOGRAPHIC FEATURES OF SENSING CHANGE The following is a brief analysis of the main features of Sensing Change, which is intended to give students an idea of what to look out for when watching the video of the production, or seeing a live performance. Features of Pure C, Choreography by Mavin Khoo Staging

• The majority of the movement takes place on podiums. • At the beginning the solo dancer wears a short jacket with extra long

trailing sleeves, lit from the inside. • The dancers wear lights as part of their costumes, on knees and elbows. • Video projections on the back screens show the dancers moving slowly,

with close-ups of faces (sometimes morphing into other faces). At times the screens become transparent and dancers can be seen moving behind them.

• At first the stage is dimly lit, with flashing lights on either side. Later, the podiums are brightly under-lit with vibrant contemporary colours, echoed on the screens.

• Dance music with a constant, hypnotic pulse that builds to a crescendo.

Movement Styles • Contemporary Dance • Breaking • Capoeira • Classical Indian • Ballet

Choreographic Features

• Movement in a confined space • Sharp changes of focus and direction • Small leg flicks, hip isolations • Legs and arms extended, the arm line often broken • Pulses and rebounds with limbs • Jumps, turns, leg lifts

Composition

• Solo, duets, trios and quartets. • One couple performs a duet on one podium, while other individual

dancers take one half of the duet and perform it on separate podiums, so the duet is simultaneously seen broken down as separate unison phrases.

• Unison quintet, in a line in very close proximity. Gradually, the phrase breaks down and one by one each dancer breaks away or changes the movement.

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Features of Silence Disrupted, Choreography by Rafael Bonachela Staging

• Boundaries are shown by small circles of light (especially at the beginning) or three identical pools on a diagonal across the stage.

• The men wear white trousers, the women short white dresses. The fabric is closely fitted around the men’s ankles, with an Eastern feel to the drape. The tops of the women’s dresses are also draped.

• Wearable lights feature in the first duet of the piece, providing a transition between Pure C and Silence Disrupted.

• A camera films this first duet, and instantaneously a computer program translates this video into electronic sounds.

• The images from this camera are projected on to screens at the back of the stage and a time-delay program changes them gradually throughout the piece.

• The soundscape echoes the theme of change, with phrases that begin, almost develop, pause, then begin again.

Hian Ruth Voon, Susanna Cole, Will Thorburn in Silence Disrupted

Photo: Alastair Muir

Movement Styles

• Contemporary Dance • Capoeira • Hip Hop • Breaking

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Choreographic Features • Circular movements are echoed by the lighting design, such as spiralling

turns and leg circles (rond de jambes). • Pulling and pushing partner-work. • Wrapping parts of the body around the partner. • Impulses, which are followed through by different body parts. • Drags, lifts, shifts, swivels or spirals. • Sudden drops to the ground and one partner preventing the other from

falling. • Short sharp movements gestures with one body part.

Composition

• Begins with a duet in a confined space, the dancers wearing lights on knees and ankles, the movement starting and pausing.

• Piece opens out to a greater use of space, the whole stage is used. • Exits and entrances are made simply by walking. • The choreography constantly changes with a series of duets and trios in

close contact. • The duets vary between man and woman, two women or two men. • Regardless of gender the duets feature lifts and weight taking. • The series of duets builds eventually to a trio with a duet in the

foreground and ultimately to all seven dancers performing a unison phrase, which as soon as it is established, begins to break up.

• The phrasing is important, as the choreography flows through a phrase, then pauses in a held position and begins again.

• There is a sense of continuous flow despite the constant interruptions to the phrasing.

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MAVIN KHOO, CHOREOGRAPHER FOR PURE C

‘One of the UK’s most exciting dancers’ (London Evening Standard)

Mavin Khoo was born in Malaysia where he began his dance studies, training in India, Britain and the USA. He originally studied the Indian classical dance techniques of Bharat Natyam and Odissi, but has also trained in classical ballet and contemporary dance.

Having begun training in Bharat Natyam in early childhood, Khoo moved to Madras in India at the age of 10 to undertake full time dance training. Three years later he was selected by the British Council for a project on ‘the bilingual body’, for which they trained him in ballet alongside classical Indian dance.

For a long time I never saw a link between Bharat Natyam and ballet. At the age of 14 I saw a video called Baryshnikov and the Wolf Trap (1975)… he was dancing with Gelsey Kirkland… I was completely mindblown… I think that it was the subtlety of nuance... which I hadn’t really seen in ballet. My training in Indian dance was always with live music and there was so much emotional substance to it, and then you go into your ballet exams… Suddenly I saw this whole other side to ballet, and I started to take this very seriously from then on. (Interview with Tammy McLorg at Middlesex University, 2003)

Bharat Natyam Bharat Natyam is a classical dance style from South India. It was originally a religious dance from ancient times, performed in temples and at ceremonial processions. The dance technique of Bharat Natyam practised today is thought to have been developed around 100 years ago. There are many different dances within Bharat Natyam, incorporating statuesque poses, intricate and dynamic rhythms and expressive gestures and movements, particularly of the eyes, hands, shoulders and neck. Sometimes the dancer interprets a story, song or poem, with hand gestures and eye movements as an important part of the dance to relay expression and subtlety. For more information: www.cicd.org.uk (Centre for Indian Classical Dance)

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Khoo became a Bharat Natyam soloist in his teens, performing internationally and studied contemporary dance at the Merce Cunningham Studio in New York and ballet in London, where he has lived and worked for several years. My training has been in many different areas. The important thing is that, in order to find the ‘oneness’ of ballet and Bharat Natyam, I actually had to live two separate lives for a long time before I could find them within each other. (Interview with Tammy McLorg at Middlesex University, 2003) As a soloist, Mavin Khoo has performed in Britain, USA, France, Spain, India, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan and Japan. Television appearances include Channel 4 in the UK and JTV in India. Khoo has performed in collaboration with Wayne McGregor (Encoder 1997), Akram Khan (No Male Egos 1999), Christopher Bannerman (Cast in Stone? 2000) and others. He has danced with Sankalpam and Random dance companies and has toured and guested internationally. He was associate artist at Akademi (a company which promotes South Asian Dance in the UK), for whom he performed in the major Coming of Age and Escapade celebrations at the Royal Festival Hall on London’s South Bank (2001 and 2003). He has created choreography for the National Youth Dance Company and London Studio Centre. Images in Varnam, commissioned by the Royal Ballet’s Artists Development Initiative, completed a sell-out week at the Royal Opera House’s Clore Studio, featuring classical ballet and Bharat Natyam dancers and live violin. Khoo also performed with the Shobana Jeyasingh Dance Company in Phantasmaton, Surface Tension and [h]Interland (2002/3). The fastest rising star in the Asian dance firmament (London Metro) Khoo also teaches extensively, giving classes for professional and student dancers, including Akademi, Sampad, Danceworks, Roehampton and Surrey Universities, Random and Union Dance.

Performances and collaborations as a soloist and choreographer:

• Wayne McGregor (Encoder, 1997)

• Akram Khan (No Male Egos 1999)

• Christopher Bannerman (Cast in Stone? 2000)

• Guested with Random and Shobana Jeyasingh Dance Companies

• International touring as a soloist in Bharat Natyam

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Mavin Khoo Dance In Autumn 2003, Mavin Khoo Dance was launched as a new national touring company. Their first production was Parallel Passions, which toured England, Scotland and Italy for 40 performances, with Mavin Khoo performing himself. Mavin Khoo Dance’s second production Chandra / Luna was supported by Arts Council England, British Council Italy and co-commissioners Sampad, Kadam and Arts Council North East and toured the UK and overseas from 2004 to March 2005. Featuring choreography from Khoo and Laurent Cavanna (from Siobhan Davies Dance Company), Liz Lea and Mlavika Sarukkai, Chandra / Luna drew inspiration from the moon and its influence on human life, a mystic and mythological presence that has inspired poets, philosophers and astronomers. The music included a commissioned sound score by Andy Pink and traditional and classical music from the east and the west. Mavin Khoo Dance is not currently performing. A gorgeous alien, blazing a trail of energy… with exquisite, edgy grace… The dancing is languorous, athletic, courtly, vivacious and, most of all, erotic… choreography at once formally disciplined and brutally explicit. (The Guardian)

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RAFAEL BONACHELA, CHOREOGRAPHER FOR SILENCE DISRUPTED Rafael Bonachela was born in Barcelona, Spain in 1972. He has lived in London since 1989 and began choreographing professionally in 1999. In the past six years he has been commissioned by a wide variety of dance companies and commercial clients, including Rambert Dance Company, Union Dance, MTV, Kylie Minogue, The Kills, Primal Scream, Jaguar Automobiles, Siemens Mobile and Hugo Boss. Rafael Bonachela’s choreographic style Bonachela describes himself as a ‘movement junkie’ and the exploration and experimentation of pure movement is his motivation. Bonachela is an abstract choreographer – none of the movement in Silence Disrupted is intended to convey any particular meaning. In addition to his own movement vocabulary, he finds inspiration in the visual arts and popular culture which gives his movement a distinctive style. A choreographer committed to innovation, he is one of the most intriguing and inventive choreographers working in Britain today, moving seamlessly between the mainstream and avant-garde dance worlds. Intricately meshed contact improvisation Ismene Brown, The Daily Telegraph, 13 May 2005

This consistently absorbing and increasingly exciting work could rank as one of the best choreographic commissions in Union’s 20-year history. Set to Santiago Posada’s blistering electronic soundscape, Bonachela’s swift, angular kinetic language grows in strength as it unspools. He is particularly adept at grappling duets, such as that between Will Thorburn and Gerrard Martin. The pair engage in a close, combative style weighted with ambiguous intimacy. Martin is replaced by Hian Ruth Voon, a little dynamo new to Union this year. She and Thorburn dig their knotted clutches and hoists deeper into the dance’s subtext of struggle and support. In (Jessica) Bugg’s tightly wound bandage costumes, Union’s sharp-looking ensemble has no time or need to supply Bonachela’s visceral yet disciplined writing with an easy emotional overlay. Impressively made and executed, his dance is like a spray of bullets that hit their target. Donald Hutera, The Times, 16 May 2005

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Training Growing up in a village outside Barcelona, Bonachela did not attend formal dance classes until the age of 16 ‘but even when I was a child I was always playing with rhythm and making steps for my friends’. (Dance Europe, July 2003) Eventually, his father, a ‘very macho’ factory foreman sent him to dance school in Barcelona. After just a year of after school dance classes he began performing with Lanonima Imperial contemporary dance company, before winning a scholarship to train at the London Studio Centre at the age of 18. Rambert Dancer On graduating in 1992, Bonachela successfully auditioned for Rambert Dance Company, with whom he danced for 11 years, performing a diverse range of work from internationally renowned choreographers, such as Merce Cunningham, Glen Tetley, Christopher Bruce, Siobhan Davies, Twyla Tharp, Wayne McGregor, Michael Clark and more. This direct exposure to works which have defined the progress of contemporary dance has undoubtedly helped him to develop his own unique style. It was very important to be in a company where there is a high level of creative nurturing and continuous renewal… I had the chance to work with many, many choreographers and see the way they worked… Siobhan Davies, Merce Cunningham and Wayne McGregor are big influences and, like theirs, my work is movement orientated. Dance Europe, July 2003 Choreographic Workshop In the summer of 1999, Bonachela created a piece for Rambert’s annual choreographic workshop season, which provides opportunities for the dancers to choreograph their own work on their colleagues. Bonachela created a work for six dancers, Three Gone, Four Left Standing, which, to his surprise, was chosen by the company’s Artistic Director Christopher Bruce to be performed at Sadler’s Wells as part of their main programme the following autumn. That experience gave Bonachela the confidence to continue with choreography and he began work on another piece almost immediately, borrowing his colleagues whenever they weren’t needed for rehearsal. ‘From that point I don’t think I’ve ever had a week when I haven’t been choreographing. And it was never because someone asked me to.’ Bruce once again put Bonachela’s new work Linear Remains into the Sadler’s Wells repertoire in autumn 2001. Kylie Minogue Linear Remains was squeezed into the repertoire at the last minute as an extra piece and nearly missed its premiere when one of the dancers was injured and Bonachela had to go on instead. The piece was seen by Kylie Minogue’s creative director, William Baker, who was on the look out for avant-garde choreography. He commissioned Bonachela to choreograph first Kylie’s routine for the BRIT Awards, then her award winning 2002 world tour, Fever. Bonachela was not a Kylie fan – had never even seen a pop concert – but was prepared to give it a go. This was the first time someone from the outside believed in me and gave me such a responsibility. Until then I had just been a Rambert dancer for years, choreographing in my spare time. Bonachela in Ballet Magazine, April 2003 Bonachela’s unique approach to choreography, placing contemporary dance in a more mainstream context, was so highly acclaimed that he went on to work extensively with Kylie, choreographing the Top of the Pops Awards and the World Music Awards. He later went on to work on Primal Scream’s Miss Lucifer video,

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which was nominated for Best Video at the MTV Europe Music Awards in May 2002. Rafael collaborated again with Kylie’s creative team on the 2005 Showgirl tour and choreographed the videos for I believe in you and Giving you up. In 2003 he also received his first proper commission from Rambert to create ‘21’, a work inspired by Kylie and the idea of celebrity, which featured film of Kylie herself, created in collaboration with Kylie’s creative team – costume, lighting and set designers. Associate Choreographer for Rambert Dance Company In April 2003 he was appointed Rambert’s Associate Choreographer, a post held previously by internationally renowned choreographers such as Christopher Bruce and Siobhan Davies. September 2005 saw the premiere of his 8th work for Rambert, Curious Conscience for 20 dancers, set to music by Benjamin Britten, which explores themes of ‘night’, ‘sleep’ and ‘dreams’. Prize Winner Bonachela’s choreography has received professional recognition on several occasions. In 2003 he was a finalist in the Critics’ Circle National Dance Awards in the Best Choreography category, then in September 2004 he won the first ever Place Prize for Choreography, the audience vote award and the New York Bloomberg choice award. Other recent commissions include: Dies de Dansa Festival, Barcelona David Hughes Dance Company for the Edinburgh Festival Transitions Dance Company English Chamber Orchestra Dance Works Rotterdam Gloucestershire Youth Dance Company Bonachela has completed four dance films, including Nowhere Better than this Place with the director Livia Russell, and 21, a seven minute film featuring Kylie Minogue, which was shown as part of his dance work of the same name for Rambert. Publications with articles on Rafael Bonachela: • Ballet Magazine April 2003, interview with Catherine Hale • The Sunday Times magazine ‘The Next Big Thing’ • The Guardian, G2 section, 16 November 2004 • ID Magazine, December 2004 issue • The Telegraph, interview with Ismene Brown (‘Jumping-off Point’) • Dance Europe, July 2003 interview with Stuart Sweeney • Spanish Elle Magazine, December 2004 issue • Vanidad Magazine, Spain – ‘Heroes of 2004’ Further information: www.rafaelbonachela.com www.rambert.org.uk/aboutrambert/people www.theplaceprize.com www.danceeurope.net

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Choreographic process for Silence Disrupted: The main ideas of the work stem from the theme – ‘sensing change’. I used this to explore sensing dynamics and different movement qualities with the dancers. The dancers’ individual styles and approach to movement influenced my choreographic decisions. Rafael Bonachela, 2005 Union Dance draws together dancers with a great diversity of styles in their backgrounds. As well as being trained to professional level in contemporary dance, they have other movement experience, particularly in capoeira and hip hop. Instead of imposing a pure contemporary vocabulary on the dancers, Bonachela allowed their individual styles to influence his choreography. This meant that the style of movement suited the dancers’ bodies and abilities, whilst at the same time challenging them in new directions. Silence Disrupted builds from a series of abrupt cameos to a rocking group number, and keeps the dancers moving in sensitive, edgy dialogue with each other. Judith Mackrell, The Guardian, 13 May 2005 Body Map I sourced movement working with the dancers, for example I set specific tasks related to certain body parts. I used combinations of solo, duet and group works, dancers moving in unison and exaggeration of movement created in set tasks. Rafael Bonachela, 2005 One of the tasks he set can be seen on page 41. Bonachela asked dancers Michael Joseph and Garry Benjamin to work out a duet together. He gave them a hand drawn map, which demonstrated the directions in which they should travel – essentially an anti-clockwise oval. Along their pathway they had to follow increasingly complex instructions, which related to Body Parts, Actions or Directions. They had to interpret specific tasks such as ‘shoulder (left), around it, hip (left), grab it, bum, thigh, 3 steps away’ in order to create their own duet. Once the movement was in place, Rafael was then able to alter and develop the phrase as he wished. This way of working helped him to draw out the dancers’ own movement vocabulary and was also time effective, as he was able to work with other dancers on separate phrases while Michael and Garry created their duet. Music From the start of the rehearsal process, Bonachela was very clear about what kind of music he wanted, even though it was not yet in existence. He commissioned a recorded ‘soundscape’ from Santiago Posada, a Colombian multimedia and recording artist, living in the UK. The pair had previously collaborated when Posada co-wrote a 12-channel sound score for Bonachela’s E2 7SD, which won The Place Prize in 2004. Posada came in to rehearsals and worked very closely with Bonachela on counts and atmosphere and the music was only finished near the end of the process. The music was also an instrumental influence on my work. I like electronic sound. It is very ‘now’ / of the moment. Santiago is a long term collaborator and I felt that his style would suit Union Dance. Rafael Bonachela, 2005

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Hian Ruth Voon and Will Thorburn in Silence Disrupted. Photo: Tristram Kenton

Notes by the Composer On The Soundscape

The sound score makes use of sonic material that intends to intensify the highly physical energy of the choreography. The narrative of the piece evolves from subtle sound particles in random interaction with each other that eventually lock into musical coherence with an abstract sense of melody. There is an emphasis in the use of noise as a musical aspect, in order to explore its power as a physical tool, an element of disorientation that unsettles the senses and lead the audience to an altered state of perception. Sound can be felt as well as heard: sound energy turning into tactile messages. By doing this, the physicality of the choreography is mirrored by the physical nature of sound. The movement can be felt. The unsettling power of noise coupled with the rhythmical intensity of the piece echoes the speed, power and oppression of contemporary life, the noise of media, advertising, politics and the war. Most of the sounds in the score are recordings made in the street, which find connections and interactions with noise, music and electronics in order to reflect life in big cities. In this way the soundscape embraces and celebrates 21st century culture and the constantly changing environment in which we live. Santiago Posada