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Breaking new ground for fresh take on the wide world of dance
Rambert Dance Company, the Birmingham Royal Ballet, an international hip hop dance festival from Sadler's Wells, one of the most acclaimed contemporary dance movies of the past decade and a dance piece created in tribute to the coal mining industry.
If movement is your thing, then there must be something for you to enjoy over the coming month in Yorkshire. It begins tonight with Breakin' Convention.
An underground movement for so long, in recent years breakin' and hip hop dancing have become more mainstream, with contemporary dancers incorporating the moves of breakdancers.
The zenith of this incorporation came in 2004 when Sadler's Wells, the home of classical dance in England, decided to collaborate with a pioneer in the breakdance world, Jonzi D. The British hip hop artist, who trained at the London School of Contemporary Dance, was approached by the artistic director of Sadler's Wells, Alistair Spalding, to direct a fresh and innovative international festival of hip hop dance theatre.
Over the past five years, Breakin' Convention has grown and now includes artists from around the world – who come to Bradford tonight. This year's event features artists including Ken Swift, a pioneer of hip hop whose work has appeared in the movies Flashdance and Beat Street, and MyoSung, an award-winning troupe of dancers from Korea who bring a piece of dance which has a political message.
At the other end of the spectrum is Birmingham Royal Ballet. If aim of the artists appearing in Bradford is to break convention, this group is seeking to create it. The company is joined by the Royal Ballet Sinfonia to present a mixed programme at York's Theatre Royal
The highlight of next week's show is choreographer David Bintley's The Dance House. The piece was created following the death of a dancer colleague of Bintley's. He took his inspiration from a medieval poem and woodcut depicting the Danse Macabre and combines it with a score by Shostakovich.
Verve is the Northern School of Contemporary Dance's graduate programme. It stages an annual tour which features its leading dancers.
The latest show comes to Lawrence Batley Theatre in Huddersfield on Wednesday next week, when people will have a chance to see the dance stars of the future in action. Verve is presenting a mixed bill of new works commissioned from international choreographers Filip Van Huffel (Belgium), Glenn Wilkinson (UK) and Milan Koznek (Slovakia).
In addition, a number of dance artists from the North have created shorts for the Verve '09 repertoire; they include Jennifer-Lynn Crawford, Katie Baldwin and Leanne Pike.
In Hull on the same night, the Hulldance '09 season continues with a special screening of The Cost of Living. The film by dance company DV8, is based on a successful stage show of the same name. Choreographed and directed by Lloyd Newson, it has won 15 awards and is recognised as one of the best dance films of recent years.
Perhaps the most intriguing of all the dance pieces coming to Yorkshire is Coal.
Gary Clarke was born in Barnsley in 1980 and went on to train at the Northern School of Contemporary Dance. He has since become an award-winning dancer and choreographer who has worked with companies around the world.
He says he remains baffled to this day how a lad from Grimethorpe became a contemporary dancer – although he had an early brush with fame as an extra in the movie Brassed Off.
His celebrated 2007 piece Coal, brought to the stage by Sheffield-based company Danceworks, looks at the realities of life living in a pit village through the times of the miners' strikes.
"What I don't want to do is try to record the strike in dance on stage," he says.
"I want to comment on power and what happens when somebody has power and how it can have a massive effect because, even now, every time I go back to the village and step off the bus I feel the weight of the depression which still exists."
While contemporary dance and a working men's club in Rotherham might not immediately seem like the most obvious combination, Clarke is a local boy and his story, he says, is relevant to those communities where he is taking the show.
"I see Coal as a celebration of all those men who fought for their rights. It's also in some ways a power struggle between men and women because Thatcher represented what these men were fighting against – and then the strike became a battle of the wives when they took to the picket lines, too."
All the elements of dance are brought together at the beginning of June when the Rambert Dance Company comes to Leeds Grand Theatre.
One of the world's leading contemporary dance companies, it presents a new piece from Mark Baldwin, an Olivier award nominated choreographer.
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Weather for Yorkshire
Saturday 26 May 2012
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