new website

Hi, whilst waiting for a designer we were inspired by Lou Brett to make our own new website - till funding, interns or volunteers arrive!! - and so it is now up and running, still things to add and tweek but more user and designer friendly - we hope. Many thanks to Jem for our last website which served us really well till recently. "Your website, shallal.org.uk, was born at 11:04am PDT on Thursday, August 14, 2014. It weighs a healthy 18 pages and 47 elements." It's built on Weebly which we highly recommend. So ....constructive feedback welcome. Holidays now happening, Thank you to Kneehigh Rambles for the offer of tickets to their new show. Off to book in Melanie Young and Sean Donohoe for workshops next term. They are our exciting visiting artists on The Wardrobe Project. photo by Zoe

link to paraorchestra

Kneehigh have kindly offered us tickets again to their latest show, thank you, and while looking around their information, I followed links from Charles Hazelwood who had been highly spoken of by Anna a year or so ago. I also heard recently a little of how he rehearsed which was exciting and confirming to the way we approach the creative process so here is http://www.paraorchestra.com/people.php?type=musicians a really interesting link and i like the quote which is similar to what we hope/aim to do with our new open improvisation style.

Shallal 2 Shared Vision .....some photos

Well done and thank you to Anne, Peter, Miles, Skye Jo and Anna and of course Colin for Playfest and to Matthew and team for coping with my, "shall we / shan't we" attitude to the dance floor shall we leave it, take it up, take it  half up!!)

Last night i also had the pleasure of watching echoes dance co at The Performance Centre and seeing old friend Olga (who performed for 12yrs in Shallal - time flies). Their second half piece was a lovely mixture of structure and improvisation with many facets and moods.

David who was there reminded about photos of Shallal 2 so in preparation for my holiday i hope to post some now. These are by Simon Roff.......

Leigh

Jo, Paul and Anna

There are still some nice rehearsal photos by Annis ( Happy Birthday to Annis - we owe her some cake and a card!) i will ask someone else to choose more.....

Playfest Shallal 2 outreach debut

Tomorrow sees us at Playfest

 https://www.facebook.com/KernowLive1?ref_type=bookmark

Shallal 2's outreach debut, 6 dancers joined by guest artist! Colin from the main company, I can't really do outreach (or much in performance work) without Colin and you can enjoy a workshop with him after the short show. A chance to see Shallal 2's work from Shared Vision in an entirely different venue. 

Timings at present are Performance 3.15pm and Workshop 4pm.

Although some of the performers are in both companies Shallal 2's work has a different style and feel which was commented on after the last show.

All photos from Shallal 2's Shared Vision except this one. Peter was very keen to try the main co and so he joined us for one of George's improvisations, seen here he is with Skye and Colin - who is dropping in or bouncing out!!

Anna in mid air, thank you to Freefall, http://www.freefalldance.co.uk/#home Anna, Skye and now Annis enjoy Emily and Grace's classes and it gives them more technique to combine with and develop their work

Birdgirl this piece was originally developed for Mind the Gap in memory of Eileen and it is lovely to see it revived differently, it is now nearly 7 years since Eileen died.

photos by Andy Parker and Simon Roff.

crowd funder for making time new photographic constructions

Our home, used for Shallal summer picnics, normally has nine to eleven people living in it. We are fortunate to have interesting and lovely people often live with us as lodgers or tenants, Oli and Zeph lived in our blue hut for quite a while and this is Oli's crowd fund request. His photography sometimes reminds me of the powerful stillness and abstraction of Rothko and so if you feel like supporting contemporary art/photography, please consider this. 

".........a group of us have just launched a crowd funding project on Kickstarter  and we need your support.

We are putting on a photographic exhibition at the Penwith Gallery in St. Ives this Autumn and are seeking funding to print a unique, limited edition catalogue to go with the show.

Follow the link below to our Kickstarter page and watch the video, as you will see you do actually get something in return for your hard earned cash!

Please pledge if you can as every bit helps....We are almost a third of the way there!"

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/406403428/making-time-new-photographic-constructions

Shared Vision some Shallal Dance Theatre photos by Simon Roff and link to Andy's

Big thank you to Jo Lumber's friend Jeff Roff who kindly came and took photographs for us at Shared Vision. "Thank you for a very entertaining evening with lots of magical moments."

There are more photos coming of Shallal 2 and we are pleased to have them as they need some high quality images.
However it challenges my indecision to choose them, so here is a first selection and more soon.
Shallal performers can see all Jeff's photos next term on my macbook.

Big thank you to to our friend Andy Parker who came along and took photographs for us, his are available to view on: https://www.flickr.com/photos/fezparker/sets

I have put this selection in as it shows the development within one of George's pieces....these are our new open improvisations.

George in the corner
George recently had a successful personnel grant from the ganetrust.org.uk.
Big thank you to them as George can now share and develop playing with talented company members on another wave drum. It was wonderful to hear his music within the space. Thank you again to somewhere- to and the Performance Centre ( James, Nick and Adrian ) for making this event possible!

Structure, freedom and intent, so excited to see everyone rise to and explore this new development of our work

it allows so many more dynamic possibilities and gives the artists more freedom of expression, choice, direction etc

La Mer, Jo Lumber's inspired idea has now been seen: around St Ives,  Mazey day, Morrab Gardens and Penzance prom , in a marque at Holifield, in a courtyard at Godolphin House and finally here at The Performance centre, where next?

Jo, Lauren and Toby in La Mer 

Off today to visit Charlotte at Kneehigh office, and Peter Bates at VSF - about the Shallal Studio initiative - and  meeting with Colin tomorrow and then Playfest with Shallal 2 on Thursday and the holidays!

Thank you to everyone involved in Shallal, creatively it has been a good year, despite many unexpected changes, and the creative work keeps developing and we are so pleased to have Toby back moving after his fall.

Art sale and definitions/descriptive language, the person and art.

Hi everyone, thank you for a great day yesterday, quality not quantity was the name of the day, we had a steady stream of visitors and supporters and we are all becoming art collectors i reckon, such a wonderful range of art for sale and we sold well, eating cake, drinking tea and listening to some fantastic music.
Zoe took some good photos with her new camera so photos coming soon or next term. Thank you to everyone who helped and make it happen.
It's in the Shallal calendar now and we will shape it differently each year but the open mike session is firmly established and a chance for us to appreciate talent and have fun.

I am often interested to see where the morning emails lead me, i had no intention of doing much but sending a quick message this morning but ended up on http://www.disabilityartsinternational.org/
and found myself writing this:

Hi, 

I have just been on your website, your link was sent to me by our chairperson. I have been involved in working with people with various support needs all my career and am saddened to find the Disability term still put before the art. We work in a rural but highly artistic area, in West and mid Cornwall. The population is not dense and so we have been a mixture of artists from the beginning although we grew from members of a local Gateway Club. From the start we had a mother involved and then local artists went on to ask to join us, currently we have a real mix and are finding more people with chronic health conditions working with us than before.

We feel very little identity with the term disability except in people's support needs, we resonate with "We know that many artists do not wish for their work only to be seen in one narrow context"

We do not at present make political work, to see people working together is a political statement for inclusion and fairness. The Community Dance Foundation also use Deaf and Disabled artists. I feel sad as i would not want to promote our work through these established avenues, as i feel it would not be supporting the artists i work with by defining them by their support needs before their person.

Many years ago there was a People First campaign, where did all that go?

too often it is the people with the loudest voices who define movements and those gentler, less angry ones do not get heard.

It is a fascinating website and it looks as if some wonderful things are happening for people, but please drop all the labels and just add them when and if necessary after the person /artist, or as the artist chooses to define themselves and don't lump everyone together.

I realise this is the tip of the iceberg in a long historical arts debate but i just want to add a voice, as I have worked in this field for approx 30 years, and been refining and observing my use of language and description over that time.

I don't suppose it will make much difference and have written to Community Dance Foundation in the past as well, but we can only hope and stay true to our experience and what we believe in. Some people in Shallal are happy to use labels around their support needs and some aren't, when we started one of our founding highly talented dancers Tim was not, so his perspective combined with Diana Morris's well worked out ethos and politics and our feelings and observations of how we wanted to work together defined our ethos. We have had difficulty keeping labels out of press write ups etc, ( and haven't always succeeded) but that is our policy. We will use them in funding applications if necessary ( though we prefer not to) as we often need double the support within sessions to provide a safe environment, and other enabling factors such as transport. We request that people come to our sessions with 'adequate support' and this is individual.

I will stop now, this is a dense multi perspective area/debate and i haven't set out to write an essay on it this morning, but just to wave a flag from the corner of Britain and say we don't all feel an alignment with the language and culture being promoted and please listen to, look out for and include the other voices.

( The other problem with early morning " where do your emails lead you" is my poor sentence construction etc, so an apology as not enough re reads in any of the above! resulting in poor writing).

Another sunny Cornish day rises to greet us.

BIg thank you to a Foundation which wishes to remain unnamed for funding a really exciting new Wardrobe Project, more soon!

and a quick photo i meant to add yesterday... 

La Mer at Godolphin House
Photo Ian While

final word is i am now off to write that original message email!

Sam performance photos from Mazey day and art

Sam's on holiday so not with us today, so I have uploaded Ian's photos - thank you Ian

and here are a range with a Sam and art theme from Mazey day.

More photos from events coming soon

meanwhile today is art, music and cake!

thank you to Tony, Jo's friend and honorary umbrella holder and sedan carrier for the day

a beautiful day the privilege of living and working in such an amazing place...
......working to avoid work about to pack the car with art etc...
and pass this view on Penzance Prom very soon.