Busy week!

A busy 7 days:
Acorn dress rehearsal, squeezing us into back stage and a much smaller performance space than the front of Godolphin House for Doorways, or the plaza outside the Falmouth Library for Ladders and Footprints, however the Acorn has it's own quirky steps, levels and layout! so all sorted now ready for our first indoor show this Friday 7pm at the Acorn Theatre. A big thank you in advance for Ian While and Jacob Wheeler for stepping in to do the lighting for us - when our original technician was double booked! and to Colin and Victoria for all the behind the scenes co-ordination.
A highlight of the show will be the Duchess and the doll,  a short film made by Barbara Santi and Shallal artists, writer and performers, it was filmed on site at Godolphin House in the gardens while the bluebells were out in Spring 2016.

Straight after that Colin rounded up enthusiasts for a presentation and photo shoot at Penzance Co-op on Saturday.
Dear Lou Brett has worked tirelessly behind the scenes raising awareness and fund raising for all our community groups, and this time it paid off so well, raising more that we asked for from the Co-op scheme. Many thanks to her and all the Shallal performers who turned out to make it such a good occasion, and to all our supporters who took the time to vote for us, photos on FB https://www.facebook.com/ShallalDanceTheatreCompany
They were dancing in the aisles!

"I had the most brilliant time yesterday with Kerry, Colin, Zoe Wilton, Johnathon, George, Dillon and Charlie (from Open House).

The staff at Co-op were, really positive, kind and appreciative of Shallal's participation in their day, and of Shallal's amazing pop-ups.

All the dancers coped so well with the unusual space, positively embraced it, and expected shoppers to embrace it too! They went off dancing through queues at the tills and down the aisle.

........ Thank you everyone for a wonderful morning!" Lou Brett

In the background Colin, Victoria and I have just finished writing about 2016-2017 for the Annual report, (the AGM is 15 December St Peters Hall, Newlyn 9.30am - 12.30pm followed by Christmas Party 1-3pm, this year it is themed with quiz and games requested by Peter Kirby for all those with seasonal holiday birthdays, Peter will be 31 this year!)
 and as always what shows up is how Shallal is "the sum of its parts" and last night Maz suggested we enter the Christmas Tree Festival in Falmouth at Gyllyngdune gardens so after Fridays Show,  it's tree decorating on Saturday 3-5pm at Gyllyngdune Gardens tbc, ready for an opening at 5.30pm Sunday !
We hope it will become an annual event that we participate in and we look forward to working with Gyllyngdune Gardens and Jacqui Owen who are always so supportive.

Short snap shots into Shallal's external life:
Rehearsing, large project winding up - Doorways Project finishes in June 2018
New community group receiving funding from it's local community, our Pop Up style performances out and about again
A full theatre show at the Acorn
Shallal members' initiative to be part of the local community, doing something fun and awareness raising together...
all this on top of our normal sessions...

I could expand but for now
Thank You all and a Happy Advent to you all.
See you somewhere soon, there's a lot to come along to!

Grateful thanks for Danu and new music

About ten years ago Shallal said goodbye to an old friend and supporter Eileen Inge Herzberg.
Eileen was an unofficial aunt to my family and there for us all when our fifth child was born caring for all the others at home while i was in hospital. She travelled to India and from there we heard she died from pneumonia at Goa, her heart wasn't well ....
Eileen was a large personality radiating joy to those she knew...
We dedicated a show to her, which remains Colin's favourite, Mind the Gap, it included wonderful sculptures, film etc.
http://shallal-arts.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/zoes-small-pictures-tobys-paintings-and.html

Eileen was close friends with Danu who came in to help with music, ended up also doing our admin and then became our first Arts Council funded development officer, she enabled Shallal to become a charity and have a public face and put in all the first round of background effort needed to create it as it is now!
She had to drag us ( i worked then with Phil Jacobs who was our theatre facilitator http://www.philjacobs.talktalk.net/index.html) into the new ways of doing things, not an enviable task! force me to articulate what i had done instinctively for over 15 years, and she came up with the line "Shallal celebrates ability, diversity and community."
She bought Shallal's first film camera which opened doors to many beautiful pieces with images, in our shows at the Acorn.

So all this is to celebrate her life and gifts and say thank you, as Danu died early last Monday morning.

I was especially moved last Tuesday morning (in the early hours of 'better turn on the computer and catch up' - as the next 4 days are going to start and won't stop) as interrupting my 'to do' list there came a reason why we do this, a beautiful piece of music (earlier this term Shallal commissioned a piece of music) from Darcy Hodgkinson.
He was inspired by the image of "Dancing in the evening skies."
And it feels right to dedicate it to Danu and we will do work in memory of her. ( Eddie emailed to remind me).
I then went to the Liskeard group who were working on the Dark Skies theme for Vital Spark last  Saturday. So i was able to share it immediately.

What feels important is our legacy, what we leave behind and how we are remembered, we are very grateful to Danu for all the hard work she invested in Shallal and remember some wonderful music and singing.
Recently life did one of its circles as Danu's daughter Molly joined Shallal Dance Theatre.

 We can express the deepest parts of ourselves and our deepest prayers through song. 
Danu Fox

We send our love to Molly, Graham and Ian and all Danu's family and friends.

Molly on the right in Ladders and Footprints at Holifield this summer

this was in the Cornishman!
Jo - dance, Danu - music, and Phil - theatre

Phil, Graham and Danu

Danu and Molly 

Creation Space R&D outdoors and indoors

My favourite

Can't wait to put these photographs from yesterday on Facebook, so putting them here so i can warble on a bit.....

Thank you to George for them and to Colin for organising it...

We have 19 pieces of film and a few more to come from our Creation Space R&D at Back Lane West for now they will go on Vimeo but it might be one a week for now!

The above photos are exciting as they are the outdoor research, which Colin and co were able to do.

I have just uploaded a link to one from the studio on our Facebook page, it was hard to choose which but in the end i know Zoe is confident and such a performer!
https://www.facebook.com/ShallalDanceTheatreCompany
https://vimeo.com/240656671
Art done by the group the day before!
It was a fortuitous last minute offer from Jacqui to come and sing/improvise with Eddie, so that also felt good.

And now that Book, which i have been putting off as i have to dig through archives and macbook clutter to find the information needed, we have so much, i don't want to let down the artists, but also now there is more time i look forward to doing it and handing it over the material to others with more skill....