'New Beginnings' Audience Comments and Thank yous

 

Shallal Dance Theatre 'Face To Face' 

Shallal 2 bow at end of 'New Beginnings'

Audience Comments for "New Beginnings"

"That was the most cheering beautiful and touching performance I think I've ever seen"

"Remarkable, the tenderness, the sense of relationship and hope. Wonderful"

"A lovely touching performance. a feeling of such love and support for each other xx"

" Thank you so much for a truly lovely evening and please do pass on the message to everyone who performed with breathtaking beauty and joy"

Personally so pleased to see everyone working at their best and really shining in this way of working.  Real equity on stage.

Debs daughter Ellie has kindly filmed it for us and some photos are coming in!

Thank you to

 our audience a wonderful varied one of all ages, approx 80 people

 to Julie and Tracy on the door

to Toby and Colin for patient rehanging/replacing art works, setting lights etc

to The Centre Newlyn for last minute lights

to Vicky and team at the Pavillions

to Lou for card reader set up! oh my tech..always helpful and long winded to learn but then so easy!

to our new evaluators Kelly (and Jen) and Bessie

to Chris our manager and our trustees

and the whole team including friends and family who provide transport and support 

and of course the performers!

some of who joined us the session before and some for 30 years

New Beginnings, Artists and Performers and programme

 New Beginnings 

Programme and list of artists/performers

Dancers

Shallal2 

Hannah Jacobs

Peter Kirby

Jo Lumber

Ishi Raina

Rita 

Demelza Rouncefield

Sasha

Becky Smith

Miles Stead

Shallal Dance Theatre

Toby Bridge

Tina Butler `

Colin Curbishley

Mads De Lord

Victoria Edwards

Linda Feeron

Katherine Giddings

Jilly Hellermen

Kerry Jackson

Jo Lumber 

Star

Melanie Stokes

Kerry Tomlins

Deborah Udy O'Nyons

Sam While 

Zoe Wilton

Backstage/ transport co-ordination and so much more: Colin Curbishley

Creative director: Jo Willis

Large Scale Paintings - Shallal Dance Theatre artists

Manager: Chris Gardner

Thank you to Tremayne at The Centre, Newlyn for lights.

'New Beginnings’

Shallal2

Music

Seize the day - Wax Tailor, Charlotte Savary

Rue de Trois Frères - Fabrizio Pateline

Without The Context of the Multitude? - Rzekomo

If My Love Was A Guitar - Tom Adams

New Beginnings Bureau, written and performed by  Jo Lumber 

British Sign L
anguage BSL - Jan Tillyard

Interval 15mins

‘Face To Face’

Shallal Dance Theatre

 ‘spontaneous response’ performance 

the dancers haven’t heard the album 

before so everything is new created in the moment

 in response to the music and each other 

and you!

Face To Face album - Alex Heffes

What is Face To Face?

“For years people asked me many variations of one particular question: 

“ Where does your inspiration as a composer come from?” 

This inspired me to make a record - one that was entirely improvised - 

nothing prepared in advance. 

I chose 6 inspiring collaborators to record in 6 inspiring locations. 

My task: to commit to whatever happened in that space on that day 

and make a piece of music. 

Face To Face is my answer to this question.” 

Alex Heffes

 https://www.face-to-face-album.com/

Thank you for coming 

Both these groups meet regularly and are open, do join us!

Shallal are committed to Culture Declares Emergency, 

last year we celebrated ‘Passing on Passmore,’ 

this year with all that is going on in our world, we want to celebrate ‘Migration’, 

we all move and we can enrich each others lives.

Thank you to all our artists and to all who support us.

DIY Fashion show

 Can't wait to see the DIY Fashion Show.

It's a dream come true for one of the artists Zoe Wilton. There has been a long and wonderful journey getting to this point, which probably needs its own blog sometime.

One for the artist facilitators for it is Amy and I'm just about to add her info rather late to our website.

There is now too much going on for my blog to represent it well....so please check out our News section on our website for updates and or follow instagram.

On Saturday we had Footnotes training for Shallal associate artists and facilitators.

https://footnotesvmt.com/visual-thinking-training-in-search-of-words/ 

Very interesting and i think will prove helpful to many of us, it was warmly recommended by Lou.

We are glad to be working with Kelly Taylor and Jen Roskilly Andrews who are doing our Arts Council evaluation, we feel we can really learn from them, it was a really good first meeting and they are deep diving into the Fashion show this Wednesday.

Meet the artists!

 Meet the artists!

The initial marks were created in performance at the Tate St Ives and then worked on back at our space on Friday afternoons for 5 sessions.

Toby, Kerry, Colin, Jo, Eddie, Tina and Sam

We plan to hang these for our next show at Princess Pavillions, Falmouth.

Just looked on https://www.falmouth.ac.uk/staff/kuldip-singh-barmi

"Kuldip's current performance work is based on his research into improvisation as a performance practice, instant composition."

Interested to see how similar it is to our 'spontaneous response.'

New Beginnings

 New Beginnings

title by Helen from Zoom sessions Dance and Art Connection

Relevant was our word for RE project with Make and Mends.

Growing on from our Passing On Passmore project and pod casts, we want to stay relevant but give light and hope. in my mind is the movement of peoples, migration and how we respond and how we can be good neighbours and a global community.

So i chose a lighter album than before for our spontaneous response performance. an album which celebrates improvisation - see last blog - and global artists meeting in the moment creating 'beauty,' finding a voice together. 

We have used 2 tracks in previous shows as i have known the album for some years. I was very excited when my brother and his wife after much searching worked with Alex Heffes for the music for their film, The Elephant Queen

https://filmmusicreporter.com/2019/11/01/the-elephant-queen-soundtrack-released/

so Shallal 2 are busy working on an opening performance 15-20 minutes and then Shallal Dance Theatre spontaneous response performance approx 50 minutes, unrehearsed unknown in the moment dance artists collaborating...love it!

Shallal Dance Theatre are excited for our next spontaneous response performance, along with a section by local Falmouth based Shallal 2.

Recent audience feedback includes "Shallal- Beautiful, truthful and very moving, this didn't feel like a 'labelled inclusive performance'

it was grace and expression on the deepest human level, almost spiritual. Totally absorbing."

Hope you can join us!

Tickets on the door, suggested price £5-10 or donation 

Accessible venue.

Wednesday 21 February 7pm

Princess Pavillions, 

Falmouth TR11 4AR

Shallal have pioneered an approach to dance theatre performance "spontaneous response,' derived from Open Improvisation, which aspires to access and equity at its heart by giving the decisions in the moment to the dance artists. It can create a warm rapport and relationship with the audience as well as with the other performers. Come along and enjoy this new and vital way of working. To an amazing soundtrack Face to Face https://www.face-to-face-album.com/

further information: joannawillis357@gmail.com

New year musings

 I have meant to do round up of last term, but that has passed i think, so, onto the new - Happy New Year 2024

Have just read Elizabeth's https://elizabethtomos.com/

"For me, tackling the ecological crisis is now the only thing that matters. It is everything. It is complex. It is political. It is tied up with every other form of social justice."

Everything has to be relevant! and then we have had storms rain flooding for it seems weeks and we think we need to also have cheer and hope to go forwards well, better

"Better Together"

Together for Change" - Tate title

and thinking of using Face to Face by Alex Heffes for our 'spontaneous response' performance, last time we used Landfall https://kronosquartet.org/recordings/detail/landfall/

Inspiration, improvisation, international collaboration in the moment meeting

'in that space on that day' spontaneous response performance

https://www.face-to-face-album.com/

What is Face To Face?

"For years people asked me many variations of one particular question: “Where does your inspiration as a composer come from?” This inspired me to make a record - one that was entirely improvised - nothing prepared in advance. I chose 6 inspiring collaborators to record in 6 inspiring locations. My task: to commit to whatever happened in that space on that day and make a piece of music. Face To Face is my answer to this question."

—Alex

Alex's album Face To Face is re-released today in a special  anniversary edition. The project features collaborations with Regina Spektor, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Yasmin Levy, Tunde Jegede, Matthew Barley and Kawesa and was recorded on location in Kampala, Uganda, New York, London's Tate Modern Turbine Hall, Oxford and Abbey Road's historic studio 2. The 2022 Mix features stunning new spatial audio mixes and a new bonus track with Alex & Tunde Jegede "Helios Rising'. Never before available on streaming services you can hear it now on all platforms:

https://Platoon.lnk.to/face-to-face

For more info and photos of the stunning locations and sessions visit https://www.face-to-face-album.com/

New favourite review! for Connecting forms Tate St Ives

Tate St Ives commmission for their Winter Festival, 'Together for Change'

 we created 'Connecting Forms'

It's been quite epic and fast and we have loved it.

for the company, 1 R&D day and then only 2 visits dancing in space with art workshops.

On the first performance i was handed a hand written piece of paper with one of our favourite reviews.

When we transferred to a charity and i had to explain what we did and self promote Shallal etc i baulked at it, however we found one way around it which is as often as possible use other peoples reviews so...

thank you for this one:

"Shallal- Beautiful, truthful and very moving, this didn't feel like a 'labelled inclusive performance'

it was grace and expression on the deepest human level, almost spiritual. Totally absorbing."

So we created 'Connecting Forms'

Music live and original with collected soundscape, thanks to Matt Thomason!

Barbara Hepworths recorded voice and Jillys collated sayings of Barbara Hepworth, Debs' evocative poem

All is Spontaneous response/Open Improvisation performance. Please note we do not know what we are doing till we do it, (only one suggestion for Jilly's word and one solo) everything else is totally devised in the moment!

They are impressive - they practice this approach to working together!

and oh we love cross art form work! thank you to Anna for introducing us to this particular gestural style on the paper, we want to do more.

We were pleased with how the collaborative banners turned out - thank you all!

Bobby is commissioned to make a film  from it all - we saw a short extract -beautiful 

and Steve Tanner was there also recording film and photos for the Tate, so we await all these with joy!

We will take away the 4 new collaborative drawings we created and work on them.

Thank you to George for recording some simple phone interviews for Lou and evaluation

I woke up yesterday with ideas for new art pieces project and Anna says she is interested in backdrops and Bunny and Hannah have joined us bringing their skills.

Well done and thank you to all the dancers /artists/performers - always a privelige to work together

and last of all what a space Porthmeor Beach behind us in light, shade and waves and a strange but wonderfully curved gallery with audience above and to the sides - always worth a visit Gallery 8!