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Tag Archives: Dance in Blaenau Gwent
Online work placements
We are pleased to share with you that we will be facilitating online work placements for 2 students from the University of Roehampton. They will be joining our Zoom classes on a Monday and Thursday, observing our teaching techniques and helping to lead online sessions. They start next week (18th January 2021).
We are most happy to be working with the University of Roehampton as a partner organisation and we look forward to welcoming Nicole and Rachel to our classes.
An Inspector Calls Day 5
Day 5 has been an absolute delight. We have spent time today in the studio piecing together the duets in Act 2 working on the all-important transitions that add coherence and meaning (sometimes esoteric) to the overall structure of the work. We have spent time filming Acts 1 and 2 in readiness for when we come back to the continuation of it and the completion of Act 3 and ultimately finish the piece ready for production.
What a luxury it is to have R&D time to explore ideas and let the muse guide you in your thoughts and processes – oh to have this more regularly!
Wishing you all a happy weekend, and see you on Monday for more ramblings on Crib.
sue lewis
Outreach at its most rewarding
2 of our youngest dancers at Desire To Dance Brynmawr
The past month has been truly rewarding with our dance faktry projects running concurrently at Brynmawr and Tredegar. Our Desire To Dance Project successfully ran at Tredegar and London last season; together with generous funding from Tai Calon Community Housing, we ran a similar project in Brynmawr for the children of the community in that area. They worked for 4 intensive full days over 2 weekends with Effie, Catrin, Louis and Cariad and produced a lovely piece of work focussing on touch and skin.
At Tredegar Comprehensive School Catrin, Julian and Louis worked with a group of young Performing Arts students to create a piece of work that was choreographed to music written by GCSE Music students from the school. 2 intense evenings from 3.30pm – 8pm were spent making the work. We facilitated this project with funding from a legacy given to Arts Development at Aneurin Leisure, kindly donated to give young people experience with music and theatre.
The 2 pieces were shown to friends and family at the Annual Dance Showcase organised by Aneurin Leisure Arts Development at The Met Theatre in Abertillery, our home theatre.
Desire To Dance Brynmawr
The experiences gained by the children and young people were many, but I think the most valuable things learnt were working together to produce a high quality product and digging dip and finding inner strength especially when exhausted! Of many evaluations from the project participants who were all wowed by their achievements was a comment to Catrin – “you’ve changed my life” – a lump comes into my throat as I write.
Moving on then, we turn our thoughts to our next outreach project, the Summer Dance School. More about that very soon, please feel free to pass on this flyer to all young people who you think may benefit ..
sue lewis
All go
FFIN DANCE
Image Paul Trask
So it’s all GO this week in the South Wales valleys. Fellow company dancer, Catrin and I arrived Monday afternoon ready to lead our first workshops passing on the movement material and ideas behind the t e n Tour 2016 to the local community. We had 4 workshops happening across the evening for a variety of ages from infants to seniors from groups including Ffin Infants & Juniors, Ffin Youth Dance Company and Toppers School of Dance & Drama.
The young dancers had an amazing time, showing great energy, enthusiasm and interest in the workshop content. We were also delighted to be joined by Sarah Lee Pryke who will be joining FFIN DANCE later in the summer. Sarah has already begun learning and researching our new repertoire and assisted Catrin and Julian to deliver yesterday’s workshops.
With the première of our new dance works fast approaching, the real work is yet to begin. Tuesday has been a day of admin, planning, costume fitting and photoshopping – not to mention a slice of Grandma’s fruit cake and a cheeky glass of wine!
We’re back in the studio today for some last minute rehearsals and fine tuning. We also have more community workshops and are leading professional company class on Thursday and Friday. This Friday night will be my first full-length performance with FFIN DANCE and I’m especially excited as it marks the beginning of the 10th anniversary celebrations for the company. It’s been such a pleasure to work with Sue and my fellow performers Catrin, Effie and Natasha so far and I can’t wait to share the stage with them.
If you haven’t yet booked your tickets for the show, we’d love to see you there!
Friday 20th May, 7:30pm – The Met, Abertillery – tickets are £8/£6, call the box office on 01495 355800 to book
Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook, Twitter and our website for updates on our future performances and projects.
Thanks, Julian
Summer outreach activity
Last night saw the beginning of an extensive summer education and outreach programme. Our company dancers Catrin, Julian and Sarah worked with over 60 children in Blaenau Gwent linking in with our new work from t e n Tour 2016 with partner organisations Toppers Dance and Aneurin Leisure Trust. Later this week we will be working with another 50 children and young people at The Beaufort Theatre in Ebbw Vale.
Next month, we will be working with children in Brynmawr as part of a partnership programme with Tai Calon Community Housing, bringing professional dance to young people over a period of 2 free weekend courses. We will also be working with the Music Department at Tredegar Comprehensive: using music composed by the pupils themselves, we will be choreographing a new piece of work to be performed in the Aneurin Leisure annual dance showcase.
July sees the company delivering a number of Summer Dance Schools in Blaenau Gwent in partnership with the Arts Development team at Aneurin Leisure.
If you’d like any information about dates, venues and how to enrol, please text 07854 910926 or e mail info@ffindance.co.uk
sue lewis