Tag Archives: dance

All things new

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Winter dance intensives 2016 Image Paul Trask

Winter dance intensives 2016
Image Paul Trask

At the start of the calendar year, our attention turns to planning ahead and realising plans and projects that were made last year.

2017 is going to be a year of big changes for FFIN DANCE if all of our plans come to fruition, mainly our bid for Beaufort Theatre and Ballroom.  We are hoping to take the venue as a community asset transfer from Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council: if we are successful we will be bringing a whole new range of services to the community and offering training and volunteering opportunities for the public in catering, arts business and admin, customer care, and more.  So we will see a bigger and busier dance faktry, supplying much-needed services to our community and creating new jobs too.  If you would like more information on how to join us, please get in touch.

The company dancers will be back in the studio in February after a break, and we’ll be finishing off our new full length work, Virago
To kick off the Virago season, we will be attending the launch of John F Wakes’s book The Cruel Streets Revisited next Tuesday 17th January at the Norwegian Church in Cardiff.  The main character of our work Virago is centred around Minnie McGuire who was the most-arrested person in Victorian Wales; she has her own chapter in John’s book!  John and I will be working in collaboration for this project and the book launch sees the start of that journey for 2017

The company will be touring this work from May 2017 and we very much hope you can join us.
I’d like to wish you all a most happy and healthy year ahead, please keep following our progress and sending in your comments and views.

sue lewis

Winter dance faktry festival 2016

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winter dance faktry festival 2016

winter dance faktry festival 2016

Our twice yearly festival for dance will be held at The Met in Abertillery on November 12th 2016 at 7.30pm.  It’s an opportunity for children, young people and emerging professional dancers to perform and share their work to a packed audience which is supportive and full of enthusiastic friends and parents.

It’s a most special event which aims to promote dance in the community and provide dancers with a professionally produced showcase, giving the festival participants a taste for performance and choreography

 

Summer outreach activity

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_DPT3376Last 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

Happy new year

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Memoir

Memoir

The company started back in the studio in February 2016 and started our new year with 2 weeks rehearsing my new work True and also re-working my 2008 piece Duetti.
It was a very odd journey going back in time to the early days of our company life as so much water has gone under the bridge since then, and the company has come so far.  We celebrate our ten years as a company this year and it seemed right somehow to bring one of my older pieces back for the season.
In addition to these two pieces, we are also presenting work that is a joint collaboration between our company dancers Catrin and Julian.  A duet called Memoir which takes the form of an autobiographical journey which promises to be funny, sad, happy, poignant, and everything else in between.  The dancers have been in the studio this week making the first steps to choreographing the work.

Here’s a little preview

Catrin and Julian are also performing with Traceworks very soon at the Swallowsfeet Dance Festival in Brighton, catch them if you can.

More details to follow with our t e n Tour 2016 we hope you’ll tune in.

sue lewis

 

 

 

t e n Tour 2016

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10FFIN DANCE is ten years old this year and we celebrate with our new triple bill   t e n

In just a week, our company dancers are all back in the studio, and we can now share the content of our new triple bill line up.  We started work on my new piece True back in the Autumn of 2015, and we’ll be just finishing off this delightful quartet for the full company next week.

The second piece is a New Work, that’s a collaboration between myself and 2 of our company dancers Catrin and Julian.  Performed as a duet, it will be very much a reflection of the 2 dancers and their personalities.  Watch this space over the coming weeks for more blogs and tweets.

And to complete the bill will be Duetti, which I made for the company back in 2008.  Accompanied by the haunting songs of Björk, Duetti is as the name implies, a series of duets. Sometimes working with the songs and other times existing as 2 separate elements, the dancers execute lyrical duets.
The organic nature of the songs from Medúlla refer to the purest essence of something and explore the ritual power of the voice in a way that’s primal and elaborate. Several of the songs are sung in Icelandic, which work particularly well with movement. The rolling r’s, guttural stops and elongated vowels reflect the alternately chopped and soaring arrangements behind them.
Unfettered sensuality winds through the songs, with Björk’s voice being miked very closely giving the sense of listening to her from inside her larynx. I was originally inspired by the landscape of Northern Tuscany, when I created the duets: often jagged but occasionally silky and always stunning, the duets unfold in a seamless and intricate order, each one developing from its predecessor.
Described by an audience member at Chisenhale in 2008 – “DV8 meets Matz Ek”

As always we will be posting blogs and tweeting our studio experiences, hope that you’ll join us in our conversations.

sue lewis

Easter Intensives 2016

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Image Paul Trask

Image Paul Trask

We’d like to invite you to apply for our professional development Easter Intensives 2016

The intensive will run on April 4th/5th and 6th 2016 at our home base, The Met in Abertillery,
Wales UK

The course is aimed at professional dancers, or those in professional dance training at undergraduate level, and will concentrate on dance technique and performance skills.

You will be taking professional class each morning, and learning a piece of the company’s current repertoire. This extract will be performed to a public audience in the theatre on the Wednesday evening.

How to apply
Please send your current CV and video link to:
info@ffindance.co.uk
by Friday February 26th 2016

The course fee is £50

Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you would like more information 07854 910926

New company dancer – part 2

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523238_10151376905219344_497662062_nYou join me after the end of a jam-packed first week with the company. We have started working on Sue’s new work for next year’s tour, True as well as rehearsing the current triple bill, The Power of 3, for the performance at Bedwellty House & Park in Tredegar and this coming Friday in London.

As a new dancer, I have been included in Catrin’s work, d-cay and have learnt a couple of sections for these performances. From my perspective, it has been the perfect balance to learning some repertoire and jumping straight into the performance mode but to also take a back seat during the other 2 pieces and appreciate the performances of my fellow dancers. It is inspirational to see how refined and ‘in-the-body’ the existing work is on the other 3 dancers and it fills me with energy as we move on to the new work. This week also saw the first Desire to Dance project in which we created a new piece on students from Tredegar Comprehensive School in only 2 sessions to then be performed on the Friday evening. The project was a great success and it filled all members of the FFIN DANCE team with immense satisfaction to see how much was achieved by every individual in such an intense process. Well done all!

Until next time… and if you’re in the London area this Friday, don’t forget to book your tickets to see the current triple bill (The Power of 3) as well as a guest performance from Vision Youth Dance Company (Highgate School).
Venue: St Paul’s Community Centre, Marylebone. Tickets are £10, call or text 07854 910926.

See you there.
Julian

New company dancer – part 1

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523238_10151376905219344_497662062_nHello all, this is my first blog post as a new company member of FFIN DANCE.
I was delighted to be offered the role of company dancer back in August and feel especially privileged to be joining the company ahead of the 10th anniversary next year. My first encounter with the company was back in 2012 when I participated in the professional Easter intensive and performed in a new piece, Homage to Cello, as part of the Easter Dance Faktry Festival. I thoroughly enjoyed the taster of Sue’s detailed choreographic style, the connections to the music and how she allowed each dancer to play to their strengths in the work. I was encouraged to apply for this opportunity by fellow company dancer, Catrin Lewis, with whom I was in the same year of study at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance.

My working relationship with Catrin began this same year, performing in each other’s choreographies as well as sharing the Laban stage in a commissioned work by Kerry Nicholls in 2013.

Catrin continued to keep me in the loop with all the goings-on at FFIN DANCE when she officially joined the company upon her graduation. I also maintained contact with Sue, informing her of my own professional development as I toured with EDge, the postgraduate performance company at London Contemporary Dance School. This contact sustained my interest in the company and in February 2014 I made a trip to The Met in Abertillery to join company class. I was then offered to shadow some of the company rehearsals with Gary Lambert and in July joined Catrin as a teacher on the Blaenau Gwent Senior Summer Dance School. As a new company dancer, I am full of excitement as to what the coming year will have in store. I look forward to the studio research and all of the creative outcomes and challenges it will bring. I also can’t wait to perform and share our work with a variety of audiences in different locations. I’m hopeful that I’ll offer a new flavour to what is already a dynamic group of professional dancers.

Julian

 

Winter Intensives 2015

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FFIN DANCE Image Paul Trask

FFIN DANCE
Image Paul Trask

We’d like to invite you to apply for our professional development Winter Intensives 2015

The intensive will run on November 12th/13th and 14th 2015 at our home base, The Met in Abertillery, Wales UK
The course is aimed at professional dancers, or those in professional dance training at undergraduate level, and will concentrate on dance technique and performance skills.  You will be taking professional class each morning, and learning a piece of the company’s current repertoire.  This extract will be performed to a public audience in the theatre on the Saturday evening.

 

How to apply
Please send your current CV and video link to:
info@ffindance.co.uk
by Friday 16th October 2015

The course fee is £50

Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you would like more information 07854 910926