Tag Archives: Missing Pages

Camelot Inquisition

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Cardiff Castle remembers the fallen

On a wet and windy morning last week, Megan and I went to the book launch of The Camelot Inquisition written by Welsh author John F. Wake.  We arrived at Cardiff Castle and were shown to a marvellous old room where John would be talking about his new book.  The book, published by Little Acorns Publishers, will be in the shops from the first week in December and looks at King Arthur, Merlin and The Grail.

John spoke passionately about how Wales has much written evidence regarding the Arthurian story documented by Geoffrey of Monmouth, and yet the popular more modern stories of Tintagel and Camelot have overtaken the more ancient Welsh writing.

John has written the story of Walter Walters for FFIN DANCE, which I have choreographed into a dance work entitled Missing Pages.  It is the memoir of a soldier from WW1 with a shocking guilty secret to tell, Missing Pages is set to the marvellous Ravel Sonata for Violin and Cello.  We will be touring this work in 2013 – opening in London in March.

 

Anyone enjoying the Arthurian Legend will love this book, get along to Waterstones and have a look.  John has also published various other books, check out his stuff on kindle too.

sue lewis

Missing Missing Pages…

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Missing Pages
Photo Paul Trask

Our 3 week creation period for Missing Pages ended on Friday and it feels very odd to part ways with the work for a time having delved so far into Ravel’s Sonata, John F Wake’s short story ‘Walter Walters’ and our own material informed by Sue’s creative tasks. Having inhabited this world and settled into such a sense of structure each day, company class followed by creation and rehearsal sessions, now comes an inevitable period of readjustment for each of us…which right now is feeling strange indeed.

In my experience, no matter what the length of the creation period there is always a sense of wanting those few extra days at the end just to round everything off and while I would happily have continued with Missing Pages this week I think we have left it in a strong place with space to breathe. On Friday, we filmed a rough version of our final run of the piece so we will be able to use this as reference point for where we left off and hopefully a little time away will give us a greater perspective on the piece as a whole – allowing ideas to assimilate from their distinct jigsaw shapes being pieced together.

We will be back revisiting and sharing the material for the Winter Dance Faktry’s Professional Development Course – so if you’d like to get a first-hand sense of the movement material perhaps we’ll see you there?

In the meantime, it’s time for us to get back into Connections Tour mode ready for our performance at DanceLive in Aberdeen next week….

Effie 🙂

 

John F. Wake Approves

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Missing Pages
Photo Paul Trask

Welsh author John F. Wake who has written the short story entitled Walter Walters says of a short film extract “the music, the dance, the choreography made this short sequence [of Missing Pages] extremely seductive and powerful. I can imagine when it is finished and in a packed theatre the audience will be transfixed from start to finish”
John’s story of a WW1 soldier and his guilty secret is the inspiration for Sue Lewis’ newest work for FFIN DANCE – Missing Pages.  The company is really happy that John approves of the way in which his story has been used.

Please take a look at our blogs and images of the rehearsal period

week 3 all steam ahead :)

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Evening everyone!

Sorry for the delay since my last blog, its been quite a busy few days in addition to my weekend work, so my free time has been spent digesting all we have done and allowing my brain to wind down. Feeling quite refreshed after today’s work and a lovely bath so lets get down to business.

We are now into our final creation week with our new piece, Missing Pages, and it’s certainly starting to take shape. Having worked extensively on movements 1,3 and sections of 4, to the beautiful string sonata score by Ravel the previous week, we began this morning by tackling movement 2. We were tasked initially to listen closely and see if we could identify familiar musical phrasings that have been explored in the other sections of music. This proved quite difficult to begin with, yet after listening all together we began to notice points within the score that were familiar. The music has shown itself to be very clever yet simple in its treatment and development in each section. I still find it incredible that such a rich, expressive and emotive piece of music only uses two instruments.

It has been so helpful using the written score as a visual aid alongside listening to the music on the sound system or our ipods. It gives you an added layer to draw upon as you can see the changes in dynamics, how subtle or strongly notes are played to sections of music that are developments of each other, mirrored or in contrast. I find that it allows you to understand the music in a much deeper sense and will in turn inform how you execute movement in its physical exertion to its intention. I hope to be able to continue working like this and am eager to learn more, it has even reawakened my desire to play music,  I might just have to bring my violin out from its hiding place in the attic and maybe I’ll finally pluck up the courage to learn the harp, my favourite instrument. will keep you posted 🙂

Looking forward to seeing the week through and bring the pieces to its completion. still lots to do and things to work on so here’s to a busy week.

Chat soon,

ttfn,

Mike 🙂

Back in the valleys…

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We’ve just come to the end of week one back in Abertillery starting work on new piece Missing Pages. For me, it’s been my first experience working with Sue Lewis in choreography mode as opposed to director of the company in rehearsals and on tour (or as floor barre teacher if we go as far back as the Winter Dance Faktry Festival last year!)

It’s also the first time I’ve met Adam who bounded into the studio on Monday morning and is certainly a very exuberant addition to the team. My new interesting fact for the week has also come from Adam who, whilst I was eating my post-class morning banana, told me that the more ripe/ black a banana is, the higher its glycaemic index…so just thought I’d share!

Within the work itself, we are working as 2 duets with Meg and Adam paired together and Mike with myself. While Mike and I had a snippet of a duet in the cause and effect section of Synapsequence, this is the first time that we are working as a sustained partnership.

So I may be back in the valleys but it’s definitely a fresh new start for the Inspired season ahead!

Effie 🙂

Missing Pages #5

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Missing Pages

Day 5 saw the close of the first week of my studio time with the dancers making Missing Pages.  Using a short story written for us by John F Wake, together with divine music by Ravel, the work is s series of male/female duets depicting the memoirs of an imaginary character Walter Walters.

I am very much privileged to be working with an amazing team of artists on this piece, with the dancers playing a pivotal role in the combination of the elements – they have been amazingly creative in the studio this week, surpassing all of my expectations (which are pretty demanding)

Today we welcomed another team member, photographer Paul Trask, to our creative session.  We were located at Llanhilleth Railway Station in Abertillery, South Wales, for a photo shoot which at times reminded me of Brief Encounter.  We shot some really evocative images which will be used throughout the coming season for our Inspired Tour 2013

All in all a great week, I look forward to sharing more with you next week – have a great weekend!

sue lewis

Sore bodies on day 4 :)

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Hi everyone

Well, it’s almost been a week here in the studio working on our first new piece, Missing Pages, ready for next season. It has been lovely to return to the studio and start creating again, as everything is fresh, new and very exciting with each new challenge.

Myself, Megan and Effie are joined this year by Adam, a former student of our director, Sue, and he has brought a new dynamic to the company for this project. It’s really nice having another male dancer, even just for the banter. Haha.

The last few days we have been working off a short story, ‘Walter Walters’, witten for us by Welsh author John F Wake. A truly interesting story with so many questions, which we have combined with beautiful music by Ravel.

Working continuously in duet couples  has been very exciting and rather challenging. Myself and Effie are ‘followers’ and so neither are over eager to take charge but it’s a great learning curve and we are both finding our feet.

I won’t write too much now, think it is time to chill with a cup of tea, have a bath and write up some notes from today and some counting counting counting!

Ttfn

Mike 🙂