We’d like you to be the first to hear all about our new inititiatve – the FFIN DANCE zoom school.
Following on from our highly successful dance classes throughout the Covid-19 lockdown, we have launched our new term of classes starting in September. In addition to our weekly classes and videos, we are introducing short courses which last 3 or 4 weeks aimed at an intensive learning experience.
The timetable will be out very soon, so keep keen …
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
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
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 🙂