Press Release: Transitions Dance Company Spring Tour 2019

[Jan McNulty]

  Press Release

 

TRANSITIONS DANCE COMPANY

 

presents a triple bill of new works by

 

KAROLE ARMITAGE | HETAIN PATEL | MARINA COLLARD

 

UK & Europe Tour 2019

 

7th March - 7th June

 

 

This Spring the UK’s original graduate dance company - Transitions Dance Company - embarks on a tour of UK and European venues with a newly commissioned triple bill from choreographers Karole Armitage, Hetain Patel and Marina Collard. The three works From Dirt To Soil (Karole Armitage), many much, many much too many (Marina Collard) and You Tube Made Me (Hetain Patel) range from graceful precision to the wry and mischievous in a programme that showcases this year’s superb company of international dance artists.

 

From Dirt To Soil formulates an urgent and personal response to world environmental issues. Using a conversation with notable American agriculturalist Wes Jackson, as both rhythmic impetus and a narrative drive, Armitage shapes her sharp and slinky neo-classical movement language into traditional partnering and theatrical gesture.

 

Marina Collard’s many much, many much too many uses film-inspired edit-cut-splice techniques to craft a witty and poetic dance work. Set to an original score by sound artist and professor of composition at Trinity Laban, Paul Newland, the performers negotiate the changes and disruption caused by seemingly shifting tectonic plates, looping, developing and resetting their material according to a collective blueprint. The work features lighting design by creative collaborator Michael Mannion.

 

Sadler’s Wells New Wave Associate Artist Hetain Patel uses humour, choreography and text to explore themes of identity and freedom in his new work YouTube Made Me. Commandeering the individual voices and movements of his fifteen performers, Patel weaves personal memories with particularly weird and wonderful YouTube glories into a wry and indelible human tapestry. Prepare to be confronted and charmed in equal measure.

 

Founded in 1982 by Bonnie Bird, Transitions Dance Company - whose alumni include Sir Matthew Bourne, Luca Silvestrini and Emma Gladstone - was the first of its kind to provide a gateway between dance training and professional performance. Its subsequent success over the last 37 years has inspired the creation of numerous graduate dance companies across the country, allowing student dancers to gain practical experience of life in a touring dance company whilst simultaneously completing their professional training.

 

-ENDS-

 

UK and Europe Tour dates

 

7th March

Buxton Opera House

19:30

buxtonoperahouse.org.uk

 

13th March

The Space, Dundee

19:30

To book:

 

27th March

Civic Theatre, Chelmsford

19:30

www.chelmsford.gov.uk

 

5th April

Circomedia, Bristol

19:30

www.circomedia.com

 

9th April

Institute of the Arts, Barcelona

www.iabarcelona.com/events

 

1st May

Mercury Theatre, Colchester

19:30 

www.mercurytheatre.co.uk

 

4th May

Dance House, Cardiff

19:30

https://dancehouse.wales

 

14th May

University of Chichester

To book tickets, please email s.francis@chi.ac.uk

 

29th May

The Albany Theatre

19:30

albanytheatre.co.uk

 

5th, 6th, 7th June

Laban Theatre

www.trinitylaban.ac.uk/whats-on

 

@transitionsdc | #TransitionsTour2019 | www.trinitylaban.ac.uk/transitionsdc

Running Time: Approx. 90 minutes including a 20 min interval

Suggested age suitability: 12+ with parental guidance, due to infrequent use of bad language

 

Notes to Editors:

 

Company

Sophie Halstead, Hattie Harding, Benjamin Head, Anoushka Jago, Lee Xue Jing, Jasmine Rose Man, Leopold Meredith, Caterina Morandini, Pinelopi Mousga, Shannon Oleson, Nadine Elise Muncey,

Virginia Poli, Christina Prompona, Camélia Veillon, Jiaxin Yuan.

 

Artistic Director: David Waring

 

Choreographers

 

Karole Armitage

Legendary American choreographer Karole Armitage is the Artistic Director of the New York-based Armitage Gone! Dance Company. Known as the “punk ballerina," Armitage is renowned for pushing the boundaries to create contemporary works that blend dance, music and art. In her hands, the classical vocabulary is given a needed shock to its system, with speed, fractured lines, abstractions and symmetry countermanded by asymmetry. Through her acute knowledge of the aesthetic values of Balanchine and Cunningham, with whom she danced professionally, Armitage has created her own voice in the dance dichotomy.  Her work is at once both esoteric and popular, having choreographed for Broadway, Cirque du Soleil, Madonna and Michael Jackson, Merchant-Ivory film and dance companies across the globe ranging from the Paris Opera Ballet to the Tasmanian Dance Company and the Bolshoi. She directs opera for important European houses and is currently an MIT Media Lab Directors Fellow bringing poetic, emerging technology to the stage. 

 

Marina Collard

Marina Collard is a British performer, choreographer, and Trinity Laban faculty member, as well as a practicing Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapist. She is interested in collaborating with artists from different disciplines and for over 15 years she has enjoyed a successful partnership with filmmaker Tom Paine producing work for theatres and galleries. Other collaborative projects include multidisciplinary performance What this is, is… with composers Paul Newland, Ether with Graham Fitkin Ether at the Southbank, and The body in and as Space with Kate Johnson in collaboration with The Hayward Gallery.

 

Hetain Patel

London-based visual artist and performance maker Hetain Patel is a New Wave Associate at Sadler’s Wells and his live performances, films, sculptures, and photographs have been shown worldwide from the Venice Biennale, Ullens Centre for Contemporary Art, Beijing and Tate Modern. Patel’s work explores identity and freedom, and uses humour, choreography and text in multiple formats and media, intended to reach the widest possible audience. His online work has been watched over 25 million times, including his 2013 TED talk entitled, Who Am I? Think Again.

 

Photo credits:  Rachel Cherry