Press Release: Curious Seed & MOKO Dance present Chalk About - Autumn 2014 tour & Sadler's Wells

[Jan McNulty]

Curious Seed in association with MOKO Dance present
Chalk About

 

AUTMUMN 2014 TOUR & SADLER’S WELLS DATES

 

“Some of the most brilliantly imaginative, humorous, touching theatre I have seen this year”   The Times
 

This autumn the national dance partnership MOKO Dance is delighted to present award-winning performance company Curious Seed in a nationwide tour of Chalk About, a family dance theatre show to delight children and adults alike.

 

Chalk About is the result of a creative relationship between Christine Devaney and Leandro Kees that began in November 2011 when the two artists met at the very first Fresh Tracks Europe - a youth dance network for a new generation of choreographers. Working together for 10 days Devaney and Kees began to explore the nature of identity through a series of questions: What makes us who we are? Is it where we are from? Or how we talk? Is it the way we dance? Our pasts or our futures?

 

The work was developed into a full-length show for young audiences which premiered at the Imaginate Festival in Edinburgh in 2013. Subsequently, as both artists live in different countries and have their own performance companies, they decided to extend their reach and perform the piece with their respective companies and new performance partners, which has resulted in the creation of two similar versions ofChalk About that tour independently.

 

Following a critically lauded run at Edinburgh Festival Fringe this summer, the national tour of Devaney’s UK version will begin at Greenwich Dance, London on 18 October, before visiting 14 more venues across the UK including performances at Sadler’s Wells in November.

Devaney says, “When we presented Chalk About at the Imaginate Festival in 2013, I couldn’t have envisaged the journey that it would take us on! I am delighted to have MOKO Dance as our first touring partner and super excited to be bringing Chalk About to such fantastic venues. I’m really looking forward to sharing this work with audiences throughout England.” 

 

Curious Seed was founded in 2005 by Scottish choreographer and performer, Devaney. The vision of the company is to create engaging, thought provoking, uncompromising performance work with physical expression at its core. The company is committed to exploring new ways of challenging and developing the scope of movement-based performance. There is an emphasis on engaging in a process that evolves and is appropriate to each project. Curious Seed has a history of collaborating with a core of outstanding artists across the arts – musicians, actors, designers and film-makers.

 

Previous productions include the solo work Almost, But Not Quite for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (2005), and Code Butterfly, a large scale site-specific work for young women (2007). Their production of found was presented to great acclaim during the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2009 and went on to win a Scotsman Fringe First Award and a Total Theatre Award nomination. The company’s recent work includes P U S Hwhich toured Scotland in 2012; and an Edinburgh Fringe run of The Woman Who Wants to be Funny (2012).

 

Following a hugely popular spring tour from Spanish company Aracaladanza, Chalk About marks MOKO Dance’s fourth presentation since its launch in 2013. The national dance partnership enjoyed a successful opening year in 2013 where two acclaimed tours (new double bill MOKO Mix commissioned and produced by MOKO Dance and gobbledegook’s In A Deep Dark Wood) delighted audiences around the country.

MOKO Dance will continue to promote an all-encompassing dance experience for children, their families and schools with a range of front of house activities, workshops, online forums and educational resources available in addition to the live performances.

 

Supported by Arts Council England, MOKO Dance is a national dance touring partnership dedicated to opening the eyes of children and their families to the power of dance. Led by DanceEast (Ipswich), MOKO Dance unites Dance City (Newcastle), Lakeside Arts (Nottingham), Pavilion Dance South West (Bournemouth), Sadler’s Wells (London), South East Dance (Brighton and Kent) and Theatre Bristol (Bristol) in their shared vision of bringing bold and innovative work to audiences across the UK.

 

Press Quotes

“Expressive... delightful ... elegantly choreographed”  Metro

“Uplifting and thought provoking, this is a show that will stay with me... a 5 star show, see it if you can!”   Primary Times

“Utterly engaging”  The Herald

“Beautiful, heartfelt… immensely funny”  Broadway Baby

“Brave, honest and delightful… full of a rich sense of the joy of human difference”  The Scotsman

 

Tour Dates

 

Greenwich Dance, London - Saturday 18 October
www.greenwichdance.org.uk | 020 8293 9741

 

Nottingham Lakeside Arts - Sunday 19 October
www.lakesidearts.org.uk | 0115 846 7777

 

Lincoln Drill Hall, Lincoln - Wednesday 22 & Thursday 23 October
www.lincolndrillhall.com | 01522 873894

 

The Point, Eastleigh - Saturday 25 October
www.thepointeastleigh.co.uk | 023 8065 2333

 

Brighton Dome, Brighton - Tuesday 28 October
www.brightondome.org | 01273 709709

 

Dance City, Newcastle - Thursday 30 October
www.dancecity.co.uk | 0191 261 0505

 

Sadler’s Wells, London - Saturday 1 & Sunday 2 November
www.sadlerswells.com | 0844 412 4300

 

Key Theatre, Peterborough - Friday 7 November
www.vivacity-peterborough.com | 01733 207239

 

Déda, Derby - Saturday 8 November
www.deda.uk.com | 01332 370 911

 

Embrace Arts, Leicester - Sunday 9 November
www2.le.ac.uk/hosted/embracearts | 0116 252 2455

 

Pavilion Dance South West, Bournemouth - Tuesday 11 November
www.pdsw.org.uk | 01202 203630

 

Artsdepot, London - Saturday 15 November
www.artsdepot.co.uk | 020 8369 5454

 

DanceEast, Jerwood DanceHouse, Ipswich - Sunday 16 & Tuesday 18 November
www.danceeast.co.uk | 01473 295230

 

Circomedia, Bristol - Thursday 20 & Friday 21 November
www.circomedia.com | 0117 924 7615

 

Gulbenkian, Canterbury - Saturday 22 November
www.thegulbenkian.co.uk | 01227 769075