Category Archives: Dance

‘Curtain raiser’ Dance workshop with Chhaya Collective

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By Liz Wood, Head of Dance

Block 3 and 4 Dance students took part in a two-day workshop with choreographer and director of Chhaya Collective, Kay Crook. Kay worked very intensely with the dancers, giving them the experience of what it might feel like to be in a professional dance company and the students rose to the challenge. They were then fortunate enough to perform the piece they had learned and created as part of the curtain raiser for Chhaya Collective’s performance in the Theatre last week. Here are some comments from the students who took part. 

By Phoebe Land, Block 3
This was such an interesting experience because we were introduced to lots of different styles of movement. In the first day we learnt the first phrase, which was choreographed around animals, and this was especially interesting for me, as I haven’t done a lot of proper dances with a storyline. Kay mixed the Block 4s with the Block 3s to create individual duets, with different parts of the music. Kay made sure everyone was happy with the movements and showed us how to execute them to make us look professional. Then on the second day, we learnt the next phrase which was the opening movement. This involved two different hand gestures, which were later used again in the Bharatanatyam by me, Biba, and Annabel. This was so fun, and everyone really enjoyed it! 

By Milly Trench, Block 4
Kay worked very well with us to create the curtain raiser for us to perform. We started off by doing an intense warm up which was a great taster on their style and how we were going to be dancing for the next two days. I thought this was great because it allowed us to warm up how the professional dancers do and experience a higher level of intensity. We were taught the movement but were given sections to work creatively in groups to add to the overall performance. We were also asked to choreograph duets with an animalistic style and a connection with your partner. 

By Biba Hardy, Block 4
Throughout the workshop we were given different creative tasks where we were able to use our own ideas in sections of the dance. One task that we were given was to make a duet – we were put into pairs and each pair was shown a video of other dancers doing a duet to gain inspiration from their piece KHAOS. Each one was slightly different and had different techniques that were used in the duets. None of them were the same, but all of them had some things in common, for example they were all quite animalistic and used a lot of eye contact between the two dancers. Once each pair had watched the dance that their duet would be inspired by, we all had some time to think of new moves and ideas, while also incorporating some of the moves from the sections of the dance that everyone had been taught in unison. Each pair had a section in the dance to perform their duet one at a time, so that everyone’s ideas could be seen.

By Sophie Lee, Block 3
Kay taught us about a side of dance I haven’t come across before. She lived in India for a while, so she taught us some dance moves from Indian culture. The Indian style she focused us on was Bharatanatyam and she taught us the unique hand movements. There were two main phrases she taught us and they were in her own style. She focused in on specific movements, making sure we all were making them very sharp and clean. She split us into two lines and showed us how to effectively be in sync with our line but also mirror the line opposite. By letting us choreograph a duet after a day of working with her, we found that we were all heavily influenced by the new dance moves we were introduced to, and with Kay’s help we made the duets in a different style than we normally would.

Chhaya Collective review

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By Mathilda Douglas, 6.2

Last Friday, Chhaya Collective came to Bedales to perform their amazing dance performances HYMNOS and KHAOS as part of the Bedales Events programme. Chhaya Collective are a female-led dance company working between UK and India. Their company was founded by Kay Crook in 2013 to engage artists in cross-cultural collaborative performance and creative projects, in response to societal issues. Their performance strives to amplify women’s voices and share real-life stories of women in the 21st century. In their performance they combined dance, music, theatre, and visual arts. There was a live band on stage which included a violinist, percussionist, and guitarist. 

HYMNOS was inspired by the story of Iranian artist and friend Saba Zavarei and her online platform Radio Khiaban, dedicated to Iranian women singing in the public spaces of Iran, an act currently forbidden by the state. HYMNOS was in the form of a duet, one woman relating to a traditional Iranian woman in society and the other woman was the Wild Woman. The Wild Woman was showing the other that it was acceptable to break from society and wanted to show her how to do it. They did this by the use breath within their flow of movements. They used contact to travel around the stage which helped opened each other up. Their movement got wider and more expansive as the piece went on, which showed the journey of breaking away from society. They used found sound and voice, where both women would either be screaming linking with the lighting in the piece or singing melo notes connecting together as one. It seemed the screaming linked with the feeling of annoyance towards the Iranian government and how their rule of singing in public shouldn’t be allowed. 

KHAOS describes itself as “not neat, nor calm, nor perfect, but vibrant, chaotic and powerful – we are wild 21st century women. We are not to be gazed upon but met head on”. This quote was their subject matter for their piece which celebrates what it is to be a woman. The live musicians join six contemporary dance artists to revel in the joy, tenderness, and the power of wild women. During this piece, there was direct correlation between the dancers and the musicians. Every time the musicians would increases or decrease their sound/intensity the dancers’ movements would get bigger or faster or decrease and become slower.

In the first part of this piece, all the women were dressed in grey coats that were tight fitted, showing no flaws of their body. There was the main female who would be controlling the other women, to show them how women are pictured/presented. They showed how women should always be perfect and should not expressed any feeling/emotion. They always had to have their arms by their hips in a fist shape and chins up. When travelling around the stage, they had to shuffle their feet in small movement to show control within their movement and there was very little dance material happening. At one moment, they were all trapped in a small circle centre stage where they all had a centra poised feeling towards them. Once the women knew how to hold themselves properly, it became harder to maintain this position as they all got very tired, proving it difficult for the leader who was controlling them.

At this moment the music stopped, and all dancers fell to the floor, the sudden silence showed that the women were tired of trying to be perfect all the time and this feeling had to stop. The violinist woke up the dancers and they took their grey costumes off to reveal bright/vibrant patterns. Once their realised that they could be whoever they wanted to be and show their true feelings they started to accept one another. They performed free flowing movements in a circle to unite everyone together. The music grew and their movement became more expressive. They performed a series of jumps with the use of breath which showed the women accepting themselves and showed their true colours. They started to scream to show their happiness with the accompany of the fast-beating music and overall had a high energy to end the performance. 

Lîla Dance workshop – perspectives

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On 11 and 12 November, Abi Mortimer, co-founder of the Lîla Dance company, visited Bedales to deliver a two-day workshop for Dance students. Here, the students who took part – Mathilda Douglas, Anna Tasker, Phoebe Kane-Moss and Lucy Albuquerque – share their experiences.

By Mathilda Douglas, 6.2
Abi helped us to choreograph for our 6.2 A Level quartet, going towards the A Level Dance exam. On the first day, Abi took us through two warm-ups that we thoroughly enjoyed. One was all about warming up the back and legs, and the other was to do with floorwork and getting a close connection to the floor by moving freely. Next, she taught us three motifs, which were small sections of movement which are included throughout our three-minute dance. These were quite technically demanding for all of us, using different parts of our bodies in different ways. On the second day, we used all the motifs in a variety of creative tasks. Abi choreographed a whole group piece, also with the use of different choreographic devices, bringing the piece together using some very fast-paced music.

By Anna Tasker, 6.1
During the two-day workshop, we had to quickly learn difficult and original choreography, perform creative tasks on our own, build our stamina and step outside of our comfort zones. I had never done anything like this before, and I had no idea how challenging it would be! I gained insight into what it is like to be a serious Dance student, as well as the accomplishments and hurdles that come with it, which is especially useful as a student who is new to the world of Dance.

By Phoebe Kane-Moss, Block 5
Working with Lîla Dance took me out of my comfort zone and allowed me to experience new choreography techniques. The piece we created gradually got easier as we rehearsed it and by the end, I felt confident performing the new movement. Particularly, it broadened my ideas in the creative process. Going forward I have now developed new ways in which I can choreograph movements using alternative and interesting body movements.

By Lucy Albuquerque, 6.2
Throughout the workshop we learnt new techniques in an hour-long technique class in the mornings. This allowed me to imrpove my stamina, as well as learn new movement that I can include in my choreography or use to develop my dancing as a whole. Throughout choreographing the group piece, I have learnt that it isn’t so challenging to choreograph and piece. This includes the fact that I discovered a piece can be built from a foundation of three motifs quite simply. The warm-up routines and group piece allowed me to widen my dance vocabulary as it gave me a different view of dance and a new and interesting perspective on how dance can be performed, taught and choreographed.

Dance companies are so important to dance students as they can expand a dancer’s knowledge and understanding of dance in general, as we experience with the Lîla Dance company last week. The workshop also gave us a preview into what dance is like full-time, as we were dancing from 9am untl 5pm. This pushed us as students because we aren’t used to doing that on a daily basis, however it was extremely rewarding. The two days of dancing was such an amazing experience and there was a lot that we learnt and were able to take away and apply in our dancing and choreography.

Bedales Dance and Drama – a year in review

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By Hayley Cole, Head of Drama and Liz Wood, Head of Dance

Despite another challenging COVID year, the Dance and Drama department have had another incredibly busy and successful year and we wanted to celebrate those successes with you.

All components of the Bedales Assessed Course (BAC) and A Level courses were completed, including practical units by all students on the courses. Schemes of work were adapted and students made video projects as practical assessments in lockdown, and when we have been in school, performance assessments have been recorded as evidence and shared digitally rather than visited by external examiners, or in some cases, rather than being viewed and appreciated by live audiences. This really allowed the students to gain skills in areas that would not have looked at previously.

We have still put on four co-curricular productions, adhering to restrictions and delivered in different mediums – whether to a closed audience live, live-streamed and shared afterwards, or shared as an entirely digital production. Our peripatetic lessons have continued online and live, and exams have been taken. Our enrichment programmes have culminated in performances, with the students concluding the hard work they have put into it after pausing projects during school closure.

We have all learned new skills and adapted our skillset to navigate these uncertain times. Yet we have grown from it, consistently certain in our determination to stay creatively challenged and celebrating the area we love – the arts.

The Autumn Term included BAC Dance and Drama assessments. The Block 4 and 5 dramatists performed devised work influenced by Greek theatre and practitioners. The dancers worked on live performances in the style of a multitude of practitioners, from August Bournonville to Alvin Ailey. 6.2 actors performed their re-enactments of classic texts in the style of Brecht, Ad Infinitum and Forced Entertainment. The Autumn Production was Constellations by Nick Payne, a beautiful two-hander about a relationship, love and quantum physics. The artistic interpretation of this play was created due to COVID, and yet practically and artistically was so much more exciting because of those creative choices. Block 5 and 6.2 actors appeared in multi-roles, in duplicate casts, complimented by 6.1 dancers who personified the themes and emotions of the piece, through their use of movement. It was stunning and the chemistry of the actors was incredible, despite the metre plus distance between them at all times!

The Spring Term was a digital one. BAC Drama students performed their stories in The Terrible Infants as recordings, editing and adding live music in the style of Kneehigh. At home, the Block 4 dancers continued to work on the sofa dance, choreographing in their own homes ready to bring it alive, and the Block 5 dancers rehearsed group choreographies together online, for each of them to create a dance-film based on an array of different stimuli. The dancers also took part in online external practitioner workshops to keep them moving.

The 6.2s acted their naturalist Rotterdam as a screenplay and the Spring Production of Machinal was made in to a film. The students were sent green screens, rehearsals took place on Microsoft Teams, the crew researched costume, hair and make-up and the actors sourced it at home, filmed themselves and the footage was spliced together and edited to make the final piece. It was released episode by episode in half term but if you did not get a chance to watch it, click here to enjoy it, episode by episode, or all at once if you prefer! The playwriting enrichment writers also completed the 30-minute original scripts which were entered into the National Theatre’s New Views competition. 

The Summer Term saw us back at school collaborating together and attending the theatre once more. Bedales Dance Performs saw 21 of the dance pieces that the students had been working on over the year. They included performances from all year groups and including one of the modern peripatetic lessons. View and buy photos from Bedales Dance Performs here. The students were incredibly excited to get back into the Theatre and perform their work, and even though there was no physical contact within the choreographies, this did not stop them performing with passion, focus and commitment.

The A Level final evidence was collected and recorded. 6.2 dramatists created two incredible devised performances and performed a Berkoff piece in the studio and a Footsbarn site specific promenade performance. The two student directors finally picked their projects back up again and Nay Murphy’s Definition of Charisma (which was longlisted in the National Theatre’s New Views competition) and August Janklow’s True West were both enjoyed by closed audiences in the Drama Studio. The finale of the year, including a cast and crew of over 60, was Chariots of Fire, full of actors and dancers, which was incredibly well attended and well received at the end of term. 

A huge thank you from us to all the students and staff who have gone above and beyond to make all of the above possible and professional. It is your tenacity and talent that makes us so proud of the Dance and Drama department, especially in the face of adversity and we look forward to a new year, with all the new skills and insight we have gained. 

“Nuanced and detailed” take on Nick Payne’s ‘Constellations’

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This week, Block 5 and 6.2 students took part in a four-night run of this year’s Autumn production, ‘Constellations’ by Nick Payne. Due to ongoing restrictions, two duplicate casts of eight performed alongside dancers in the Theatre, with two of the performances livestreamed for parents at home.

By Isobel de Gier, 6.1

Watching Block 5 and 6.2’s nuanced and detailed approach to Nick Payne’s Constellations – aided by Hayley Cole’s directorial work – was a joy. Between the many interpretations of protagonists Marianne and Roland, played by the electric Ella Peattie and captivating Nay Murphy, there were multiple humorous moments. The play then quickly juxtaposed those comical elements with tender and heart-breaking scenes of the characters’ future selves.

The play masterfully toyed with light and shade, enrapturing its audience. The experience was immersive and the audience laughed, cried and became enraged alongside the characters – with every smile, laugh, or frown of the many versions of Marianne and Roland, the audience was enveloped deeper. This is not only a testament to the subtle and refined acting style, but the beautiful LED lit set, the bewitching dancing by Lucy Albuquerque and Mathilda Douglas and masterful directing. If you did not see the many parallel universes of Marianne and Roland, you really did miss out. 

By Aria Taheri-Murphy, 6.1

On Tuesday, the second cast of Constellations performed an amazing representation of raw love, shown through the perspective of many versions of Marianne and Roland. The audience watched the variety of ways their love unfolded in the different scenarios, however as the play reached its conclusion all the main plotlines merged into one story.

Not only were the actors amazing, but the set was incredible, set on different levels with small light-up hexagons beneath each level. These related to the hexagon projections across the stage. Projections of drawings and maths equations were used throughout the performance and as the audience began to understand the characters the hexagons became very significant. 

The dancing added an exciting new element, this too was socially distanced, but this did not affect the quality of their work. Two A Level Dance students performed throughout the play, expressing the characters’ frustration, love, grief, and pain. The actors clearly showed these emotions, however there were times where the dance could truly show the raw feelings the characters were trying to hide. Overall, the acting, directing, staging and choreography was amazing and created a hard-hitting love story which didn’t need to be shown physically, much like the National Theatre socially distanced performance of Lungs.

Dancing in the style of Richard Alston

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By Soph Baty, 6.2

On 13 November, the professional dancer Hannah Kidd came into school to help me, Evie Adams and Mathilda Douglas with our solo choreography, which will go towards our final A Level Dance grade. Hannah previously worked for the Richard Alston Dance Company from 2007-2013. Richard Alston is the practitioner all three of us have chosen to base our solos on and his movement and choreographic style is key to this piece of work.

During the 1.5 hour rehearsal with Hannah, she helped me adapt the way I perform my movements to be more like Alston, focusing the arms and legs within every movement and going further than I thought I could within the solo. I learnt that I need to keep a strong stamina throughout my solo and adjusted small details to help project his style.

Evie said: “I found the session extremely useful. It helped me gain greater insight into Richard Alston’s style. We went through my solo and adjusted small details to help project his style. The main aspect I took away from the session was the contrast between relaxation and linearity in the performance of the piece.”

Mathilda said: “Hannah helped me realise how important the use of focus is within Richard Alston’s style. Richard has many different aspects of dance styles and Hannah helped me incorporate them all within my piece.”

Overall, Hannah’s input helped push all of our solos to the maximum and aided us greater insight into Alston’s style. It was an amazing opportunity for us to receive support and constructive criticism from Hannah who has danced for Alston before. This experience has definitely made a huge impact to how we will perform our movement and choreography within our solos.  

Virtual visit to Sadler’s Wells for Chalayan’s ‘Gravity Fatigue’

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Gravity-Fatigue

By Lucy Albuquerque, Block 5

We recently took a virtual school trip to go and see Hussein Chalayan’s Gravity Fatigue at Sadler’s Wells Theatre. Gravity Fatigue is a mixture of a dance and fashion show all in one, and this is what makes this show so unique.

As Chalayan is a fashion designer, not a choreographer himself, he worked with Damien Jalet to create the show. Chalayan wanted to show the connection between clothes and movement, and how they work together in space. He uses other ways as well as movement to portray the message to the audience; for example, he explores different floorwork and how the dancers engage with their costumes.

Throughout the show, the lighting stood out to me, as it was used to show a change of dancer or the emotion that Chalayan was trying to embody. Lighting was also used to highlight the direction that dancers moved in – for instance, when a circular spotlight lit up, the dancers turned in a circle as if in a trance, reflecting the shape of the lighting.

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Old Bedalian Mila Fernandez inspires students in virtual Dance workshop

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Dance-workshop

By Charlotte Land, 6.1

On 4 June, A Level Dance students were fortunate enough to take part in an online workshop run by Old Bedalian Mila Fernandez. Mila studies dance at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music & Dance in London, The workshop focused on imagery and improvisation, merging the two concepts together to form a piece of dance.

We began the workshop by imagining a beach and its waves and, while working on our breathing, started moving around the space before adding arm gestures. We then proceeded to change the dynamics by making the movement more complex, using differing levels and the whole body. The second part of the workshop also included the use of imagery, but this time it was a piece of clothing. We began by moving only our backs, playing around with how expressive you can be using only your torso. We envisioned our garments and started to create movement for their different parts: colour, texture, how it felt to wear it, etc. It was an interesting approach we haven’t tried before, and it pushed us out of our comfort zones. One 6.1 student felt they had learned how to let loose and allow their body to flow without having to think about what was coming next.

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Celebrating International Dance Day

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By Liz Wood, Head of Dance

Students across all year groups explored the world of Dance through different creative ways last Wednesday in celebration of International Dance Day and they are still going. Issy Robinson from Block 3 researched the Kukri dance, a traditional Nepalese dance that the Gurkhas perform. Rowena Le Poer Trench has been looking at the healthy eating of a dancer, particularly following advice from Canadian fitness coach/dancer Maddie Lymburner, Rowena has made a short film which shows a particular smoothie that is recommended. Imogen Wright watched the online performance of Dust by Akram Khan, whilst Charlotte Land – along with her sisters Izzy and Phoebe – explored counterbalance shapes, and Hannah Mazas created a short film at the dinner table with her brothers Elio and Josh.

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