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Spotlight on: National Dance Company Wales
Today we have a brilliant blog entry for you!
National Dance Company Wales have many talented dancers and we just love having them visit us here at Theatr Brycheiniog. We already know that they are generally amazing, so we loved hearing all about how they adapted over the pandemic and what inspires them to create.
Can you tell us more about NDCWales and the work you do in the local area?
Theatr Brycheiniog is one of NDCWales’ priority venues. This means that the company and venue work collaboratively to reach a new audience for dance. We have two brilliant local dance ambassadors, Bethan and Clara, who work with our Learning & Participation Producer to deliver inspiring workshops to local groups and schools. If you are interested in a workshop, please contact guy@ndcwales.co.uk
How did you as a dance company adapt over the pandemic?
Since the start of the pandemic, NDCWales’ digital audience increased exponentially, attracting a new audience for archived shows as well as live content created specifically for online. We worked with lots of interesting people across all art forms, making dance for people to watch and to take part in.
Audiences can still catch up on everything they might have missed on our Digital Hub www.ndcwales.co.uk/digital-hub
As we emerged from the restrictions it was clear that we needed to continue to be flexible, so we offered venues an outdoor performance option. Many venues were only just opening, and were building stages in their car parks and green spaces so we worked hard on an exciting programme to offer audiences safely outside, something that would be uplifting and joy-filled to watch - especially for those new to dance. This was a stepping-stone for lots of our audiences to get the confidence to start attending live performances again before we asked them to take the leap back indoors. We’re looking forward to coming to Brecon again, it’s a really beautiful and important venue at the heart of its community: it’s been too long!
Can you give us a very brief background on the thoughts behind your forthcoming performance YMA|HERE?
“‘Moving is everywhere, forever’ first began as research into a dance of satisfaction and catharsis, as a means to invite audiences to groove along with the dancers, yielding into their own natural instincts to move to the beat. It was also an inquiry into the proposition that dance can exist at anytime, anywhere.”
- Faye Tan, Choreographer, Moving is everywhere, forever
"With the music performed live by the dancers, this piece explores the simple sound of a clap and how it can be used to create a colourful and energetic soundscape and environment for dance. The dancers communicate through the sounds they make live with their own hands, creating a raw openness on stage. This is a light-hearted yet strongly driven piece of dance and music."
- Ed Myhill, Choreographer, Why are People Clapping!?
“For ‘Afterimage’ we developed a concept that presents the audience with different perspectives of the actions on stage. The mirror constantly reveals, hides and multiplies the movement of the dancers… It is a process of constant experimentation, trial and error where all elements — dancers, set, lights and sound — need to be perfectly synchronised. It’s my hope that the audience take an active role in interpreting the piece and at the end we have as many interpretations of the work as there are audience members.”
- Fernando Melo, Afterimage
How did the pandemic inspire the pieces?
Two of the three pieces were made before the pandemic.
‘Afterimage’ by Fernando Melo was made in 2018 and uses two giant mirrors to make people appear and disappear on stage, it’s truly magical and despite being made before lockdown – the sense of distance between people in the piece is really poignant.
‘Why Are People Clapping!?’ has been toured around Wales before, and during lockdown we created a live Zoom version of the piece that was watched all over the world, you can see it here. We also adapted the idea to create a short film in support of the ‘clap for carers’ in 2020. This adaptation started with pulling the existing work apart into its different elements and re-working it to keep it fresh and relevant for the moment.
‘Moving is everywhere, forever’ was made during the pandemic, and was a direct response to the knowledge that asking people to come out of lockdown and sit for an hour in the dark might be difficult – Faye wanted to create something that would make people want to move, to groove along. It’s a piece that can be performed in any space, to be really adaptable to whatever happens next, and is totally socially distanced, even though the dancers move together.
Can we have a brief background on the dancers involved?
The performances will feature seven National Dance Company Wales’ company dancers in total. Our dancers come from all over the world including Singapore, Netherlands, France, Italy, England and of course Wales. You can read more about our dancers on our website https://ndcwales.co.uk/about/who-we-are/dancers
How have the dancers prepared for their dances? What inspires them?
The dance team and choreographers get inspiration from so many places, they bounce off one another as well as using music, film, tv, art, politics, nature and other resources from other mediums to help support their physicality and choreography as this will inspire the dancers to approach the movement from various perspectives.
Coming back into rehearsing for full scale tours has been a tough but really enjoyable and needed – for this tour we created a new piece (Moving is everywhere, forever), re-worked another (Why Are People Clapping!?’ and dusted off and re-staged an audience favourite (Afterimage). To do this there was a creation period followed by rigorous training and rehearsing.
The dancers start every day with a dance class before moving into rehearsals where they break the choreography down into short sections and find the detail and context of the work. It’s fascinating to watch, as they often have silly names for specific moments in a piece, so instead of saying ‘let’s go from 1 minute 15 min’ they can say ‘lets do squares’ and they’ll all know exactly where to go from.
NDC Wales are back on our stage on 3rd November with YMA|HERE, so why not Indulge in an hour of dance that will make you groove, giggle and gasp.
Book your tickets HERE- https://theatrbrycheiniog.ticketsolve.com/shows/873621058
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