Review - The Stephen Einhorn Blog http://www.stepheneinhorn.co.uk/stuff/our-london-in-between-riot-offspring-at-sadlers-wells/

Our London: (In Between) Riot Offspring At Sadler’s Wells

Posted on June 18, 2013 by Jane

As you all know Von Einhorn and I are big supporters of the arts. Anyway you can imagine how delighted we were to find out that on the 8th June there was another community show on at Sadler’s Wells by creative producer Jane Hackett and her team. The National Youth Dance Company performed ‘In Between’ first. It was a very energetic, creative piece, and you have to marvel at the amazing skills of the young dancers, incredible. I just hope there are enough opportunities for them all to continue their amazing craft. (Arts Council are you listening?)

Next came Riot Offspring using one of my particular favourite pieces of music Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring with a REAL orchestra, (South Bank Sinfonia) wonderful, especially for all the people taking part and for us the music was spectacular, very exciting.

These community shows are always amazing because they allow people who normally wouldn’t be included in something as grand as a performance at Sadler’s Wells to take part in something creative with loads of different age groups that they may not necessarily mix with socially. They all work together and at the same time get a great sense of belonging and being part of something big. It’s hard for us to evaluate just how important this is to participants but I suspect that the main product of all these projects is a growth of confidence, in oneself and in others.

There were representatives from all age groups including one participant of 92. Also a great opportunity for some young mothers and their babies to be included in something, it can be very isolating to have a small child and your identity as a person can feel as if it has got a bit subsumed.

Here they were doing something very out of the ordinary, and interacting with a very creative bunch of people from totally different worlds. You get the feeling watching all the different groups working together that the performance is really only a small part of this project and they must have all had a great time during the long months of workshops, working with the 5 very different choreographers.

These sorts of projects should be available in every community for every age group to be able to take part in. We loved seeing the tiny babies being carried on to the stage (I love babies but Von Einhorn finds them disruptive, I don’t think he has a soul).

The performance as always was exciting and inspiring. The staging was wonderful, we particularly liked all the newspaper, very imaginative. This was a proper production with professional production values, there was nothing condescending about it in any way. Von Einhorn kept muttering about recycling of newspaper, sometimes I think his attention span leaves a lot to be desired. Maybe we will encourage him to take part in the next production, it may stop him fidgeting so much.

Review: Londondance - http://londondance.com/articles/reviews/nydc-in-between-riot-offspring/

REVIEW: NATIONAL YOUTH DANCE COMPANY (IN BETWEEN) & RIOT OFFSPRING -SADLER'S WELLS

PERFORMANCE: 8 JUNE 2013
REVIEWED BY JOSEPHINE LEASK - TUESDAY 11 JUNE 2013

Two performances which harnessed young energy and creativity, from the calm and reflective (in-between ) to the explosive RIOT Offspring , made for a Saturday night full of vitality and was a tribute to the many people involved.

The premiere of National Youth Dance Company’s ( in between ) by their first Guest Artistic Director Jasmin Vardimon is an impressive display of team work as well as individual skill. Thirty teenagers from a variety of dance and cultural backgrounds find common ground in simple strategies like shared breathing and the rhythms breath can generate. The result is a noisy but fluid and deeply connected performance. Vardimon works with the theme of a forest, the felling and re-generation of trees – a fitting idea for environmentally switched-on young people.

Against a backdrop of a towering forest, the dancers balance on tree stumps, swaying and gesturing with their arms. Two angry men cut them down, until they are all felled – even the woman with Rapunzel-like hair who repeatedly returns to her stump in defiance. Bauschian repetition and the utilisation of sequences performed in a chorus formation, create a gratifying tension and powerful suspense. Although a state of meditative calm is brought about by the sound of the dancers breathing and wafting their arms, like the wind sighing through trees, the quality changes to one that is more thrusting and percussive as the ‘spirits’ of the trees re-group and reclaim their roots.

RIOT Offspring which is the community project offering to celebrate the centenary of Igor Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, pays further testament to the virtues of team work, with 100 dancers, from between the spectrum of amateur and emerging artist, five choreographers [Sébastian Ramirez, Mafalda Deville, Pascal Merighi (guest artist, Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch), Ivan Blackstock and Simeon Qsyea (BirdGang)] and theSouthbank Sinfonia. What the creative team do so effectively here is to show the interaction between different generations, the mature Company of Elders, children from the local community, teenage mums and babies and emerging artists as they explore their reactions to London’s 2011 summer riots.

Children buried under shredded paper unfurl their bodies and emerge slowly as tiny tots tip-toe over the debris. The elders calmly arrive to meet them with gentle and embracing movements, a presence of stability and wisdom. Then to the first ominous random beats and repeated discords of Stravinsky’s famous music score, the young people swirl on stage in their numbers, all anger and angularity. Each have their own style of moving, some are hip hop experts, others athletic or balletic, but each performs to his or her eclectic strengths. While they break out in attitude-fueled solos, some of the most effective choreography is in the unison. The young dancers form long lines and undulate through their bodies, sending rippling Mexican waves through the crowds, either standing or lying on the floor or travelling across it. It’s a strong spectacle, that of all 100 performers on stage together, staggered spatially on different levels.

Amidst the rampage and aggressive confrontations between the young people there are touching moments such as when the elders, quietly assertive, softly pursue the stampeding teenagers. Or when a young mother patiently helps her toddler walk over the backs of the crouching youth, as they form boundary lines across the stage. A reminder that innocence exists in the most unlikely situations.

The climactic ending is memorable: the frenzied teenagers run in a huge circle around the victims, then suddenly cluster around them in a mob. After repeating this sequence several times they close in and, joined by the the whole cast, form a human pyre which agnites as leaping flames are projected onto it.

Josephine Leask is a lecturer in Cultural Studies on the BA (Hons) degree course at the London Studio Centre and London correspondent for The Dance Insider.

Photos: Bettina Strenske

Rehearsal Pictures 1st of June

Rehearsals

Footage

Company of Elders, Sybil's response to Eve's Poem.

I really enjoyed your poem Eve. As one of the lucky ones being lifted I really felt I was flying. What an experience this project is proving!

Sybil 

Amber Group rehearsal pictures.

Diary Entry - Maire Amber group

Tues 9^th-Today we were working on a section in which we interact with the turquoise group. I think the concept that we are working with is the miscommunication between generations, classes and the tension between authoritative figures and those who feel like they've been marginalized in our society. This obliviously is the underpinnings of the London riots in 2011 and what we’re trying to draw out in this section is this contrast between the high-energy, angry, aggressive movement of the “rebels” and the solid, strong but simple movements of the “guards”. Like most dancers, I really enjoy doing huge, dramatic movement and one of the biggest challenges I've found in these rehearsals is being able to do the simple, minimal choreography with just as much energy and conviction as the big movement.

Wed 10^th- I really enjoyed working with the elders. We performed a task in which we were each teamed with an elder who directed us though an improvisation. Each gesture the elder performed would correlate to different parts of our bodies. It was really interesting to see just how much movement could be produced by this and to experiment with different rhythms which consequently meant that little duets were developed. 

Drawing, documenting and recording - to keep a good physical memory.

Diary Entry - Luka from the Amber group

Friday 5^th of April

Whatever point at which you stop practicing is where you pick up from.

I am still finding it hard to follow some choreography. But I have to keep trying . Drawing documenting and recording to keep a good physical memory.

I already see opportunities to try for, if I keep working hard there is a strong chance I will get them. Hard work, determination is guiding me. 

Diary Entry - Faye Tan Turquoise group

"Another aspect of Riot Offspring which I really like is observing the Company of Elders, the 'little kids' and the mums and their babies. One does not often see these age groups participate in a dance piece, but their presence in Riot Offspring really brings something magical to the entire performance.

The whole project is based around one person – Igor Stravinsky. His music is notoriously complex and difficult to memorise, and this complication only gets worse when large groups of people are asked to dance to his composition. However, I found the experience of working with the score to be very educational and enlightening. Simeon and Ivan taught us to notate the score, and we memorised (with inevitable difficulty) the six's, eight's, ten's, two's, boom-boom's, five's, sixteen-two-three-four's… The music really sharpened my mentality, and has definitely improved my focus as a dancer, especially in terms of musicality and memorisation. This ability to be quick-thinking while performing is a vital skill for any dancer, and I appreciate the fact that the project has helped me to enhance this skill."

MIMBRE Youth Company Diary Entries

My Time at Sadler’s Wells so far.

 10.04.2013

Julia

“On Tuesday in the morning we were working with Mafalda on floor work. We had to walk with our hands on the floor. It felt really tiring and good at the same time.

The music started really relaxing but suddenly the music changed and went all terrifying, I really liked the music.

In the afternoon some of us were working with the teenagers. I was lucky enough to work with them, first we had to jump on their backs – and then they carried us like babies.

I like to work with the paper at the beginning of the piece, we put our hands out; it feels like I’m at a graveyard and dead bodies come alive!!!!!”

Ravi

“Our first session at Sadler’s Wells was on Friday 5^th of April. We met the people who would be working with us, Simeon, Pascal and Mafalda. We did some work with Pascal and Mafalda. My favourite part of the day was when we worked with Simeon on dancing. We did some hard moves, but it was fun.”

Ciar

“This week we got covered in paper which was fun, it was part of a dance. We also did a lot of movement on the floor, like shaking on our backs and on our belly. Plus, I got to do the worm through the paper. We also got carried away by the teenagers.”

Manuela

“On Friday we created a clapping game, this was done by copying Simeon. We also did a dance routine. In one of our routines we split into groups and got our moves from the clapping game, my move was first.”

Kieran

“In our rehearsal for the show, we were all covered in newspapers. We lifted our arm up and I tried to reach as far as I could.”

Anthony

“I had a great time working with the teenage group, when they carried me away. The pattern game was hard at first, but after a few days I got much better. I enjoyed playing with the papers.”

Nyle

“First we put our hand up, and then we put it down. Second we started to shake on the floor. Next we walked around sideways on the floor……Mafalda called number six; I jumped up and threw papers.”