South London's Rite of Spring

This looks great - exactly 100 years after the first performance in London of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, a free show along Deptford Creek  by the Laban Centre: 

'Brian Solomon, a dancer with Trinity Laban's Transitions Dance Company for the past year, will bring together 20 professional dancers, actors and the local community for a new interpretation of Stravinsky's masterpiece, The Rite of Spring.

The cast of South London's Rite of Spring will include dance alumni Charlotte Pook, Ashley Hind, Sarah Golding and Daisy Farris, as well as retired Canadian dance star  Caroline Farquhar and Theatre-Maker Lesley Ewen

Canadian-born Brian is guided by his Native American heritage in his choreography, and he is also particularly interested in engaging with unusual spaces in communities and helping people re-learn forgotten ways of using their bodies.

Brian choreographed The Rite of Spring a few years ago, but has recreated it to mark the anniversary of the first performance of this seminal work in London: "I felt that this primordial piece really demanded a cast of all ages and abilities to create a fuller atmosphere for the brutal story of death and sacrifice," said Brian. "By bringing together professionals and members of the local community with no prior experience to train together, we have been able to generate something much more powerful and strikingly real".

South London's Rite of Spring will be performed at the Laban Building on 12 July at 7pm and 13 July at 4pm - the only event in the city marking the infamous work's performance in London on those dates exactly 100 years ago. Entrance is free'.

Plough Monday in Greenwich

Holiday's over, back to the plough or in my case back to the desktop and the pedestrian threatening roadworks of London Bridge.

Fowlers Molly Dancers will be marking Plough Monday tonight, Monday 9th January, with a traditional music and dancing tour of Greenwich pubs as follows:

Ashburnham Arms, 25 Ashburnham Grove, London SE10 8UH. Meet from 7.30pm to dance at 8pm

Morden Arms, Brand Street,11 Brand St, London, SE10 8SP dance at 8.45pm

Tolly (Richard I), Royal Hill, 52-54 Royal Hill, London SE10 8RT dance at 9.30pm.

Out of the Cage

An interesting free event coming up courtesy of Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance:

Out of the Cage! (26 Oct 13.00h–23.00h, King Charles Court, Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich)

'John Cage (1912-1992) was an American composer, music theorist, writer, and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde. He was also instrumental in the development of modern dance, mostly through his relationship with choreographer Merce Cunningham.

Join us for an extraordinary day of activity featuring a multitude of musicians, dancers, and other performers simultaneously animating a labyrinth of rooms and spaces in the Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich. The audience is ambulatory wandering freely through a myriad of spaces, performances, and installations. Three concerts punctuate the ‘Happening’ as resting points in the 10 hour maze of sight & sound discoveries.The evening concert will include a UK première of Cage’s The City Wears a Slouched Hat for six hats, percussion and ensemble'.

Back in 1980, as mentioned here before, Cage and his partner/collaborator Merce Cunningham took part in a summer school at Laban when it was in New Cross, concluding with a big performance at Goldsmiths.

I went to The Mysterium in 2009, a similar Trinity Laban event at the Old Royal Naval College, and it was one of the most memorable nights out I've had in London - an amazing building with all kinds of beautiful things happening in it.

New X-ing

New X-ing starts tonight, two weeks of free live music, dance and spoken word performances. Part of the thinking behind it is to bring together Goldsmiths and Trinity Laban with the wider community in New Cross and Deptford, and all events will be taking place around an outdoor stage at the New Cross end of Lewisham Way, by Goldsmiths librrary.

Is starts tonight with music from Too Many Ts, Rabbit and Sound System Social Club.

Blackheath Morris in the Olympics Closing Ceremony

As mentioned here before, in their various incarnations Blackheath Morris Men - who practice sometimes in the Dog and Bell pub in Deptford - have played with all kinds of people over their 40 year history, including Hawkwind. Last night they appeared with Monty Python's Eric Idle in the Olympic closing ceremony.

Another SE London connection in the same scene: one of the angels was Sharmina Harrower, a 19-year-old model from Sydenham (seen kneeling in front row above, and left below).

The Summer of '84: Reggae & Hip Hop

Back in July 1984 there was actual sunshine in South London, and some fine music too.

Reggae Sunsplash

On 7 July Capital Radio sponsored a Reggae Sunsplash festival at Crystal Palace football ground.

'Crystal Palace had its biggest crowd for years at the weekend - but not for football! Instead, 28,000 music lovers enjoyed a six-hour feast of reggae, featuring both Jamaican acts and homegrown talent at Selhurst Park. Reggae Sunsplash came to town - and brought some of the hottest weather this summer with it. There were rastas in shorts, toddlers with dreadlocks, bare-chested punks and skimpily-clad females providing a vivid splash of colour. The park itself was jammed with bodies - sitting, reclining or dancing to the sounds coming from the massive stage'.

'Police deliberately kept a low profile, turning a blind eye to the widespread use of "sensimilia" (marijuana) which is part of the Rastafarian faith. But the high quality of the performances needed no stimulants' (Jaswinder Bancil, South London Press, 13 July 1984).

The line-up included the Skatalites, Aswad, Black Uhuru, Sly & Robbie, Musical Youth, Dennis Brown, Leroy Sibbles and King Sunny Ade, plus DJs David Rodigan and Barry G.



Breakdown Spectacular
 
1984 also saw the spreading influence of hip and electro culture in the UK, with the release of the film 'Beat Street' and the popularity of Morgan Khan's Street Sounds compilations. Amidst all this the South London Press put on a two day 'Breakdown Spectacular' at the end of July at the Albany Empire in Deptford. It was enthusiastically promoted by Jaswinder Bancil  who announced 'Attention, all B-Boys and Girls! You have been invited to the most comprehensive celebration of hip-hop seen on this side of the river... For two nights at the Albany, rappers, scratchers, mixers, breakers and poppers will rub shoulders and gain the chance to win super prizes - including Phillips beat boxes, Nike trainers, records and much more. Any crew will be allowed to get up and challenge the skills of the Broken Glass posse from Manchester'.
 
He later reported that 'Hundreds of youngsters from all over London' joined the 'hip hop celebration nights at the Albany Empire' on 27 and 28 July. There was New York DJ Whiz Kid, graffiti art from Dean and Dolby D and  'crews, individual performers and B-girl posses - all popping, locking, cracking and breaking to great effect' (SLP, 3 August 1984).

New Cross Festival

The New Cross Festival, in Fordham Park, takes places in Fordham Park on Friday 29 July and Saturday 30 July. On the Friday evening, and all day Saturday, there will be a free programme of dance workshops and performances, live music, sporting activities in the form of the New Cross Olympics, arts and crafts, food stalls and more. Here's the schedule:

Friday 29 July

04:00pm Carnival Arts, Samba, Soca Workshops
07:00pm Community Musicians

Saturday 30 July

10:00am Carnival Arts, Samba Percussion, Soca Workshop
12:30pm Carnival Procession
02:00pm Circus Skills, Ivorian Dance, Arts & Crafts
03:00pm Fireromantics (local band)
03:30pm Griot Chinyere – African Storytelling
04:00pm Ivorian Dance Performance & Magic Book Theatre
04:15pm Open Mic Spot, Vietnamese Fan Dance
04:30pm New Cross Olympics
05:15pm A3 Dance Troupe, Pocket the Clown
05:25pm Vietnaese Lion Dance, Millwall Football Session
05:40pm Woodpecker Youth Club Performance
05:45pm Raie the Band (local soul/blues band)
06:45pm Tug O War & Competition Winners’ Presentation

Sunday Morning at Laban (review)

I spent many happy hours at Laban in Deptford when my daughter was attending the very popular Saturday children's classes there, but until last week I'd never actually been to a performance by adult dancers.

I greatly enjoyed Sunday Morning, a dance piece choreographed by Hagit Yakira. It was a Tuesday night, but in keeping with the Sunday Morning theme free coffee and croissants were provided in the foyer.

The piece explores childhood memories and family relationships, the frozen moment of the posed family picture interspersed with harmony, tension, and sometimes violence.

Here's a short film of the four dancers (Takeshi Matsumoto, Orley Quick, Cornelius Joubert and Hagit Yakira) rehearsing Sunday Morning.



What this film doesn't do justice to is the Laban itself, its main theatre a great performance space with a fantastic sound system. I'd never heard Bob Dylan's Don't Think Twice it's Alright (which features in Sunday Morning) sound so good as it did through their speakers. The piece also featured some beautiful live guitar courtesy of Tom James Scott

Next to Deptford Creek some of the finest dancers in the world are studying and performing in one of the best buildings in London. Try and get along to one of their events if you can and don't be intimidated by the supposed difficulty of some contemporary dance. As Suzanne Moore wrote yesterday of an event elsewhere 'With dance I start off making narratives and then I relax and just see sculpture and bodies and relationships and sex and joy and fear. Nothing is more exciting' (Guardian, 16 July 2011). What's not to like?

For information on forthcoming events check the Trinity Laban website. Next up from the 26 to 29 July is the end of year showcase from the post-graduate students.

(for some earlier history, see this previous post on John Cage and Merce Cunningham at Laban)

Update: here's some more news on the graduate shows at Laban: 'Trinity Laban’s graduate shows will feature MA dancers and choreographers performing daring and risk-taking new work at Laban Theatre from 26-29 July. Some of the finest dance pioneers will perform across four evenings, including choreography and performances by multitalented dance artists Parisian Emma Zangs and Argentinean Mariana Marquez... Each night will present an individual showcase of inspirational, thought-provoking and cutting-edge performance confirming Trinity Laban’s presence at the forefront of contemporary dance. Although performances at Laban Theatre start at 19.30h, events, installations and showings will arise around the dance buildings from 18.30h releasing dance performance from the often restrictive nature of traditional venues. Tickets are £6 (£3) and can be booked by calling 020 8463 0100 or by visiting www.trinitylaban.ac.uk/labantheatre'. Some of the performances are for over-18s only.

Bold Vision & Brockley Max events

A couple of hyperlocal events for those at the Brockley/New Cross end:

There's a Revue Show in aid of Bold Vision (the people behind the Hill Station cafe) on 4th June 2011 in the Narthex, Telegraph Hill Centre, Kitto Road, SE14 5TY. They say:

'The venue will be dressed, extravagantly, you might wish to do the same. This show is for adults only (18+). The bar at Hill Station will be open from 7.30pm, show starts 8.30pm. There is a raft of amazing acts lined up for you:

- Kirsty Mac - a caustic Comedienne who will have you in stitches with her acid observations and commentary;
- At Stations (with the People Pile) - a stunning mix of music and dance which weaves a hypnotic spell;
- Middle Class Sound System - Performance Poets extraordinaire whose political dissections always illuminate and entertain'.

Plus cabaret, jazz, belly dancers, comedy, streetdance and more musci from Mama's Record Box, Chouer sans Nom (The Choir without a Name) and Strawberry Thieves. Tickets available here.
Meanwhile there's still a few days of music, theatre, performance, comedy and general merrymaking at this year's Brockley Max festival - check out their site for full programme.

Tea Dance in Greenwich

Is your New Year's resolution to join a gym and run up and down the hills of SE London already fading? Perhaps you need to ease into physical activity a bit more gently... how about a tea dance?

'Greenwich Dance invites you to enjoy a traditional tea dance on Saturday 22 January. The Hugh Ockendon Band will provide live music, whilst dancers take to the floor to revive the waltz, the Cha Cha Cha and the Lambeth walk amongst others. Time: 2.00- 4.30pm. Cost: £5 (£4 conc). Venue: Greenwich Dance, The Borough Hall, Royal Hill, London, SE10 8RE . For more information call 020 8293 9741'.

Plough Monday Folk Dancing in Greenwich

Tomorrow (January 10th)is Plough Monday - in agricultural times the day to get back to the Plough after the festive period. As per usual the Fowlers Molly Dancers will be out and about dancing and making music in Greenwich. The pubs are as follows:

Ashburnham Arms, 25 Ashburnham Grove, Greenwich, Greater London SE10 8UH Meet from 7.30pm to dance at 8pm,

The Morden Arms, 1 Brand St, London SE10 8SP Dance at 8.45pm,

Richard the First, 52-54 Royal Hill, London SE10 8RT Dance at 9.30pm.

Here's some film of the Fowlers Molly dancers in action from December 2005, outside the John Evelyn pub in Deptford when it was still a pub:

Boxing Day Morris in Blackheath

Fowlers Molly Dancers and Blackheath Morris Men will be out and about dancing in Blackheath on Boxing Day. The loose itinerary is:

- Meet at Princess of Wales at 12, dance around 1 pm,
- Dance at Crown 2 ish,
- Hare and Billet 3 ish, then music session there.

Francis Sedgemore has posted some photos of the Fowlers Troop's tour of Deptford/New Cross earlier this month, which included students from the University of Greenwich performing a mummers play by the Dog and Bell.

Up the Line Remembrance 2010

Up the Line, a Remembrance event with a difference in Brockley and Ladywell Cemetery, takes place this Thursday November 11th. People are invited to remember the war dead in a candle lit walk through the cemetery, with music, poems, film and dance performance along the way. Brockley-based leading classical pianist Julian Jacobson will be among those taking part. People can arrive at any time between 7 and 8:20 pm and wander through at their leisure, but there will be a children's lantern procession at 7:30 pm. Admission is free (click flyer to enlarge).

The Rivoli Ballroom: the kitsch and the glamorous

In the mid-1990s, Helen Thomas and Nicola Miller, two dance researchers from Goldsmiths, undertook a research study into ballroom dancing and tea dances at the Rivoli Ballroom in Brockley. It includes some interesting historical material about the place, stating that the building that is now the Rivoli was originally 'a purpose-built 600-seater cinema, which opened in 1913 as the Crofton Park Picture Palace'. Renamed the Rivoli in 1929, it 'closed its doors as a cinema in 1957. It became a dance-hall in 1960 and subsequently for several years, like a large number of old cinemas, it became a bingo-hall, with dancing on Tuesday and Saturday evenings. In 1970 it closed for refurbishment, and two and a half years later it was reopened as a dedicated ballroom'.

There is also some very evocative description:

'The decor of the ballroom is fashioned on the lines of the grand Viennese ballrooms of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In the 1920s, the newly-created palais de danse, such as the Hammersmith Palais, which opened its doors in 1919, aimed to cater for the urban working classes who wanted dance in the new styles, but could not afford to frequent the exclusive West-end hotels and restaurants where their more wealthy peers danced. With their large halls and spacious, sprung floors to dance on, to the sounds of the latest music played by full live bands, the palais were designed to give the appearance of luxury and grandeur for the pleasure of the working classes that had formerly been reserved for those higher up the social scale. The Rivoli Ballroom evokes the earlier past of the great balls and the more recent 'retro' style of the palais de danse...

The walls of the hall are lined with red velour, with patterned panels encrusted with diamente and gold-painted wood-panelling. There are 200 wall-lights which highlight the opulent appearance of the red and gold. The tables and the red velvet seating are set around the edge of the sprung maple dance-floor, with two revolving glitter balls, three large chandeliers and numerous smaller ones hanging down from the ceiling. There is a raised stage across the breadth of the far end of the hall, large enough to take a small dance band, complete with sound system and a large selection of dance records. There are two bars, a rather sumptuous 1960s one with gold flock wallpaper and matching upholstered seating, and a more everyday bar/buffer reminiscent of a 1950s ice-cream parlour, with booth seats...

Stepping into the ballroom at the Rivoli on a Sunday afternoon when the competition is in full swing proved to be a fascinating and bewildering experience. To begin with, the sight of the lavish, yet mannered, styling of the contestants as they swished effortlessly across the floor doing their set pieces, bathed in the light of the chandeliers, and set against the backdrop of the red and gold decor, with onlookers dressed in ordinary clothes, and other contestants in their ballroom best, standing or sitting around the edge of the floor, was so other-worldly that it seemed as if we had been dropped into a period film-set designed to exude the kitsch and the glamorous in the same instant'.

Ballroom Blitz by Helen Thomas and Nicola Miller is published in Dance in the City, edited by Helen Thomas (Pallgrave Macmillan, 1997) .

A Dance in Hilly Fields

Keren'Or's Spiral of the Inner Space performed by the Hilly Fields stone circle there at Brockley Max in June this year:



Keren'Or is a Laban trained dancer (the name is Hebrew for Ray of Light - keep up kabbalists!). There's also footage of this dance at Laban in Deptford.

It's getting towards the Winter Solstice, is anybody planning to watch the sun rise by the stone circle this year? I did it once - you have never been alive until you've watched the new born sun rise over Lewisham! I know some people were up there for the Summer Solstice this year, come to think of it just a few days after the Spiral of the Inner Space dance there .