Retina Dance Company are back on tour in the wide and wacky world of dance with six dancers, a live band (sometimes) and and ever changing ensemble of community and local professional dancers in their brand new work ‘Layers of Skin’
As the work tours around the UK and Europe it morphs into various configurations. At every venue the company will recruit a group of community dancers and local professionals, if possible, and integrate them into the work, thus making up the titular “layers”.
If you are very lucky you will also catch the music live played by the Belgian music ensemble Aranis.
The company tell us this much about the work;
Layers of Skin is a unique contemporary dance performance project that can exist in different formats and size. At its smallest it is a production for 6 professional Retina Company dancers with recorded music, and at the opposite end of the scale there are 6 Retina dancers, 6 professional dancers and 12 amateur dancers from the local area and live music from 7 musicians from the Flemish music ensemble Aranis, resulting in 31 people on stage.
For a preview of the work we caught up with a technical rehearsal of the show (the dancers are not in costume) along with a dozen local community dancers. No live music on this occasion but we will bring you a full version of the show early next year.
The video features interviews with company AD Filip Van Huffel, company dancer Erin Harty and physical education teacher Nicola Warren.
‘Layers of Skin’ is going to sleep for christmas but will be back soon on a full UK tour, check their website for details.
The work is performed by Kristina Alleyne, Pauline De Laet, Erin Harty, Steven Martin, David Michel and Matthew Slater with choreography by Filip Van Huffel and music by Aranis.
Filmed at the Magna Science Adventure Park in Rotherham on November 20th, 2011. This video feature was funded in part with support from Arts Council England.