The world’s most acerbic dance commentary
Do you remember Richard Alston Dance Company? For those not in the know the company existed for 25 years under the leadership of its titular director Richard Alston, a dance maker of note, according to some, and crafter of 50 dance works that toured the world, dazzling audiences with a great deal of Wafting About™. […]
On December 22nd 2014, we, here in TheLab™ published a piece detailing the “monstrous” cost of a newly announced arts building that was allocated funding to the tune of £78Million (with a total projected budget of £110Million) by the UK’s central government. The chaos, confusion, incompetence, and general lack of professionalism in that announcement from […]
We return from our extended hiatus to find the wide world of dance in turmoil thanks to a pandemic and an established dance company reduced to ashes by a spectacular “self-own” worthy of only the very worst super villains. Rosie Kay Dance Company (RKDC), an Arts Council England “National Portfolio Organisation” (NPO) in receipt of […]
Now, when we say that “websites are hard” we don’t mean they go out looking for trouble at the local pub and engage in some bare knuckle brawling in a conveniently atmospheric alleyway in downtown wherever. What we, here in TheLab™, do mean is that having spent a considerable amount of time porting Article19 over […]
The last few weeks for dance and the arts in general have been one long list of stupid. From the outside looking in, the whole arts profession, from top to bottom, has the appearance of a clown car driving through a living manifestation of a Salvador Dali painting and driving that car are the alleged […]
Dance companies do not make an appearance in the national press news pages that often. If they do it’s because the company is doing something stupid or the paper is running a fawning profile to fill up space in the culture section. Step forward English National Ballet, the company’s director Tamara Rojo and dance writer […]
Dance is a sexist profession. It is gender biased towards men, this is demonstrable and undeniable. Women don’t get hired to top jobs as much as men and they don’t get commissioned as often as men despite outnumbering those men by a wide margin. It is simply not believable that when considering candidates for the […]
On occasion, we must turn to the fictional world to form the introduction to a written piece, so with that in mind; During an episode of the long running TV series ‘The West Wing’, a show concerned with the political intrigue of the office of the President of the United States, the character Danny Concannon, […]
Tuesday’s announcement from Arts Council England (ACE) concerning their National Portfolio Organisations (NPO) was, compared to 2014, a fairly low-key affair. Unlike the previous round of funding this year was not expected to feature any huge cuts to the arts in general so things were a little less nerve wracking for the folks that spent […]
In perhaps one of the most craven, partisan political acts this country has witnessed in the last 100 years the UK’s Prime Minister, Theresa May, has called for a general election to take place in just 7 weeks. As the Guardian pointed out on Tuesday, there is no urgent need for an election at all, […]