The world’s most acerbic dance commentary
Tis the season and as such the newspapers, online or otherwise, have been making their picks for the top ten of this or the top five of that with many a dance company lapping up the attention and confirmation of their work they so unnecessarily desire. As is always the case the dance media, such […]
Whenever contemporary dance ends up on television it is never going to end well for all involved. Whether it’s a long form documentary or the showing of a piece of work (the rarest of things on network television) the only thing you can do is hold on for dear life and hope the art-form comes […]
We’re not sure when it started, maybe it’s always been like this and we just didn’t notice, but everything in the world, including the arts and especially dance, is subject to being graded on a curve. Concentrate, because things are about to get weird. Choreographer A is better than Choreographer B because Choreographer A is […]
As any good Yorkshireman would say at a time of heightened crises or distress; “There’s trouble at T’mill”. Profuse apologies to none Yorkshire folk and overseas readers if you have no frame of reference for that particular metaphor. Three greats of the wide world of dance (no, seriously); Akram Khan, Hofesh Shechter and Lloyd Newson […]
The story of newly constructed dance buildings in the UK is not a good one. Often constructed at massive expense and demonstrating minimal public or professional benefit the obsession with “new builds” continues almost unabated, even with massive cuts to the arts. Our recent piece on Rambert Dance Company and their massively expensive new facility […]
Hold on to your hats dear readers, you all have hats right?, because things have just gone from crazy to completely batsh*t crazy in the wide world of dance. In July of 2013 we published a piece concerning the massively over funded and completely unnecessary National Youth Dance Company that stalks this land like a…. […]
Late in 2013 the new studio complex and home to Rambert Dance Company on the Southbank in London opened its doors with promises of a lot of support for independent dance makers in the city looking for studio space. Constructed at a cost of £19Million the company secured £7Million of that total from Arts Council […]
For anybody working in a freelance capacity, no matter what the trade, the biggest challenge is not necessarily finding work to begin with but getting paid for doing that work. Simply put, freelancers have to wait far too long in many instances to get paid for the work they do. In our own experience, here […]
It’s a well known fact that the worst thing you can do in politics is tell the truth. Even though people more often than not demand honesty the voices opposed to that honesty always seem to be the loudest. A few days ago the Equity Dance website released a statement that basically condemned the Royal […]
The central tenet of journalism is to report the facts and leave the opinions at the door, unless you’re writing an opinion piece that is but no matter what, the facts are still a journalist’s best friend. Here in TheLab™ we harangue Arts Council England probably more than every other arts publication/journalist in the country […]