The end of the year is always a jarring moment for us, here in TheLabâ„¢, because we realise that in spite of all the practical, financial and logistical data saying we shouldn’t still exist here we are, lurking around like a black hole looking for a galaxy to swallow. As we approach year nine of […]
This coming November the Government will announce their, so-called, comprehensive spending review. This review will determine just how much money goes where from the national budget of approximately £500Billion. Arts Council England has been fretting about this review to such an extent they have been slashing budgets and sounding the death throes of the arts […]
by Neil Nisbet If the press hacks are to be believed dance is, once again, undergoing a resurgence of popularity with the advent of numerous ‘reality’ television shows featuring dance as their premise that have appeared on a number of networks, worldwide over the last few years. We have dance shows featuring famous people, dance […]
by Neil Nisbet “If a professional dancer makes just one wrong move in class, in rehearsal or on stage it could, literally, be the end of their career.” That was the opening line to a feature piece written back in April within this very tome. Just last week this became all too real as our […]
by Neil Nisbet “Through a wide reaching programme of research and consultation the Arts Council will explore how people value the arts and, by gaining a deeper understanding of what is important to them, become more accountable to the public it serves.” Thus begins Arts Council England’s latest attempt to get the public on board […]
by Ira Schiff We’ve all been there. A dancer is on the stage bellowing his or her life story into a microphone whilst executing some random movement. From nowhere, and for no apparent reason, another dancer rushes across the stage wearing a crash helmet and runs straight into an adjacent wall. All the while, a […]
By Neil Nisbet Several years ago a documentary on William Forsythe showed the American dance maker creating a solo with one of his dancers from Ballet Frankfurt. The two were engaged in a one on one creative battle to squeeze every ounce of precision out of a sequence of movement, the position of a hand, […]
Article19 reported in January last year on the formation of the Department for Culture Media and Sport’s (DCMS) ‘Dance Forum’ a group of administrators that would gather several times per year and discuss issues pertinent to dance so their conclusions could be relayed to central government for action. The Forum is administrated by DanceUK the […]
Article19 rolls into its sixth year online with our traditional end of year review. Unlike other publications we actually write ours after the year is over, not like the clowns in the national press who do theirs in July while on holiday in Tenerife! Why else do you think they never mention something that happens […]