File this one under “don’t we make fun of you enough already?” because Wayne McGregor has become the all new, the one and only, wait for it……. “Youth Dance Champion” (seriously, stop giggling at the back!) That’s right boys and girls; Just like Hercules, Perseus and Doogal from the Magic Roundabout the young folks of […]
If life has ever been inexplicably cruel to you, God himself has forsaken your soul and you have run out of chocolate chip ice cream you may have found yourself watching a live snooker* match on television. You will notice that the only thing more mind numbingly irritating than the game itself is the constant […]
When the internet was nothing more than a fledgling technology project, way back in the 1990’s, the mantra of those in the know was simple. “Content is King” – Meaning that simply having a website was not enough, the material on that website counted more than anything else. Sadly, that simple principle is becoming increasingly […]
For a small profession, relatively speaking, the dance world has an awful lot of awards ceremonies going on all the time, with the emphasis on the word “awful”! This time it’s the Olivier Awards, named for Laurence Olivier the well know thesp and all-round ham. Although they are not specifically for dance they do have […]
The current political shenanigans going on the in the United States of America are historic for a number of reasons, not least of which is when either Barack Obama or Hilary Clinton secures their party’s nomination it will be the first time in history that an African American or a woman has been nominated to […]
It occurred to us, here in TheLab™, while watching the dancers of Verve do their thing with the current touring material of the 2008 programme, that these particular individuals, along with all serious dance students, are extraordinary individuals in our time. When you think about it, far too many people today are consumed with the […]
The UK government’s recent announcement that all school children aged between 5-16 years old should receive at least five hours of cultural activity per week has met with mixed reactions from the arts and teaching sectors. Emotions range from gentle praise to outright hysteria at the very thought of compartmentalising the arts in such a […]
The New York Times if often the place to turn for sober news coverage, informed editorials and a progressive voice or two. Unfortunately they get as slack as any other major paper when it comes to fawning coverage of the arts. The grandfather of dance, Merce Cunningham, one of New York’s perennial dance personalities, is […]
One of the often missed services that Arts Council England provides is something called the Arts Jobs List. It’s basically an old school email bulletin. Subscribers to the list get an email when somebody, somewhere posts information to the list and it is, remarkably, free of spam. What it is not free of is a […]
Hard as this may be to believe the arts, as a whole, is working itself up into an enormous lather over the recent cuts announced to regularly funded organisations by Arts Council England. Such is the outrage that artists took to the streets this past Tuesday wearing masks and wielding banners, (stop giggling at the […]