The furore that has erupted over the cancelling of a large scale community opera created by writer Lee Hall (of Billy Elliot fame apparently) by Opera North has led to most of the scrutiny being placed upon Opera North itself. This is despite the main villains of the piece being a primary school and an […]
We might as well get straight to the point here. The BBC show ‘The Most Incredible Thing About Contemporary Dance’ (MITACD) screened last night on BBC4 was contemptible, risible pish. MITACD was, apparently, a “personal journey” conducted (fnar fnar) by musician Charles Hazelwood through the wide and wacky world of contemporary dance. This is a […]
Starting on June 30th the BBC will be running a series of programs ostensibly about “contemporary dance”. The first of the programs is indeed called “Dance! The Most Incredible Thing About Contemporary Dance” (it’s a subtle joke that will be explained later). For an opening gambit the BBC told us this about the coming season […]
Last week we ran a story concerning the numbers issued by Big Dance for participation in their events in London over a nine day period. We said the numbers were made up, ACE issued a statement to try and clarify things, then just dug themselves and Big Dance into a slightly deeper hole. First of […]
Following the announcement by the Royal Opera House that Kevin “I’m so obscure even I don’t know who I am” O’Hare has been appointed to helm the Royal Ballet we, here in TheLab™, slipped an ROH insider some used £10 notes in a brown paper bag to get a hold of his “Aims and Objectives” […]
The headline gets to the crux of the problem. Why isn’t the wacky world of dance more fun, especially online? Dance, as a profession, is full of drama, hilarity, ridiculousness, stress, blood, sweat and, dare we say, tears! From creation through rehearsals to touring and teaching the whole thing is about as normal as Wayne […]
Yesterday, Arts Council England, along with their partners in crime at the BBC, held their first seminar on “Building Digital Capacity in the Arts” to talk about the wonders of IPTV and the building of Apps (applications). The BDCA project is, allegedly, about encouraging and teaching cultural organisations to use media and technology to ply […]
After the NPO decisions were announced many companies put out press releases expressing this, that or the other toward ACE. No such press releases came forward when everybody’s funding was cut, last year, by almost 10%. Here in TheLab™ we’ve put together the press release we think should have gone out when the NPO decisions […]
Vincent Dance Theatre, Candoco Dance Company, and William “Mad Man” Forsythe have all announced plans to present their respective companies works in 3D this coming autumn following a wave of popular success for the format. Theatres across the nation are, apparently, “gearing up” for the unprecedented interest being expressed by both theatre goers to see […]
Trawling through the publicly available accounts of arts organisations is not a fun thing to do. Wading through a mud pit full of man traps would be more entertaining but wade we did and this is what we found (all numbers are for year end 2010). Richard Alston Dance Company spent £57,660 on marketing, £31,356 […]