English National Ballet - National Dance Company Wales - Scottish Ballet

 

English National Ballet

Choreographer: Itzik Galili
Music: John Cage
Costume Design: Natasja Lansen
Lighting Design: Yaron Abulafia
Choreographer's Assistant:Elisabeth Gibiat

English National Ballet is one of the world's great ballet companies. The original 1950s vision for the Company - to take classical ballet of the highest quality to the widest geographical audience, at a price everyone can afford - remains the cornerstone of the Company's philosophy today.

English National Ballet presents an extensive touring schedule at home and abroad and is committed to developing the artform by keeping the cornerstones of the classical repertoire vibrantly alive. By commissioning and acquiring new pieces, refurbishing existing works and encouraging new choreographers to work with our impeccably trained performers we aim to maintain an original and popular repertoire for the nation. Affordable pricing for our performances is key and ensures that we continue to develop new audiences, maintaining an enthusiastic and dedicated following for our work.

Itzik Galili – Choreography

The award-winning Israeli choreographer Itzik Galili has been based in The Netherlands since 1991, where he founded his own company. He turned to dance at the age of 21 after finishing military service in his home country. He choreographed his first piece in 1990, as he claims himself, "to see if he could choreograph one at all ". He is still working and his work has received world wide attention. Galili mixes influences from film and theatre, and his work is thought of as being both surreal and humorous as well as demanding for the dancers, in energy, speed, and technique without losing the essential softness and sincerity. In 1997 the Dutch Ministry of Culture nominated him as artistic director of a new company with public funding, NND/Galili Dance. Galili has created work for his own companies and for the Stuttgart Ballet, Netherlands Dance Theatre and Finnish National Ballet among many others. He is nominated for his high-energy, large-scale piece A Linha Curva for Rambert Dance Company.

John Cage - Composer

John Cage (1912-1992) was a singularly inventive American composer whose principal contribution to the history of music was his systematic establishment of the principle of indeterminacy: by adapting Zen Buddhist practices to composition and performance, Cage succeeded in bringing both authentic spiritual ideas and a liberating attitude of play to the enterprise of Western art. He developed methods of selecting the components of his pieces by chance, early on through the tossing of coins or dice and later through the use of random number generators on the computer, to simulate the coin oracle of the I Ching. Thus, Cage's mature works did not originate in psychology, motive, drama, or literature, but, rather, were just sounds, free of judgments about whether they are musical or not, free of fixed relations, free of memory and taste. His most enduring composition is the radically tacet 4'33" (1952), a work in three movements during which no sounds are intentionally produced

Natasja Lansen - Costume Design

After graduating in Fashion Studies in 1986, Natasja received her second degree as a drawing teacher in 1991 at Hoge School, Holland. In 1994 she graduated from the Theatre Design Department at the Gerrit Rietveld Art Academy, Amsterdam.

Natasja has worked as a costume and set Designer for various strands of theatre including plays, film, mime, ballet and dance.

Designs created for companies include Dansgroep Amsterdam, Ballet Aspen-Santa Fee, NDC Wales, Rambert, Skanes Danstheater, Goteborgs Operan Ballet, Norrdans, Scapino Ballet, NND- Galili Dance, Dansgroep Krisztina de Châtel, Dutch National Ballet, Ballet Gulbenkian, Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company, Finnish National Opera, Ater Baletto, Bayerische Staatsballett, Stuttgarter Ballett, Opera Kiel, Internationaal Danstheater, Opera National de Bordeaux, Holland Dance Festival and Holland Festival. Amongst choreographers she has collaborated with are Itzik Galili, Uri Ivgi, Johan Greben, Krisztina de Chatel, Liat Waysbort, Tamara Roso, Guy Weizman, Roni Haver and Stephen Shropshire

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National Dance Company Wales

Choreography: Christopher Bruce
Music: Maurice Ravel
Costume Design: Christopher Bruce, with realisation and making from Nia Thomson and Angharad Spencer
Lighting Design: Guy Hoare
Choreographer’s Assistant: Joanne Fong

National Dance Company Wales was founded as Diversions in 1983, and was awarded national status in 1999. In June 2009 the Company changed its name to reflect its status and the excellence, pride and dynamism in its performances and work with communities everywhere. In 2004 the Company became a resident at Wales Millennium Centre in the purpose-built Dance House – regarded as one of the best production facilities in Europe for creating new works.

Under the Artistic Direction of Ann Sholem, the Company's vision is to create and perform inspiring world-class choreography, performed by dancers with individuality and charisma. The Company also works with young dancers and community groups as part of its social contract encouraging participation in dance; as well as leading on the development of the artform in Wales by supporting artist-led projects.

National Dance Company Wales performs a repertory of contemporary dance created by established choreographers of international repute and new talent from Wales at mid and large scale venues across Wales, the UK and internationally.

Christopher Bruce – Choreography

Choreographer and performer Christopher Bruce was born in Leicester in 1945. He was Artistic Director of the Rambert Dance Company until 2002. In addition to performing and choreographing, he has created many works for Rambert, Nederlands Dans Theater, Houston Ballet and Cullberg Ballet, as well as choreographing the Andrew Lloyd Webber/Alan Ayckbourn musical Jeeves at Her Majesty's Theatre, London in 1975.
Christopher has had a long-term association with the English National Ballet and the Houston Ballet. In 2005 he created a new work for the spring season at the Royal Ballet and a further new work for the Rambert autumn season. His works include Cruel Garden, Ghost Dances, Sergeant Early's Dream, Swansong, Moonshine and Rooster.

Bruce was awarded a CBE for a lifetime's service to dance. He is a visiting honorary professor at the University of Exeter.

Maurice Ravel - Composer

Joseph-Maurice Ravel (1875–1937) was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects. Much of his piano music, chamber music, vocal music and orchestral music has entered the standard concert repertoire.

Ravel's piano compositions, such as Jeux d'eau, Miroirs, Le tombeau de Couperin and Gaspard de la nuit, demand considerable virtuosity from the performer, and his orchestral music, including Daphnis et Chloé and his arrangement of Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, uses a variety of sound and instrumentation. Ravel is perhaps known best for his orchestral work Boléro (1928).

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Scottish Ballet

Run For It

Choreography: Martin Lawrance
Set Design: Martin Boyce
Costume design: Yumiko Takeshima
Music: John Adams

Scottish Ballet is Scotland's National Dance Company. The Company employs 36 professional dancers, 41 staff and a part-time freelance orchestra of up to 70 musicians. Scottish Ballet's primary aim is to provide programmes of world-class dance performance and educational activity at all scales.

Scottish Ballet presents a wide range of high-quality dance to audiences across Scotland, the UK and abroad, with strong classical technique at the root of all of its work. The Company presents a broad repertoire, ranging from new versions of the classics through to seminal pieces from 20th century modern ballet repertoire and extending into signature pieces by living choreographers and new commissions.

Scottish Ballet provides a huge variety of education initiatives and dance classes including: work with children and adults of all ages and abilities; and the Associate Programme, which encourages aspiring young dancers to train for a career in the industry. The Company is also closely linked with Royal Conservatoire Scotland, partnering the BA Modern Ballet and M.Mus (Pianist for Dance) degree courses.

Martin Lawrance – Choreography

Martin Lawrance was born in Leicester and began dancing with Leicester Youth Dance Theatre under the direction of Sue Rosenbloom. He trained at Coventry Centre for the Performing Arts from 1989-1991 and at London Contemporary Dance School from 1991-1994. He performed with the postgraduate performance group 4D where he first worked with Richard Alston. Martin has restaged 10 of Richard Alston's choreographies, in Britain and overseas. In 2000, Martin was invited by the Meltdown Festival on the South Bank to make Thimble Rigging, to an original score by Scott Walker. He has created three works for London Contemporary Dance School, and two works for the State School of Dance in Athens, where he created Grey Allegro and Silken Steel. In June 2003, Martin presented a full evening of his work at The Place, and in 2004 Charge was commissioned for the Place Prize. Grey Allegro and Charge were subsequently taken into the Richard Alston Dance Company repertoire. More recently, for RADC, he has created About Face, Brink, Body & Soul and To Dance And Skylark. In November 2007, Martin retired from dancing and is now RADC's Rehearsal Director. In 2009, he made Pendulum for the Critics Circle Award winning Ballet Black Company, and in 2010 he made a piece for the Wycombe Swan dance project, DP6. In 2011 he made Other Than I for Richard Alston Dance Company.

John Adams - Music

John Adams is one of America’s most admired and respected composers. A musician of enormous range and technical command, he has produced works, both operatic and symphonic, that stand out among all contemporary classical music for the depth of their expression, the brilliance of their sound and the profoundly humanist nature of their themes.

Born and raised in New England, educated at Harvard, Adams moved in 1971 to California, where he taught for ten years at the San Francisco Conservatory and was composer in residence at the San Francisco Symphony.

Adams’s operatic works are among the most successful of our time. Nixon in China, The Death of Klinghoffer and Doctor Atomic, all created in collaboration with stage director Peter Sellars, draw their subjects from archetypical themes in contemporary history.

On the Transmigration of Souls, written for the New York Philharmonic in commemoration of the first anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks, received the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Music, and won a rare triple crown at the Grammys, including Best Classical Recording and Best Orchestral Performance.

In 2003 a film version of The Death of Klinghoffer, Adams’s second opera, directed by Penny Woolcock with the composer conducting the London Symphony was released in theaters, on television and on DVD.

Adams has been honored with honorary degrees and proclamations by, among others, Cambridge University, Harvard University, Phi Beta Kappa, the governor of California, the French Legion of Honor and Northwestern University, where he was awarded the first ever Nemmers Prize in music.

John Adams maintains an active life as a conductor, appearing with the world's greatest orchestras. In 2006, Adams curated the hugely popular Minimalist Jukebox for the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He is currently Composer in Residence at Carnegie Hall and Artist in Association with the BBC Symphony.

The official John Adams web site is www.earbox.com

The music of John Adams is published by Boosey & Hawkes and by Associated Music Publishers.

Martin Boyce - Set Design

Born in Hamilton, Martin Boyce is an artist whose sculptural works recall and reference the materials, textures and forms of the built urban environment. Using the iconography of both the everyday and the history of modern architecture and design his sculptural installations form immersive environments and poetic landscapes.

Boyce studied at Glasgow School of Art 1986 -1990 (BFA) and 1995 -1997 (MFA) and at California Institute of the Arts 1996 (MFA exchange program).

Boyce represented Scotland at the Venice Biennale 2009 with the exhibition No Reflections and was the winner of the 2011 Turner Prize. Solo exhibitions include, Modern Institute, Glasgow (2011), Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York (2011); Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zurich (2010); Dundee Contemporary Arts, Dundee (2009); Venice Biennale / Scotland and Venice (2009); Kaldor Art Projects, Melbourne (2008); Kunstverein Munster (2008); Ikon Gallery, Birmingham (2008); The Modern Institute, Glasgow (2007, 2004); Centre d’Art Contemporain, Geneva (2007); Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York (2007); FRAC Pays de la Loire, Carquefou, France (2006); Johnen Galerie, Berlin (2006);Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zurich (2004); Tramway, Glasgow (2002)

Group exhibitions include,Turner Prize exhibition, Baltic, Gateshead (2011); Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (2011); Daimler Contemporary, Berlin (2011); Royal Academy of Arts, London (2011); Turner Contemporary, Margate (2011); 4th Aukland Triennial, Auckland (2010); Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2010) Sculpture Centre, New York (with Ugo Rondinone)(2008); Munster Sculpture Project, Munster (2007); Arnolfini,Bristol (2005); Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt (2005); Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico City (2004); Lyon Biennale of Contemporary Art,(2003); Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2002).

Yumiko Takeshima - Costume Design

Yumiko Takeshima was born in Asahikawa, Japan. She has performed as a Principal dancer with Universal Ballet, Alberta Ballet, Feld Ballet NY, Het National Ballet, and is currently Principal dancer Dresden Semper Oper Ballet.

In 2002, she founded dancewear company YUMIKO and continues to design for them. She has designed costumes for Dawson’s A Million Kisses to my Skin, The Grey, 00:00, Morning Ground and Gentle Chapter (all Het National Ballet), Reverence (Marinsky Ballet), The Disappeared, Giselle and The World According to Us (Semper Oper Ballet), Sweet Spell of Oblivion and The Third Light (Royal Ballet of Flanders), A Million Kisses to my Skin and Faun(e) (English National Ballet), Dancing Madly Backwards (Norwegian National Ballet) and

On the Nature of Daylight (gala piece). She has also designed for Jo Elo’s Golden Partita (Basel Ballet) and Suit Murder (Finish National Ballet), William Forsythe’s The Second Detail (Semper Oper Ballet), Krzysztof Pastor’s And the Rain Will Pass (Polish National Ballet) and Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s Solitaire (Het National Ballet).