Choreolab 2018
Applications now open for Footnote’s Choreolab 2018!
January 16th – January 27th 2018
Whitireia Performance Centre, Wellington
Footnote New Zealand Dance Choreolab is firmly established as the most significant professional development event for dance practitioners in New Zealand, drawing artists from around the country and overseas to the capital each summer.
We are delighted to announce the tutors leading the workshops for 2018. They are Kate McIntosh, Vangelis Legakis, Kristian Larsen and Joshua Rutter. For 2018 Choreolab will be held over two weeks, instead of the usual three weeks, to ensure the full event is as accessible as possible for busy freelance dancers.
As always, Footnote will make evening lab time available for participants to explore their ideas, and there will be a number of social and networking events, including the infamous Choreolab boat trip.
Following on from previous successful ChoreoCo seasons, ChoreoCo 2018 will provide a paid opportunity for five Choreolab participants to work with Kristian and Joshua on the development of a new work titled Die Hard Rock Cafe Muller. This will be a four week paid contract, from the 6th February to the 4th of March (including the week long performance season as part of the New Zealand Fringe Festival).
To apply for Choreolab and ChoreoCo 2018 please complete the application form (click here) by 5pm on Sunday 22nd October. Please also indicate whether you are interested in being considered for ChoreoCo 2018.
If you have any questions about the application process, Choreolab or ChoreoCo, please email anita@footnote.org.nz
Choreolab 2018 fees are:
$200 (Earlybird fee if paid by November 18th) or $250 (to be paid in full by December 16th).
Workshop details
Week One and Two: Flying Low facilitated by Vangelis Legakis
Flying Low is a physical and dynamic technique that was developed by David Zambrano. Flying Low creates diverse dynamic relationships between the dancers and the environment with special focus on floor work. By using one’s weight, gravity and the energy from the environment, there is a momentum created that allows the dancer to flow freely on the floor and in space. Through the basic principles of the technique that of gathering, sending and passing through, the dancers create concrete Inter-relationships between themselves, the floor and the whole space, so as to ultimately dance freely and instinctively all together as one living entity.
About Vangelis Legakis
Legakis graduated in 2006 from Laban Center (London, UK) with BA in Dance Theatre and in 2007 with an MA in Choreography. In 2008 he established The Van-L Dance Company in London and has since created a number of productions which have been performed internationally. In 2010 he was awarded the Marion North Mentoring Scheme and researched dance improvisation and interdisciplinary studies under the mentorship of Gill Clarke. In the same year he was a semi-finalist at the Place Prize in London, UK, as well receiving a diploma to teach, spread and develop the techniques of Flying Low and Passing Through.
For a full bio please click here.
Week One: Kate McIntosh
Kate McIntosh is a New Zealand artist, now living in Brussels, whose work straddles the boundary between dance and performance. Kate grew up in Wellington and finished her dance training at QUT, Brisbane. After graduation she joined Meryl Tankard Australian Dance Theatre and then moved to Europe where she has been living since 2000, directing and performing in a number of solo and group works. These highly individual performances – which are a mixture of spoken text, visual imagery and physicality – have toured through Europe to major theatres and festivals. Regular invitations have included the Southbank Centre (London), the Centre Pompidou (Paris), Hebbel Am Ufer (Berlin), Kaaitheatre (Brussels) and the Theaterfestival Spielart (Munich). In 2011 she returned to New Zealand to create Hullapolloi on Footnote, with collaborator Jo Randerson. In addition to her work for the stage, Kate is engaged in many other artistic projects. She has directed short videos and multi-screen video installations that have screened at festivals and galleries the world over. Kate is also a founding member of Poni, the notorious Belgian performance collective and punkrock band.
Week Two: Kristian Larsen and Joshua Rutter
The workshop has two domains. The first is broadly somatic but finely detailed – biomechanics understood through a process of relating to another body and its mind. Because habit is a natural human function it’s pointless to fight it. Rather it’s easier to fight each other. That will be the second domain.
1.Warmup
First we deplane the body. Take down its angles. Then we morph it. This is done through a series of attacks.
2. Technique
This is not so important. You are. Generics and relaxation meet standing-alone-after-a-near-drowning-experience. Engagement with this technique results in an exponentially expanding intelligence that is as rewarding as it is baffling.
3. There is Art
Social takedown theory. No shouting or jumping. Just joy
To be clear; there are two of us, and there will be many of us who are you. We will cycle through grapplings, yieldings and absurd affects together. There will be tender nonsense and disdainful care. You will emerge from this workshop with all your prior knowledge intact but doubled in volume, scope, and audacity.
About Kristian:
New Zealand based artist Kristian Larsen is a choreographer and multidisciplinary performance maker. A graduate of three of New Zealand’s key dance institutions (UNITEC-PAS, The New Zealand School of Dance, and the University of Auckland), Larsen holds a Masters Degree in Creative and Performing Arts. Larsen has worked extensively as a performer and collaborator with and for internationally renowned artists including Jerome Bel (France), Ko Nakajima (Japan), Hans Van Den Broeck (Belgium), Min Tanaka (Japan), Magpie Music Dance Company (Netherlands). Paul Pinson (Scotland), and istheatere (Australia), he has also had film collaborations shown in the UK and Iceland. In New Zealand Larsen has worked with many of New Zealand’s choreographic alumni as well as pursued his own projects including interdisciplinary improvisation ensemble “Shameless Crowd Pleaser’ with composer musician Drew MacMillan and initiated the highly successful ‘Banger’s n Mash’ improvisation series in Auckland. Larsen works extensively with improvisation as a choreographic ‘major’, is a big fan of obscure martial arts, high fat diets, minimalism, hand held synthesizers and his electric bike. This project is the fourth or possibly fifth collaboration with Joshua Rutter, and third project with Footnote.
About Joshua:
Joshua Rutter is a NZ artist living in Berlin, Germany. With experience and training in dance, circus, theatre, electronic music and contemporary art, his work has explored choreographic possibilities found in the internet, objects, subcultures and masculine indentities. His current artistic interests are situations and physical systems. He has worked with a number of NZ and international artists over the last 20 years, and in 2016 completed his Masters studies in Solo/Dance/Authorship at the Berlin university of the arts. He has performed his own work in Germany, Sweden, Romania and New Zealand. Some recent examples of work can be found at: joshuarutter.com