Take your seat at our first performances in The Dance Space
Although we are not opening The Dance Space publicly until July this year, this Spring we’re inviting audiences and participants to take part in a handful of opportunities to help us test the building – and get an early look inside to boot! Some of these opportunities take place during Brighton’s exciting festival season in May when we are presenting two dance performances as part of Brighton Fringe and two in partnership with Brighton Festival.
For the little ones, we will be moving a giant Perspex cube into one of our studio spaces for George Fellows / Four Hands’ intimate dance piece it’s ok. Choreographer George Fellows is one of our Little Big Dance artists and along with the characters in this duet - designed for children aged 0-5 years and their families – we explore a range of emotions, with the important message that there really are no right or wrong feelings and it really is ok to feel them all.
From Perspex boxes to wooden frames, Elinor Lewis brings a very different two-hander to The Dance Space with her performance TIMBER. This suspenseful balancing act, which straddles dance, live art and installation, sees two people defiantly occupying a precarious space created by six wooden frames balancing in a row - waiting to fall like dominoes.
As part of the Brighton Fringe programme we are presenting a world premiere from Italian choreographer Sara Sguotti, our first international guest to The Dance Space and part of a residency exchange programme that we are developing. During her time with us, Sara will be exchanging ideas with local artists, meeting with our steering group and taking part in a post-show discussion with our Artistic Director Cath James. Her new piece Some Other Place invites us to explore the relationship between performer, space and the imagination and features a live score by Spartaco Cortesi.
Also in Brighton Fringe, choreographer Eva Recacha has created a delicate dance solo exploring the idea that women become invisible after a certain age. Because I can – which features performer Lauren Potter, herself aged over 60 - challenges us to think about power, memory and growing old. Because I can features soundscapes by sound artist Alberto Ruiz Soler, whose work appeared recently in Paso - an exhibition at Brighton’s contemporary art gallery Fabrica.
Our Artistic Director Cath James said: ‘I am really excited about presenting these pieces of work in our brand new studios at The Dance Space. At South East Dance we believe in pushing the boundaries of what dance is, so we wanted to offer our audiences the chance to enjoy four very different approaches to creating dance, and different ways of thinking about stories - particularly as a way of understanding personal experiences.
‘Through two solos and two duets our artists invite us to meet a range of emotions and ways to explore what the body can do, regardless of age. And dance for our littlest audiences is front and centre with it’s ok - a commission created as part of Little Big Dance, a programme which supports artists to develop diverse dance work for children aged five and under.’