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Previous projects
2007
| NEW for 2007! Dance Enrichment Workshops are now available to schools, designed to support students dance education from key stages 1 to 3, to GCSE and A Level, BTEC and HND courses. |
| Random Dance/Equator Project San Jose October 2006/2007 (E)quator Project is facilitated by essexdance in collaboration with Random Dance and Office of Cultural Affairs, San Jose. The aim of the project is to create a platform for cultural exchange between:
Background In October 2006, building on relationships made during the Zero
One Festival Teaming up two schools from San Jose with a primary school in Chelmsford
and Essex's
Phase 2 of the project has come to fruition as part of the Enter_Unknown Territories Festival with a contingent from San Jose visiting the region. Teaching staff and pupils from Independence High School, San Jose, have led a series of dance workshops with Chelmsford's Larkrise Primary School and Essex's youth dance company FOCUS, leading to the creation of a new podcast from Larkrise Primary School and a new work in progress. The (e)quator website message board has continued to be utilised by staff and young people to document their experiences and has also been used to create an online archive of the project.
FOCUS Youth Dance Company - The company
is run by essexdance for young people, aged Independence High School - Independence
High School is the tenth largest high school in the USA and the
only one in the bay area to have a full dance programme which involves
300 Larkrise Community Primary School - Larkrise is based in the Great Baddow area of Chelmsford and caters for children aged 4-11 years. The school hasn't had any regular dance sessions throughout the year but they especially enjoyed the project sessions in October and also this month, showing a great ability to react to creative movement ideas. Windmill Springs Elementary School
(phase 1) - Windmill Springs is based in the Franklin McKinley School
District of San Jose and classes range from pre-school through to
8th grade. The class taking part in the (e)quator education project
is made up of 37 young people aged 10 - 11 years. Over 50% of the
class are male and before beginning this project had no curricular
dance The Organisations essexdance - essexdance is the regional
dance development agency for Essex and Hertfordshire, based in Chelmsford,
Essex. It acts as a focus for innovation, excellence and access
for dance development in the county, region and beyond. essexdance
works in professional, educational and community contexts to deliver
a range of dance events. essexdance's current key priority is the
development of the innovative area of dance and emerging technologies
for which it is gaining a reputation locally, regionally and nationally.
essexdance also embraces dance in its broader City of San Jose Office of Cultural Affairs
- The Office of Cultural Affairs, a division of the Office of Economic
Development, has the responsibility of supporting, promoting and
developing the arts in San Jose. The City of San Jose recognises
the importance of the arts to the cultural, educational and economic
well-being of its diverse population. Policy and program guidance
is provided by the San Jose Arts Commission, a 13 member citizen
body appointed by the City Council and reporting directly to the
Council. The City's Arts Education Program, offered through the
Office of Cultural Affairs, provides a variety of professional arts
experiences to local students. It has operated |
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(e)quator at Enter_ Come along and support Essex County's Youth Dance Company as they perform at the Enter_ Festival in Cambridge on Saturday 28th April 2007. In October 2006, building on relationships made during the Zero One Festival essexdance and Office of Cultural Affairs embarked on the first step of an international education project between Chelmsford, Essex and San Jose, California. This April coinciding with the Enter Festival for New Technology Art essexdance will embark on the second phase of the project. essexdance will be visited by a contingent from San Jose made up of pupils and teachers from Independence High School and representatives from the Office of Cultural Affairs, San Jose. The group will be working with Larkrise Primary School and film artist Michael Szpakowski over 3 days of creative workshops to create a new podcast video for the (e)quator website, as well as documenting their experiences on the (e)quator message boards. FOCUS Youth Dance Company will also take part in the project working towards the creation of a new dance piece to be shown at the (e)quator Education Project Sharing on Saturday 28th April. Taking place at The Centre at St Pauls at 5pm the sharing will consist of the new work in progress created during the project week, as well as a performance of ‘Methods of Deconstruction’ by FOCUS Youth Dance Company and a viewing of the projects podcast videos. There will also be a chance to talk to representatives from essexdance and the Office of Cultural Affairs, San Jose to find out more about the project! |
Workshops in 2006 took place with Troika
Ranch, Random
Dance Company, StopGap,
Blue Eyed Soul and Anjali
Dance Company.
Vincent Dance Theatre performed 'Punch Drunk' at the Mercury Theatre
Colchester on 27th October.
They led two educational workshop at the Colchester Institute on the 22nd
October for the A-Level Students.
Mavin Khoo and Tom Dale led educational workshops in autumn and spring 2004.
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| Photo: Ravi Deepres, Alpha by Random Dance |
In 2003, Random Dance toured its professional full length work for children,
premiering in Chelmsford at the essexdance base, Chancellor Hall. Random
Dance is an internationally renowned company that is at the cutting edge
of working with dance and technology in performance, educational and community
activities.
essexdance and Random Dance introduced two different workshop options
for children aged 8 – 11 years. The first was the webcast programme
and the second was the workshop programme:
Random Dance taught and set exciting choreographic tasks live over the internet for a total of 5 sessions. Random Dancers then visited the schools for 3 sessions to structure the work they had been doing into a dance piece. This work was then shown by the children as a curtain raiser performance prior to the professional performance of Alpha.
Dynamic, high energy, creative workshops based on Random’s unique style and relating to the themes of the work, were offered to schools. When the workshop was booked, the schools received 30 free tickets to see the performance of Alpha.
In 2002, Imlata dance company and essexdance worked in partnership with eleven local authorities to produce a range of educational workshops and performances across Essex.
The first phase of the project introduced residencies led by Jayachandran Palazhy of Imlata and essexdance Associate Artist and Nic Sandiland to Harlow, Colchester, Uttlesford, Basildon, Thurrock, Braintree, Southend on Sea, Brentwood, Castle Point, Maldon and Epping. The workshops took place with a range of groups from school children, asylum seekers, people with learning and physical disabilities and community groups. Phase 2 of the project saw “Interface.dance”, essexdance summer school 2002, which was a week long summer school in Chelmsford. Following on from this, two performances of Imlata’s professional work, “Trans Avatar” took place at The Playhouse, Harlow and Eastwood Theatre, Rayleigh. Footage from the workshops was collected and edited into a dance film which was shown at the premiere “Trans Avatar” in Harlow and was also available for sale and use by the Arts Development Officers involved in the projects.
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| Photo: Allan F. Parker, Trans Avatar by Imlata Dance Company |
