Introducing ArtsUnboxed! A revolutionary new way to make and share performance work by Greenwich Dance. I am so thrilled to be involved in this project. Our aim is to try and find a way to create a sustainable income for artists as well as address concerns about climate change by touring ideas rather than people.
Greenwich Dance presents Talking Moves, the brand-new podcast where artists come together to share practice, experience and ideas. Designed for dance professionals, we put artists centre stage, upfront, in the spotlight, at the microphone so they can talk about the ideas and issues that move them.
Greenwich Dance presents Talking Moves, the brand-new podcast where dance artists come together to share practice, experience and ideas.
Designed for dance professionals, artists are put centre stage, upfront, in the spotlight, at the microphone so they can talk about the ideas and issues that move them.
Talking Moves can be downloaded from wherever you get your podcasts. You can also listen on Greenwich Dance’s Digital Stage, where there are transcripts and more information about the guests.
Talking Moves is a Greenwich Dance production
Presented by Melanie Precious
Production by Carmel Smith, Lucy White and Melanie Precious
Talking Moves is supported by Arts Council England
When Covid-19 struck and Greenwich Dance’s tour of community centres was cancelled, they decided to repurpose their funding and create four films based on the work they had been planning to show. The first film features Zoie Golding of ZoieLogic Dance Theatre and is presented by Sarah Blanc.
Find out more on Greenwich Dance’s website
As it turns out, 2020 has so far not been many people’s favourite year. And it’s only April! As coronavirus has invaded our homes and businesses and forced us to stay home, I’m looking back on a photography project I undertook in 2017. The challenge was to use my DSLR to take a photo every day. I didn’t quite manage the whole year - there were five days I forgot! But, 360 images felt like a real achievement by the end.
It was an unusual year for me. It ended up being my last working at Sadler’s Wells and I also had some personal highs - the birth of my niece and getting to attend five weddings of good friends. Among the more momentous moments, I found beauty in the mundane. Looking back now, so much has changed. Below are a few highlights, but if you want to see the whole gallery, it’s available on Flickr.
This has to be one of my most favourite images of all time. Technical Manager Tom Hares and Access Officer Sarah Howard on stage at Sadler’s Wells during Sarah’s last week working for the venue.
February means pancakes! Here, my husband Matt is making a robot pancake inspired by the Robots exhibition at his place of work, the Science Museum.
The view from the stationary cupboard at Sadler’s Wells, on a particularly stormy looking day.
April showers mean staying in and playing around with still life photography.
On tour with Breakin’ Convention. Here, Soweto Skeleton Movers entertain the crowds in the foyer at the Mayflower Theatre, Southampton.
In June, Ticket Office Manager and all round legend Zahir Jaffer left Sadler’s Wells. Here he is in the centre having a well deserved drink at the Shakespeare’s Head.
I’ve only included one image from the five weddings I attended in this collection. This was the first - Ellie and Adam.
Our last holiday was to Nantes in 2017, the home to Les Machine des Isles and this impressive mechanical elephant.
A photo from the annual Beckenham RFU charity match.
Full moon in the month of October
A baby shower for my little sister.
Welcome to the world Chloe. Just 1 day old in this photo.
2019 has been quite the year. My first full calendar year as a freelancer has thrown some incredible opportunities my way, so I thought I would take the chance to reflect on a fabulous year and look ahead to some of the exciting things I have lined up for 2020.
The year started with a launch party to end all launch parties! My colleagues from PDSW (the organisation behind the pioneering Surf the Wave project) and I launched the UK Dance Showcase in style, announcing the artists performing at the showcase later in the year with a gin and juice fuelled event at the V&A Museum of Childhood. Working with a shoestring budget (it is the arts after all), we pulled off a fun-filled party with gin donated by Sipsmiths, alcohol free gin donated by Caleño, nibbles and a fantastic performance of Imagination Museum, a site specific work by Made by Katie Green. It was a great way to start the year and a wonderful introduction to the UK Dance Showcase.
The showcase itself happened in May. It was an incredible four days of performances, talks, pitching sessions and parties, and was probably one of the best things I’ve ever worked on. You can read more about the event itself here.
In early 2019, I worked on the tour marketing for the first ever tour by Emergence, the post graduate MA students from the University of Salford. They toured a double bill of new works by Phoenix Dance Theatre’s Artistic Director Sharon Watson and Emergence’s Artistic Director Joss Arnott. Though this was a small scale tour, there were 10 venues and the company was completely new so it was great to get stuck in to something so exciting. I am delighted to be working on their second tour in early 2020.
Contemporary Circus duo Nikki & JD had had limited success with their previous tour and decided to take on a freelance marketing manager to help promote their Spring 2019 performances. That was me! I put some simple things in place included rewriting the copy, creating a killer marketing pack and doing some grassroots promotions contacting circus and dance organisations in each of the tour’s locations. Alongside this, I did a small Facebook advertising campaign to build awareness for the show and the company. It worked well and I’m so pleased that the company have since gone from strength to strength with a hugely successful Edinburgh run. I can’t wait to see what these guys get up to next.
In June 2019, I started a year long contract working two days a month for Greenwich Dance. The organisation had been through some difficult times, but I was excited by their new CEO Melanie Precious’ vision and enthusiasm for the way the she hoped the organisation could make an impact on the local community. So far, we have been on a journey of discovery, learning about their past and current audiences, making decisions about branding and planning for the future. In the summer, they produced Greenwich Dances Moving Eltham, a festival of pop up dance experiences all over Eltham, and in the Autumn we created a fun dance filled film with Roswitha Cheshire:
Next year, we are planning our first brochure and we will have some extraordinary performances happening in community centres all over the borough. I am so looking forward to continuing my work with them into 2020.
In August, my incredibly talented and inspiring friend Sarah Howard directed a play at this year’s Camden Fringe. Bombshells was a one woman play about four very different women. I was thrilled to be able to help Sarah with the marketing for her two performances at the Cockpit, and very much hope she is planning more productions for next year.
In 2018, I worked on the London Mela as one of my first freelance projects. I was delighted to return to work on the annual festival again for its second year on Southall Park in the heart of one of Europe’s oldest South Asian communities. As well as another hugely successful event, we also scooped the Best Live Event award at the Asian Media Awards for the event in 2018. What an honour! I am looking forward to the event returning in 2019 and hope I will have the privilege of being able to work on for a third time.
I was approached in the Spring to work on the audience development for a new partnership project between Siobhan Davies Dance and Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead. CONTINUOUS is a newly established network of arts institutions who have come together to commission new performance art works for their gallery spaces. The first commission, Spirit Compass: Where there is movement, there is change by Lucy Suggate opened in October 2019. In addition, Siobhan Davies Dance asked me to look after the marketing manager role while they were recruiting. This took my involvement with the organisation right up until November and I had a great time working in their award-winning studios in Elephant and Castle.
What better way to end the year than with a homecoming. I was thrilled to be approached to help out while Sadler’s Wells were short staffed. I ran the campaign for Acosta Danza and worked on several programmes and freesheets in the run up to Christmas. My work with them will continue into the new year with campaigns for Nico Muhly’s Drawn Lines and more programmes and freesheets as they recruit for a permanent position.
Next year is already shaping up to be an exciting year. As well as my ongoing work with Emergence, Greenwich Dance and Sadler’s Wells, I am excited to be working on Imagination Museum: Mayflower 400, a performance project by Made by Katie Green to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the sailing on the Mayflower as well as Project XO for New Movement Collective. I’ll also be taking on a new short term contract with Ballet Black and a maternity cover contract with Stuff and Nonsense, a children’s theatre company based in the South West. There really is never a dull moment! Roll on 2020!
In May 2019, Pavilion Dance South West presented the first ever UK Dance Showcase. Part of Surf the Wave, an ambitious 3 year project aiming to create a step change in the way dance is toured in the UK, the Showcase was a four day event for programmers interested in presenting dance in their context.
Although it was only one part of a three phase project, the Showcase was a huge undertaking. A total of 43 artists and companies performed to over 200 delegates across multiple venues in Bournemouth and Poole. These venues included theatres, studio spaces, a church, a night club and a car park among others. A programme of talks, pitching sessions and networking opportunities was also on offer over the four days, alongside sponsored drinks receptions and an outdoor programme.
As Marketing Manager for Surf the Wave, my first priority was to get as many programmers and presenters to book delegate tickets as possible. To do this, I planned an integrated campaign utilising different channels such as direct mail, telesales, social media and advertising. A launch party was planned for February to announce the programme. The event, held at London’s V&A Museum of Childhood featured guest speakers and a performance by Made by Katie Green, who creates site specific work for museums.
My second priority was to make sure the Showcase was well documented. I recruited Hello Content to be our video and photography creators during the event. They filmed highlights, editing as they went so we had a video to release at the end of each day. They also photographed the event, focusing on atmosphere and delegate experience rather than show related material. A longer documentary video will be released in the coming weeks.
The event was an overwhelming success. We received a huge amount of positive feedback from delegates and artists alike on how the event was organised and run.
Feedback from Twitter:
We’re now in the process of putting together a piece of documentation detailing everything we did to make the Showcase such a success. The hope is that there will be another Showcase in the future but when and where that will be remains to be determined. I feel deeply privileged to have been part of this event and very much hope that it has a future.
During my time at Sadler’s Wells, I was lucky enough to work on Breakin’ Convention, the venue’s flagship hip hop dance theatre festival. Starting in 2004, the annual festival has grown from strength to strength, selling out tickets every year and presenting the best hip hop dance theatre from around the globe.
UK touring was an obvious fit for Breakin’ Convention, which had been helping to develop the UK hip hop dance theatre scene just by existing - bringing international acts to London every year to inspire the home grown talent. For their 2014 UK tour, they wanted to delve deeper into the scene, reach out to the hard to reach both in terms of audiences and performers, and develop their unique touring model in a way that might sustain the industry for future generations.
We successfully applied for a strategic touring grant from Arts Council England and set about delivering our multi-layered strategy.
Step one was to identify local reps in each of the towns or cities we were touring too. These reps were sought using both Breakin’ Convention’s contacts and local knowledge through the venues. They were a mixture of dancers, producers, promoters and educators that were already rooted in the local hip hop communities.
Step two was to audition for local talent. With help from the local reps, we toured to each town or city 6 months ahead of the show and auditioned local dancers, groups and crews who would perform alongside the international professional artists programmed by Breakin’ Convention. All of the participants in the auditions were given feedback to help them improve even if they weren’t programmed in the event.
Step three was about taking hip hop out into communities to bust myths about the culture and invite people to experience the kinds of performances they would see on stage. These ‘lead in events’ were tailored towards each venues’ audience development needs. Some were about reaching the masses through shopping centre promos, others were more targeted with local crews going into community centres or school assemblies.
The final step was about throwing open the doors on the day of the event itself. Transforming traditional theatre settings into places where the hip hop community felt connected - with DJs, emceeing, graffiti demonstrations, foyer cyphers and sole trains. A party atmosphere that lead onto the stage and off again.
The tour was a big success and the following year, Arts Council England awarded a second round of strategic touring funding to Breakin’ Convention for the next two years of touring.
During my time at Sadler’s Wells, I was fortunate to work on a lot of exciting shows that were produced by the theatre. One of my all time favourites has to be Acosta Danza’s first UK tour - Debut. Not only was this the first outing for Carlos Acosta’s new Cuba-based company, but it was also the premiere of a new work made specially for him and a female dancer called Marta Ortega by choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui.
My first responsibility as marketing manager for the tour was to build a brand identity for the company that would create an instant impact. Apart from Carlos, the dancers were all unknown to UK audiences so they needed imagery that would immediately conjure paint a picture of the incredible strengths of the dancers and evoke the spirit of modern Cuba.
When choosing a photographer for this unenviable task I knew I had to find someone who would not only be able to cope with the Havana heat but would use creative license and artistic flair to get the best out of the dancers. I chose to work with photographer Manuel Vason because I knew that he would create something unexpected. I had worked with him a few years before on a shoot for Sadler’s Wells’ production Gravity Fatigue, a show created as a vehicle for fashion designer Hussein Chalayan. During what should have been a standard shoot in a dance studio at Sadler’s Wells, Vason decided to take the dancers up onto the roof (something that I later got in hot water for with the management) resulting in an iconic poster image that helped to sell out the production.
After a brief meeting between Carlos and Manuel in Paddington station I was convinced I had made the right choice. The two were able to communicate their artistic ideas and come up with a plan within the brief I had set. The results were incredible. A series of outdoor shots taken on the site of the derelict ballet school Carlos is hoping to restore in the future were complemented by a number taken inside the Grand Theatre Alicia Alonso in central Havana.
There were many factors that contributed to the success of this particular tour - not least because Carlos himself was performing in it - but I do believe these images laid the foundations. They built a confident image of quality and gravitas that gave audiences the assurance that the production would deliver.
