Derby Festé

Hello all,

Not long now until we are performing at Derby Feste. Rehearsals have been going well, and we have our Intern performing with us as James is dancing elsewhere.

Jake has learnt the piece extremely fast and has already got his tennis character perfectly!

We are very excited and can not wait to perform Deuce again, keep your fingers crossed for no rain!!

All for now,

Alice

Vicki tells us all…

13th May, 16:00 “Unfortunately due to the overwhelming response and the need for so few dancers we will not be inviting you to our audition this time.” – The second response I received after my application to become a part of Adaire to Dance.

Hmm, maybe they changed their mind and don’t want me to come. Ah well, never mind. It was worth a try…

14th May, approx 13:00. Should I mention something? I was already invited! DId they change their mind?

13:34 – “You did in fact email me through Dancers Pro inviting me to the audition? If you could let me know if I can attend on 20th or not that’d be great”.

After receiving an e-mail informing me of a technical error in which I received both a ‘yes’ and ‘no’ to the audition, I learnt that I was in fact invited. 

The audition ended and the names “Michael and Vicki” were said… Hmm, there must be another Vicki here or something, maybe the names got mixed up… Huh? Oh, me? Cool!

So with not much previous experience in contemporary dance, apart from a summer school at the NECB, I’d been offered a part in a contemporary company over a bunch of other girls… Badass!

Learning Alice’s choreography has been one of my favourite parts throughout the whole process. “Spinny thing, die die, swipe, down, up, down, up, down, up” etc pretty damn challenging but so rewarding once I’d got it.

The tennis piece, aka Deuce or ‘Juice’ as I thought it was called for near enough the whole time until the first performance, was hilarious and had me feeling quite at home. Stupid faces, funny characters and a whole lotta laughing… So pretty much the Adaire team on a normal day.

3fold was the challenging part for me, but was my favourite piece also. Couldn’t complain with playing the role of the cool, tango chick whilst trying my best to keep up with Alice the invincible. After gaining a bunch of bruises, drawing blood and a couple of hissy fits, I’d pretty much got it down.. It was about time, as this was the day before the first show!

I felt out of my comfort zone for quite some time with the movement, however felt completely at home among the guys. Without the help of Alice, Michael, James, Gemma and Rosie I may not have made it through.. (sounds like I was running a marathon or having some major operation) and probably would have given up… if the competitive, perfectionist side of me hadn’t jumped out, and now I’m raring to go with more crazy choreography, rolling on the floor and fun times because…

I’m so contemporary.

Michael tells us all…

Hello everyone, my name is Michael and I am one of the dancers for Adaire to Dance. Here are some of my more memorable moments of working with the company during our residency at Owl cottage and our performances as part of the Bakewell Arts Festival 2011.

Firstly I want to say a great big thank you to everyone involved in the Bakewell Arts Festival week, it was a lovely experience and was great to be a part of.

Rehearsals commenced on the Monday, but only after a great workshop with local teenagers from different schools across Derbyshire. There were all great dancers in the group and Alice the Director taught to many of them their first contemporary dance class, explaining exercises such as how to use the floor and they all laughed at ‘using the floor as your friend.’ After class, Alice then began to teach some material based on ‘Spare a Minute’ piece, and then allowed them to create there own movement. This process led to some wonderful and different choreography, and the piece was already finished in only two hours!! It was great to watch and help the younger dancers with the tasks.

This work from the workshop group inspired the company in their rehearsals and we had a very tiring but fun first rehearsal in the new space at the Medway Centre, Bakewell.

On the second day, the atmosphere was still buzzing, although everyone seemed shattered from Mondays workshop and rehearsals. Another great workshop in which Alice moulded the piece, and helped all the dancers to grow in confidence with the newly made piece. Everyone seemed to be really involved in the creation process and enjoying the dancing! After another challenging rehearsal the dancers and I were exhausted, but the adrenalin and anticipation of Wednesday show helped us to keep strong and hold the faith (if you have seen the last piece you will understand why)

Personally for me as a dancer, Spare a Minute was a fabulously challenging piece, for which I held a love/hate relationship, it really pushed me physically and I learnt much about maintain stamina and the importance of inner strength in performance

So the day had very quickly crept up on us all, after two fun and danced packed days of workshops, rehearsals and lots of homemade apple pie, it was time to start technical rehearsals and rigging the lights, which were amazingly and impeccably created by the fantastic Illuminos team.

Despite a very unfortunate and distressing allergic reaction, the true professionalism of one of our dancers – who shall remain anonymous?!) was amazing to watch, how she managed and dealt with everything with such ease and calmness was truly inspiring. With this in mind the phrase, however cliché, “the show must go on” had never seemed so apparent.

And the show did go on and was fantastically received by friends, family and audiences of Bakewell. The workshops curtain raiser was truly awesome, the guys really pulled together and was a brilliant start to the opening night. The first night went incredibly well, the costumes, lighting and space all came together and felt truly special to both dancers and audience members alike.

The second night felt a lot more relaxed, after a day chilling with our company manager Gemma, whose support throughout the week was really amazing, a great big thanks!! The final performance had a bitter/ sweet feel, we all didn’t want the experience to end and wanted to perform again and again…

But all is not lost, plans are now in action for the future of Adaire to Dance- so keep your eyes on our website for regular updates and news!! This was just the start!

Love and Thanks for all your support!

Keep dancing!

 

A word from our Company Manager

‘Me And My Friend Alice Have Started A Dance Company’…

I’ve said that phrase a lot over the last few months and every time I do it strikes me just how strange and official it sounds. We have actually started a company. I remember the day we sat with the laptops and sent the audition notices out to all who would circulate it. We realised then that people would actually come along to this audition wanting to be a member of our company and that we would have to look like we knew what we were doing!

I’ll tell you now, it’s really scary. But amazingly exciting! And when I saw our commanding James, our striking Vicki and our exquisite Michael dancing together for the first time I knew we were onto a winner. I love and admire them all and am so glad to have had the chance of working with them.

They really are all fantastic. I know I’m biased but genuinely, they really are. I will freely admit that I have no dancing background myself bar a few years of poorly attempted ballet until I was 12. But watching their beautiful efforts (and believe me, sometimes, there was a great deal of effort involved!) coupled with Alice’s wonderfully theatrical choreography, you don’t need any knowledge of dance technique or whatnot to be truly moved.

I can tell you now, I swear I had a heart attack every time I watched the show during rehearsal and performance that final week, especially during the third piece. I don’t think I actually breathed for the last few minutes.

And that’s what dance should be. Pure emotion and stamina. Everyone should see this show and these dancers. I intend to make sure as many people as possible do.

Derbyshire, here we come!

Office Life…

So we are all set up in our cosy office, as you can see from above! Our most important buy so far seems to be the office mints as they have proven very popular in every meeting we have held!

Since our performance in the Arts Festival we have been planning our ventures from September.

We are performing at Derby Feste on the 24th September and we are very excited to be working with Jake Bradnock, a trainee dancer who is performing ‘Deuce’ with us under an  internship. Rehearsals with him start on Sunday.

We have also been planning our November tour and preparing our Education pack. All is ticking along nicely, but looking forward to getting back in to the studio, even though our office is very cosy

All for now,

Alice