Announcing RCD Online and Outdoors - August 2020-October 2020
To support our regional communities in the South West of England, South Wales and Pembrokeshire and the artists we collaborate with, we are thrilled to announce RCD Online and Outdoors. RCD Online and Outdoors is a multi-stranded project taking place from August-October 2020. The programme is designed to provide rich experiences for our audiences and participants to continue to engage with dance, and encourage a broad range of artists to navigate through the strains of the coronavirus pandemic. The programme has been designed to reflect our ensemble values, from our focus on memorable and enduring experiences for communities of all ages to our commitment to providing continuous support for our artists' wellbeing and creative research. You can find out more about each element of the programme below.
Present With Me - New Dance Film with Torbay Culture
Richard Chappell Dance is excited to invite local people to Torbay to take part in our new dance film Present With Me with renowned filmmaker Dan Martin.
In the setting of peoples’ gardens and community outdoor spaces, Present With Me will explore how people can connect through movement and self-expression in virtual and physical spaces. Present With Me will celebrate fleeting moments of connectivity between people and act as patchwork for the rifts which have emerged amongst our community.
The work will feature invited members of Torbay’s community to form an intergenerational cast, alongside acclaimed Devon-based professional dancer Sharol Mackenzie (Richard Chappell Dance, Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures, Mark Bruce Company).To take part in the program, please see more information here.
The film will be screened online and exhibited live at Torre Abbey in October 2020. More information on screening dates and times will be announced soon.
Present With Me has been commissioned by Torbay Culture through their Create to Recover programme with funding by Arts Council England.
Image: Dancer Elizabeth Janis, photography: Emily Appleton.
Dancers Recovery Support
To respond to the challenges the coronavirus pandemic has had on our dancers careers and lives, RCD has shaped specific support by Richard and Rehearsal Director Charlie Brittain. The ensemble dedicated finances to cover the costs of our company dancers to undertake 15 professional dance classes in their respective home cities. This has been measured as three classes a week for five weeks. Where necessary for the individual dancer, this fund will be used for gym memberships or physiotherapy support.
To support our dancers' mental health, we will be organising a creative retreat for our company dancers and rehearsal team to reconnect together and process the last few months, whilst exploring the artistic beginnings of our next full length work, Infinite Ways Home, through discussion and improvisation. This retreat will take place in a beautiful outdoor setting in Llanidoes, mid-Wales, with funds from Arts Council Wales and The Linbury Trust.
Image: Dancer Sharol Mackenzie
Span Arts (Pembrokeshire) - Shared Worlds
As part of Span Arts program Clwb Digi Shared Worlds in Prembrokeshire (Wales), Richard will be creating a series of short dance films, fostering new connections between local people of all ages through dance and conversation. Within the project, Richard will lead participants via video calls to record themselves talking and reflecting about their lockdown experience, alongside asking people how they will connect with others moving forwards. Richard will then work with each person to create their own unique short solo, which will be matched with their recorded voices and filmed on each participant's phone or home device. As a final part of the project, Richard will pair each participant with another local person to record audio letters, connecting people together and enabling people to move to another person’s voice. At the end of this process, these films will make a series of letters and short segments of dance with and for people of all ages and abilities.
To find out more about the project, please click here.
Image: Dancer Richard Chappell, Photography: Dan Martin
Dance in Devon - Outdoor work with Young People
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Richard will be leading live workshops in beautiful outdoor locations across Devon in August, through Dance in Devon. The workshops will be part of programmes ran by SoundArt Radio and Lifeworks. With Lifeworks, the workshops are a continuation of Richard's previous digital participatory work with the organisation, under their initiative Safe Space which took place over eight weeks during the UK lockdown.
To find out more about Dance in Devon, please visit their website here.
Image: Dancer Faye Tan and Silence Between Waves community cast, Photography: Emily Appleton
Silence Between Waves Online Screenings
Our existing dance film of our outdoor work Silence Between Waves by renowned filmmaker Dan Martin will be screened online by Plymouth Conservatoire and Pavilion Dance South West. The film features exceptional Singaporean dancers Faye Tan, Shaw En Chew and Shaun Lim, dramaturgy by Neus Gil Cortes and music by composer Sam Hall.
At PDSW, the work will be screened from the 14th-20th August as part of their Sun/Dance Programme, through their website. More information on screening dates at Plymouth Conservatoire will be announced soon.
Taking inspiration from the views of Berry Head in Brixham and the Singaporean dancers who perform the work, Silence Between Waves frames a conversation through movement and sound, connecting two places across the sea by reflecting on home and far away.
Find out more information about Silence Between Waves here.
Image: Dancer Shaw En Chew, Photography: Dan Martin
Surf the Wave Site Responsive Research
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RCD will be undertaking research into site responsive performance with our existing solo work As Above, So Below for renowned dancer Faye Stoeser. With support from Surf the Wave’s Response Pot and RCD's associateship at Exeter Northcott, we will explore how to develop new audiences for dance at Dartington Hall, Torquay Museum and CULTVR Lab (Cardiff), covering outdoor, warehouse and museum spaces. Our work will be live-streamed from Dartington, before a physically distanced sharing at Exeter Northcott. More information on our sharing and stream will be announced soon.
See a link to footage of As Above, So Below at Bristol Museum here.
Image: Dancer Faye Stoeser, Photography Dan Martin
Infinite Ways Home - New Music Commission, Larch
RCD is commissioning the experimental electronic music duo Larch to create the music for the RCD's next full length work Infinite Ways Home, which will be created early next year in England and Wales. The music for Infinite Ways Home has been commissioned with funds from Arts Council Wales and support from Sinc X Records.
Citing influences such as Aphex Twin, Lanark Artefax, FIS, Claude Speeed, and Godspeed You Black Emperor!, Larch compose commentaries through a tangled palette of sonic anarchy. Drawing parallels to the sound of Tim Hecker or Mount Kimbie, Larch do not shy away from discomfort, but rather embrace both the beautiful and disturbing.
Larch is made up of Cardiff based musicians and composers Kai Hellstrom and Matthew Allmark.
Find out more about Larch's music here and Sinc x Records here.
Dance Blast - Ignite 2020 Film
Prior to the UK lockdown, Richard was excitedly creating a new intergenerational work with dancers in Abergavenny for an outdoor performance in Wales. The work was originally going to be performed at Abergavenny Castle as part of Dance Blast's programme Ignite 2020. Richard lead two and a half months of creation with the project's cast from January to mid-March 2020 which was originally going to lead towards a performance in April. The work will now be made as a short film in August both on location and digitally via Zoom. The project is produced by Dance Blast and funded by Arts Council Wales.
Find out more about Dance Blast here.
Mentoring and Artist Development - Jasmine Chiu
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Through RCD’s Artist Conversations program, Richard undertook 48 free one-to-one artist consultations during the UK lockdown to support creative momentum for artists' work. In the next step of this support, Richard is offering free mentoring to choreographer and dance artist Jasmine Chiu, to support her in the shaping of her next independent project and the further development of her choreographic practice.
Visit Jasmine Chiu's website here.
Image: Dancer: Jasmine Chiu, Photography An Rong Xu