So Sunday July 5th saw the culmination of 'For the Fallen' in performance at the MK Rose, Campbell Park amidst a backdrop of handmade banners. After a sweltering day of rehearsals onsite on the Saturday, the weather took a much more tempestuous turn for the performance day - sending the banners a-fluttering while the performers (and audience!) remained resolute.
Thanks and congratulations must go to all of the groups involved, namely: Open University Dance Group, Stantonbury Campus, Initiate YDC, Bollywood Dance Group, Long Meadow School, Graduates, Shenley Wood Village, CentreStage Theatre School MK, Red Kite Dance, Samuel Whitbread Academy and Bedford University.
Looking ahead, I am now focussing on another choreography commission with students at CentreStage for their upcoming performance 'Let's Face the Music and Dance'. For this piece, I am working with ballet students but challenging them to extend their movement language with some contemporary vocabulary. We're nearing the end of the process and the dancers are doing incredibly well - coping with foreign movement, retaining the structure of the piece, building stamina and (to top it all off) counting in 5s!
This week see us enter full cast, technical and dress rehearsals before the performance itself takes place on Saturday 18th July at The Venue MK.