A L I C E @ BAC 5th and 6th of May 2010

It's nearly time for A L I C E our latest work-in-progress, which we'll be sharing at BAC during their Scratch Festival in May.
http://www.bac.org.uk/whats-on/scratch-festival-may-2010/

A L I C E is a highly visual and aesthetic response to the demise of analogue technology; a nostalgic celebration of an era of expectation and potential, and a final goodbye to childhood as the future approaches.

Dancing Brick, in collaboration with Justin Beardsell (VJ Meno), Caroline Devine and Wig Industry are presenting a scratch performance of ALICE.

Please check out our invited artists below:

Justin Beardsell
http://www.meno.tv/

Caroline Devine
http://www.devine.co.uk/linernotes/

Wig Industry
http://wigindustry.net/


ALICE is also the first time we've used other performers so if you've ever wondered what a DB play would be like with better actors now's your chance to see. To book go to the BAC website:

http://www.bac.org.uk/whats-on/l-i-c-e/

Spinning at Milton Keynes International Festival

Great news. Dancing Brick have been commissioned to make a piece for the Milton Keynes International Festival in July. It's going to be a 10 minute play inspired by the festival's theme of 'bicycles'. We're yet to really start work on it but the initial premise is that age old trick of a stationary actor in front of a moving backdrop. But we've got a trick up our sleeve: our backdrop is going to be designed by internationally acclaimed illustrator Serge Seidlitz. We're so excited about this collaboration, and hopefully will make something bold and touching along the lines of Hanna and Ike.

For a little taster of how it might work (imagine a backdrop not drawn by a five year old) see below...

Sports Relief Grant

We're delighted to have been awarded a Sports Relief grant to help us provide a mask workshop to children in Milton Keynes. Thanks Sports Relief!

Heap and Pebble Spring Tour...2010!

What better season for a come back, for our ice-less ice dancers, than Spring! That's right, your favourite ice-couple are sharpening their blades and polishing their smiles for performances throughout the coming months. Starting with...

25th & 26th March, Ustinov @ Theatre Royal Bath
http://www.theatreroyal.org.uk/how-to-book/

10th - 13th May, May Fest Bristol
http://tobaccofactorytheatre.com/book/

18th & 19th May, Arches Glasgow
http://www.thearches.co.uk/

11th June, PULSE Fringe Festival, New Wolsey Theatre
Ipswich
http://www.pulsefringe.com/47/book-tickets/book-tickets.html

and finishing in Dorset for the Devizes Festival 2010!

We've re-worked the show, making it even better, with the help of our lovely dramaturge Lu Kemp ("If that' all there is" - Inspector Sands) and our fantastic New York set designer Adrian Jones (http://www.adrianwjones.com).
We are very excited about the new version, and are sure you'll love it too!!
H&P

A L I C E

Hold tight! Dancing brick are working on a new project....

Everyone remembers, in some way or another, waking up as a child at six o'clock in the morning, to go downstairs while everyone else is sleeping, to switch the TV on to watch their favourite cartoon and....Bam! There she was. The little girl playing naughts and crosses with her somewhat scary doll. Did she ever move? Was she trapped in the TV? How long had she been there ?

The project, so far, is called A L I C E and is a creative response to the demise of analogue technology, a nostalgic celebration of an era of expectation and potential, and a cheerful goodbye to childhood. We want to explore video, test cards, 1980s technology, betamax, cassettes, synths and 8-bit computer graphics, and much much more!

We spent two weeks last month workshopping initial ideas at BAC with a group of actors and are now looking to collaborate with a video artist / video technician and composer for the next stages of the process.

We are very please to announce that the project has been commissioned by BAC for a Scratch performance in May 2010.

So watch this space....!

Scratch performances 5th and 6th of May

Hanna and Ike at Shunt

Last week we had the honour of performing Hanna and Ike at the LAST EVER Shunt lounge at London Bridge. Hanna and Ike is the play we wrote for the Napoli Teatro Festival last summer. Although it was originally designed for a large open space, it worked out even better at Shunt than we'd hoped; although a bit of the scale of the piece was lost, I think confining the image more meant the comedy of the reveals came across clearer.

There's a video coming of the Nasreen Mohamedi performance. One of these films was filmed at a gallery in the afternoon, the other was filmed at a nightclub at midnight. See if you can guess which is which...

Nasreen Mohamedi

Dancing Brick have been invited to do an installation performance at the Milton Keynes Gallery this weekend, in response to the works by artist Nasreen Mohamedi in the exhibition

Nasreen Mohamedi: Notes
"Reflections on Indian Modernism"

Indian artist Nasreen Mohamedi produced a highly personalised language through drawings, photographs and diaries from the 1950s to the 1980s. The works Dancing Brick will focus on in the perfromance are what some consider her classic works, from the 1970s and 1980s: small scale geometric drawings, devised around the grid. These works, drawings so intricate and technical they remind us of an architect's blueprints correspond to the utopian planning of Milton Keyens and are strong emblems of modernist art and design. The drawings are highly technical but delicate, evocative at once of complex musical scores and intricate stitchwork and soft textile weaving.

For our performance we have also drawn our inspiration from Michelangelo Antonioni's 1962 film L'Eclisse, which tells the story of a man and a woman who attempt to fall in love in the estranged utopian landscape of the artificial urban space of the Eur, on the outskirts of Rome in the 1960s. We feel that the visual themes and the strong architecural elements used in the film are very present in Mohamedi's wrok, where the human presence is felt like a shadow, a whisper fading into the depths of the blueprint-like drawings.