Archive for May, 2010

The Destroyers return from Utopia success for Summer Gypsy Ball

The Destroyers at Utopia

Fresh from providing the live soundtrack to five performances of IDFB 2010’s outdoor show piece Utopia,  Birmingham’s favourite gypsy sons The Destroyers will launch their 2010 UK and Ireland tour with a night of fiery bohemian revelry at brand new Digbeth venue The Crossing on Friday, 4 June.

The Summer Gypsy Ball, which will be streamed live via www.thedestroyers.co.uk, features East London brothers-in-arms Urban Voodoo Machine plus live visuals from Syzygy and all embracing DJ sets from the Jibbering collective and Marc Reck, and will offer a sneak preview of the 500 capacity music theatre – complete with state of the art lighting and sound systems – which is set to launch later this year.

The Destroyers Summer Gypsy Ball

The riotous fifteen piece collective, The Destroyers, return with explosive new material in preparation for their summer tour, which takes place in London’s prestigious Lovebox Festival, Ireland’s Spraoi Festival in Waterford and Birmingham’s boutique weekender Moseley Folk Festival in September.

The Destroyers Credit Pete Ashton

The ball coincides with the beginning of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller History Month in the UK and will pay homage to a nomadic culture rich in both tradition and musical exploration. With careering Klezmer rhythms, Mariachi brass, Balkan strings, traditional Irish melodies, uptempo ska, gypsy jazz and punk-polka amongst other ingredients, The Destroyers have embraced this genre-defying approach, and in doing so reflect the cultural and musical make-up of their home city as well as a love of gathering and interpreting new and established influences.

The band’s front man Paul Murphy said: “Gypsy music has been a source of immense inspiration for us – the word gypsy itself conjures up many things. Firelight and painted caravans. Swirling skirts and stamping feet. Hand clapping and stirring guitars. A people for whom music is life-blood.”

“I don’t have to be a fortune-teller to predict that The Destroyers’ Gypsy Ball with the Urban Voodoo Machine is going to be one whirling spectacle of a gig. Only the dead won’t dance,” he added.

2009 saw The Destroyers release their debut album Out of Babel and embark on a 24 date tour, which took in single launch parties in London and Birmingham, five shows at Glastonbury in four days, an impromptu set at a tiny Norfolk village fete, as well as triumphant shows at Trowbridge and Shambala Festivals.

Tickets are £12 on the door or £10 in advance from www.theticketsellers.co.uk. Early bird tickets are at £7, but hurry because this only applies to the first 77 bookings!

IDFB Dance Challenge – and the winner is…

Well our brave group of dancers-in-training made it to the end of the IDFB Dance Challenge, and I’m pleased to say that there were no tears and very few tantrums!  Everyone put a lot of effort into learning their individual dance styles and they’ve all had fun trying to master the moves.  Attendance at classes has been very good, with Louisa James and Keith Gabriel both achieving ‘Teacher’s Pet’ status for managing to attend every single one of their classes.

Jodie Schofield had a great time in her final class – getting in touch with her inner hippy with a number from the musical Hair.  Paul Sargent can hardly stop his toes from tapping now, and he has even admitted to breaking into dance routines in his kitchen!  Fionnuala Bourke has been throwing some very funky moves in her Club Jazz classes and Satnam Rana attended some of her hip hop classes at The IDFB Shop in Pavilions.

Lastly, we unfortunately have a slight casualty to report – Kate Lawler had to pull out of the challenge due to an old knee injury flaring up again.  She’s been ordered to rest, although she’s such a busy person we’re not sure whether this is actually possible for her!  Anyway, we all wish her a speedy recovery and are very glad that she enjoyed the Capoeira classes she came to.

Several of our budding dance stars also performed at the grand finale of IDFB 2010 – Put Your Foot Down at Bullring on 15 May.  See Louisa’s brilliant nutcracker solo and Satnam’s hip hop performance (complete with stage invasion from hip hop star Salah!), plus Jodie and the Musical Dance beginners did a great rendition of a piece from Sister Act!

Finally, David Massingham (Co-Artistic Director of the Festival) was responsible for making the difficult decision of who made the most improvement over the last two months of classes.  I’m delighted to announce that the winner of the IDFB 2010 Dance Challenge is…Louisa James.

David Massingham with Louisa James, winner of the IDFB Dance Challenge

David commented: “Although Louisa still has some way to go before she joins BRB, I feel she made a huge amount of technical progress during this short period of classes!

“I’m delighted to hear that she will be continuing to attend ballet classes at DanceXchange.”

Thanks to all of our participants, the tutors and everyone else in the Festival team who helped to make this happen.

A big thank you

International Dance Festival Birmingham 2010 Programme Manager Paul Burns is this week’s IDFB Guest Blogger.

Paul Burns

So, we’ve reached the end of the second International Dance Festival Birmingham, and I’m really pleased to say it’s been a massive success. It seems like an awfully long time ago since we waved the Dancing the Waterways barge off to start the festival and the intervening four weeks have passed in a bit of a blur of trips to airports, rushing between different venues and, most importantly, a whole range of fantastic dance performances. Other than the Liquid Loft show in the first week, which fell victim to the ash cloud, all of the theatre shows went ahead as planned and there really were too many highlights to pick out. Some memorable moments for me personally though would include crying with laughter at the Pere Faura/Club Fisk double bill, play-fighting with the monks from Sutra backstage at The Rep, witnessing eight remarkable UK premieres in four days during the Outspoken weekend and hearing several capacity audiences of under 10s giggling during the Family Weekend. I find it impossible to pick out a favourite show, but I think the stunning beauty of Akram Khan’s Gnosis and the compelling, bizarre and extraordinary Self Unfinished by Xavier Le Roy, for me represent two very different approaches to making movement-based performance which sum up the diversity and quality of the work on show during the festival.

Dancing the Waterways

Outside the theatre settings, the work produced by the festival for outdoor spaces exceeded everyone’s expectations. Utopia, the folkloric spectacular in Victoria Square set the city alight, and brought colour, sound and some truly incredible movement to the city centre. (in)visible dancin’ surprised, amused and amazed passers-by and Dancing the Waterways brought dance to Wolverhampton and beyond via festival’s very own narrow boat, Oddball. Finally, Put Your Foot Down saw us out in style with the irrepressible Salah leading a mass-dance outside Bullring in front of thousands of shoppers on our sunny final festival Saturday.

(in)visible dancin' Salah at Put Your Foot Down!

We’ve had a busy four weeks, and achieved a lot, and all of this is down to the fantastic team of individuals and organisations we’ve worked with on the festival.  So, time to thank some people.

First up, none of this would have been possible without the support and trust of our funders; Advantage West Midlands, Arts Council West Midlands and Birmingham City Council. Then our principal sponsor Brewin Dolphin, who really embraced all aspects of the festival, even learning the Put Your Foot Down routine! Our media partners BBC WM have been incredibly supportive throughout, not only covering the festival events but also supplying impromptu weather forecasts and ash cloud updates! Our accommodation partner, Crowne Plaza Birmingham City Centre, have provided first rate accommodation and very tasty breakfasts.

Next, I must thank our festival venues. The staff at Birmingham Repertory Theatre, Town Hall and Ikon Eastside have worked on the festival shows as if they were their own events and pulled out all the stops to make them a great success, as have our own venue teams at Birmingham Hippodrome and The Patrick Centre. Thanks too to Birmingham City Centre Partnership, who have once again demonstrated their commitment to ambitious and unusual outdoor events in the city’s public spaces.

Last, but certainly by no means least, I must thank our remarkable group of staff who have worked on this festival. All have shown a dedication and commitment to the festival’s success which has been incredible, and I have been really proud to have worked with them all. In particular, our two interns, Natalie and Helen, have been key members of the team and deserve particular recognition.

Unfortunately, there has also been a sad end to the festival. Neil Cooper, our technical director for both the inaugural festival in 2008 and this year’s edition was taken seriously ill in the week before the opening event, and sadly died on Friday 14 May. Neil was instrumental in making the festival a success, and his ability to work with a range of artists and organisations to creatively realise the technical complexities of some of our more ambitious projects was invaluable. His cheeky and irreverent sense of humour, his knowledge and his friendship will be hugely missed by the team, as it will be by so many other organisations, festivals and venues.

And so we look forward to the next festival, and the planning starts straight away. Whilst a number of members of the team will be moving on to new jobs and fresh challenges, I’m already starting to look for possible work for the next festival, and the core team are already starting to imagine new ways of filling the city with dance again in 2012. Until then, there’s plenty of dance to see and get involved in at both DanceXchange and Birmingham Hippodrome so don’t be a dance stranger!