Rosie Kay is artist-in-residence at DanceXchange in Birmingham where she’s been developing the piece. I’ve been lucky enough to have a glimpse of the work from time to time and it has been fascinating to see how it has come together.

Part of that is seeing the sheer amount of research that goes into developing a piece like this. For example:

• In early 2009, Rosie spent two weeks training with the 4th Battalion of The Rifles (see her write-up here)
• Following that, Rosie spent some time at Headley Court a rehabilitation centre for injured soldiers
• Three of the dancers also spent a weekend with the Officers Training Corps
• After a hard day in the studio, the company relaxed by watching the Oscar-winning film, The Hurt Locker
• In an unusual move, an injured bomb-disposal expert was released by the military for two days to spend time in the studio where he spoke with the company’s dancers

It’s not just Rosie Kay and her dancers who are involved with this deeper research; others involved in realising 5 SOLDIERS have:

• Early on, Rosie Kay and collaborators Annie Mahtani (sound artist) and Petra Tauscher (dramaturgist) conducted interviews with members of 4 Rifles, a retired Major General and a recent recruit
• David Cotterrell, a visual artist, spent time in Helmland Province with the Joint Forces Medical Group

The issues explored in 5 SOLDIERS are not ones that should be approached lightly. What this immersion in the subject matter means is that, as well as infusing the finished piece, Rosie has become an eloquent speaker on the matters raised. Here she is discussing the origination of the work:

Rosie Kay – 5 Soldiers from Mr Nat Higginbottom on Vimeo.

Buy tickets – 5 SOLDIERS The Body is the Frontline will be at International Dance Festival Birmingham at the Patrick Centre on 23 and 24 April. Tickets cost £8-10.

Already happened

First up was British Dance Edition 2010, hosted and directed by DanceXchange on behalf of the National Dance Network, which took over venues across the city from 3-6 February, showcasing some of the best UK-based artists and companies.

10 March saw a Royal gala performance from Birmingham Royal Ballet, with HRH Prince Charles in attendance to see highlights drawn from the company’s 20 years of success since moving to the city. Celebrations will be ongoing throughout the year and the plaudits started early, winning the dance category in the last ever South Bank Show Awards.

Still to come

International Dance Festival Birmingham takes place in April and May although if you’re reading this here, it probably doesn’t come as news to you.

However, sampad South Asian Arts will also be celebrating their 20th anniversary in May and two of their events form part of the IDFB schedule. Those two events are:

• The Absent Lover – Thresh Dance Company (13 May, The Patrick Centre)
• Kathak Duet – Abhimanyu & Vidha Lal (14 May, The Patrick Centre)

On 4 July the Hippodrome hosts U.Dance England 2010, a national showcase event for groups of young people aged 11 to 19. It will be held at Birmingham Hippodrome and will be the flagship performance for the U.Dance programme.

The series of events leading up to the Olympic Games is now getting into full swing. In the West Midlands the focus of the programme is People Dancing which aims aimed at get people across the West Midlands moving for themselves and inspire people of all ages, skills and abilities to make dance part of their everyday lives.

Birmingham: a world centre for dance

In January, Terry Grimley, arts editor of the Birmingham Post, previewed BDE 2010 and IDFB. This quote from David Massingham, co-director of IDFB, comes from that article:

“We are certainly thinking now about really seeing Birmingham as a world centre for dance,” says David. “That’s how we want the city to be seen. With Birmingham Royal Ballet and the other companies here, with the festival, the Hippodrome and all the work we are doing across the region, I’m sure it’s the largest hub in Britain for dance.”

Rosie Kay is what you might call an intellectual choreographer – she doesn’t see the point of taking on a subject unless you have done your research and had some experience of it. For her latest piece, which explores war and its affect on the body, she joined a battalion and trekked across Dartmoor with a 70lb rucksack. Her approach couldn’t be more considered for what is a current and sensitive issue – and the piece will premiere at next year’s International Dance Festival Birmingham. We spoke to Rosie Kay about the work, her success at the last festival, and her plans for Rosie Kay Dance Company.

Kay’s last piece Double Points: K – a duet she danced with Morgan Cloud based on Italian choreographer Emio Greco’s Double Points: Two -  was shown at the International Dance Festival Birmingham 2008 before touring across the UK. It was a physically demanding piece – Kay danced for a full 30 minutes on stage at each performance and had to do cardiovascular training everyday to maintain her stamina. At the festival, it was performed alongside Greco’s original piece. She said:

“As a choreographic night it was really interesting because you could see the details that I had taken and multiplied. But it was quite intimidating.”

The music to Double Points: K was in three parts, starting with electronica, followed briskly by Bach’s Concerto in A minor and then contrasted by heavy pounding dubstep beats. The piece was well-received by critics as well as Greco’s dancers. Kay said in an interview she had ‘Rosiefied’ the piece. What exactly is ‘Rosiefication’?

“My pacing and timing is very specific – with Double Points it’s quite a blast and I’m impatient to make dramatic shifts in timing. The biggest shifts are in the music and I allow myself to really work with the music, particularly the Bach. I took Greco’s physical exhaustion theme and I tried to push it further in my own way. I hope it has a bit of sense of humour within the work as well.”

Prior to Double Points: K, Kay’s pieces for Rosie Kay Dance Company (formed in 2004) were more theatrical and decidedly funny, such as The Wild Party which enjoyed success at Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2006. Kay says she now is moving away from the “choreographic” and “pure dance” basis of Double Points, to a more studied and layered piece.

Through the Rayne Foundation fellowship, Kay was given some time for research and a year ago she spent a placement with 4th Battalion The Rifles – an infantry battalion based at Salisbury Plain – to see soldiers in training, and later Headley Court where injured soldiers go to be rehabilitated.

She has brought together composer Annie Mahtani (who worked with her on Supernova), theatre director, Walter Meierjohann, dramaturg Petra Tauscher and visual artist David Cotterrell who also spent time with soldiers in Afghanistan with the Royal Army Medical Corps.

She is yet to set the choreography, but has gathered her team of collaborators as well as her research from her time with the 4th Rifles. The piece will contain five dancers, four men and one woman, two of which have had military training and will look at three parts:

“The physical training from a civilian to a trained soldier and transforming the body to respond automatically, which is very much like rehearsing a dance. Then I’m interested in the second part; the transformation when they come back. The bit I’m not trying to do is their experience in Afghanistan.”

The dance is called 5 SOLDIERS: The Body Is The Frontline, the name stating Kay’s key message and pointing to her desire to show the humaness of war. She said:

“A soldier’s life is in some ways a purely physical life, so it translates very well into dance. There’s a lot which is identifiable for the public – the marching and drilling view of a soldier they see – and that is all very rich with movement potential. Attack and defense is all choreographic.”

Kay is aware of how prominent the subject is in the media and is incredibly conscious of not wanting to create a production which trivialises the war or present it in a crass, stereotypical way:

“The war seemed so anonymous to me and this bothered me so I started looking into this research. It was very different to how I imagined it from the outside, and I got to know real people. What I want to try and do is get across the realisation that this is humanity and bodies getting attacked. War is human, it’s not separate. Eventually we might make politicians answer why we are at war and what we’re doing.”

While Kay doesn’t want to force her political opinions of the war on the audience, she does think choreographers should be brave in putting forward a message:

“There’s a perfectly good place for dance to explore dance, but not all artists want to be like that. I want to communicate about what it is to be human and what’s alike in one another -and I hope to try and change the world very slightly in my own way – if you don’t feel like that then why are you doing it.”

Brought up in Scotland in a family which she calls “quite political,” Kay says it is partly personal interest which takes her down different avenues in her research. She wants to know her subject and layer many references in the work. She also spent years touring with companies all over Europe, and feels audiences there are more open to experimental and intellectually demanding dance works on stage:

“Dance can sit in a place outside of society. It can make dance about dances but, like theatre, it can talk about subjects too and I shadowed three MPs (Claire Short, Ed Vaizey and John Barrett) to see if dance could say big things about political subjects. But David Cotterrell and I have such a sensitivity that we wouldn’t want to make a huge piece of propaganda about the war. Hopefully the piece is more considered because we know people involved in it.”

Kay said she does sometimes take a step back and worry about approaching the subject, but thinks the depth of her research means she has to say something about it:

“Hopefully it will be very intelligent and I want to be brave. I’m looking forward to getting started. I have some great international dance collaborators with me, so I feel this work will be strong.”

5 SOLDIERS: The Body Is The Frontline premieres at International Dance Festival 2010 in April 2010, but will preview at British Dance Edition in February 2010. After IDFB2010 it will tour across the UK from May – October 2010.

The inspiration for the International Dance Festival came from the 2002 industry conference British Dance Edition. Delegates were impressed by the city’s infrastructure of dance venues teamed with a diverse number of established dance organisations in the region. The idea of bringing Birmingham’s dance resources to the world’s attention was floated and the International Dance Festival Birmingham was born.

Co-Director of the festival David Massingham taking part in the closing Salsa at Sunset event in 2008

David Massingham, artistic director of DanceXchange, is also co-director of International Dance Festival Birmingham along with Stuart Griffiths, chief executive of Birmingham Hippodrome. Massingham nurtured the first seeds of the festival and saw it grow into one of the biggest dance festivals in the world – putting Birmingham on the map as a stage for groundbreaking and exceptional dance.

Last year’s festival attracted some 25,000 people from all over the UK and used venues across Birmingham including the Town Hall and Victoria Square, with 60 performances over four weeks. Alongside the shows, professional workshops and educational sessions encouraged newcomers to experience dance activities and develop dance partnerships. The economic impact on the city was huge, bringing an estimated £4.3 million to Birmingham.

With plans for the 2010 festival well underway, Massingham is already looking to fresh commissions for 2012, hoping to help the festival grow deeper into the city while maintaining its international scale. Using the festival to put Birmingham at the centre of the global dance map ties in neatly with the Hippodrome’s plans to make the city a national centre for dance. He said:

“It felt natural that a new dance festival needed to be built for Birmingham. Although Birmingham had a lot of festivals I felt it could have a larger impacting festival.

“A big thing reason why it works in Birmingham, is that Birmingham is a multicultural city and dance is a non-narrative form in many respects – dance and a mixed society of people go together very well. Birmingham is also one of the youngest cities in Europe, and dance and youth also fit nicely together. The thinking behind this project, as well as the Hippodrome becoming a national centre for dance, is to bring together all these strands of thinking. The three companies together (Birmingham Royal Ballet, the Hippodrome and DanceXchange are all housed in the same building) make up one of the biggest dance hubs in the country – with only Sadlers Wells and Leeds. The dance festival is a shop window for the dance that does go on here.”

Birmingham is already home to a diverse range of dance styles – from ballet to bhang – and the festival hopes to capitalise on the city’s flourishing  and vibrant dance scene, while inviting companies from across the globe to come and perform and collaborate here.

“Dance festivals around the world usually focus on contemporary ballet,” Massingham said. “While there is a lot of contemporary in this festival, it will also have flamenco, ballet, folk dance, South Asian dance – all international projects or work – which gives the festival a focus and ethos that makes it unique. British artists who take part have an international angle for their work.”

The festival also aims to provide performances which cater for audiences who may have never stepped inside a theatre, as well as those who consider themselves dons of dance. Massingham wants to challenge preconceptions about what dance is or can be. He said:

“Some people think dance is a niche thing, but we wanted to blow that idea out of the water. The 2008 festival set out to be mainstream at times – with bigger events such as Havana Rakatan at the Hippodrome and Watch This Space in Victoria Sqaure – and at other times there were performances for small audiences such as Saburo Teshigawara dancing on a field of glass. This festival needs to see small niches as part of a big festival.

“Some people don’t buy tickets for theatres but do want be in a lively city and to see events. Taking dance out onto the streets, out of its institution buildings, and making it available to everybody is what we want to do.

“Dance covers many things and as long as there’s dance in it, it can be part of our festival.

The 2010 festival will include new work alongside productions that have been successful elsewhere – and it also hopes to engage better with other cities in the region, such as Stoke, Coventry, and Wolverhampton.

Performances are still in the process of being finalised and the programme is due to launch later this month – so watch this space.

Excited about next year’s programme, Massingham said:

“We hope that audiences who might go and see one thing will then go and try something else. We’re trying to go deeper into the city and make sure we’re on the world stage; putting Birmingham on the map as a dance destination. London is amazing but we can do it too.

“We’re being bold and will get bolder with commissioning as we get more established. We value the audiences and once the message gets out about the 2010 festival  we hope people will come from all over.”