4 posts tagged “dance”
Sorry we have let our Vox page go without a lot of love for a while now but we have bee producing lot's of great new content. Below is a reprint of a post on our own site about the recent cuts being made to arts funding so we (the UK) can pay for the Olypics in 2012. Losing £30million is going to cost a lot of jobs on the arts.
The non announcement by Arts Council England that Grants for the Arts will be cut by a staggering 35% (£29million) is further evidence, if any were needed, that ACE are poor stewards of this country's artistic well being.
It is ironic that just last week Jo Saucek, the online editor of Arts Debate, ACE's latest attempt at garnering public support for the arts, sent Article19 an email in response to our editorial 'Begging for More' that criticises ACE for a lack of venom when advocating for the arts.
Basically Ms Saucek complains that instead of criticising ACE we should join in the debate via the Arts Debate website. The email ends with the line; "These are the comments that will be used to shape our future policy."
Evidently Ms Sauceck, ACE's policy is to eviscerate the funding that plays the largest part in building the foundation for new creative's to make work and show it to the world. Activity that will now become ten times more difficult to achieve. What on earth makes you or ACE think that Article19 or anybody else would wish to be associated with shaping that kind of policy?
So unbelievably incompetent are those charged with fighting for the arts then when we tried to reply to Arts Debate via email we find all of our email addresses blocked. So much for the open exchange of ideas.
All we can re-interate here is that ACE has crawled under a rock and begged not to be hurt too badly. What they should do is strap on the knuckle dusters and come out fighting with outright condemnation of the very politicians they feel the need suck up to with evermore disastrous results.
We would be the first to admit that some people in the arts are self serving, pretentious idiots that could do with a good slap.
The majority however are perfect examples of those that have taken the path least travelled by to illustrate to the nation that there is so much more to life than the accumulation of money, houses, cars and pension schemes.
They illustrate that a creative mind is something that we should all hope to have no matter what our personal endeavours may be.
They illustrate why we, as people, are a better than animals when there is far too much evidence to the contrary in the news every single damn day.
We reserve a special dose of vitriol for the alleged Minister for the Arts David Lammy. This sycophantic moron stood before the House of Commons during a debate on arts funding initiated by former actress turned MP Glenda Jackson. Instead of defending the arts he chose instead to defend the Olympics by saying they were "exactly the sort of one-off national event that the lottery was intended to support”.
With friends like that who needs enemies?
There's has been a lot of debate and reporting, well from us at least, on the recent issue of dance companies selling sccess to their dancers (in a social context) to raise money for their respective companies.
Perhaps one of the best pieces we have filmed this year is Wired Aerial Theatre with "Handmade/Manmade". Now Article19 films a lot of dance so why does this piece stand out in particular?
For the most part it's because, in our opinion, it is actually entertaining, something out of the ordinary in what can be a very frustrating profession to work. Most choreographers have a great deal of skill when it comes to creating movement but so often what seems to fail them is their ability to engage with the audience and give them a little something for making the effort and paying for a ticket.
Art is great but there isn't a lot of point in being arty if a) nobody watches your work and b) your audience is falling asleep!
A longer and much higher quality clip is available here.
Having added quite a few new photos into our little Vox page I feel an explanation of our (Article19's) approach to dance imagery may be in order.
We like to shoot 'editorial style' rather than the very rigid, posed images that you often see of dance, particularly in the press. The perfect image of the professional dancer in the perfect pose is not something that really interest us here.
Of far more interest is the personality of the folks involved especially if the images involve none professional or young dancers, as some of the images here do. The images are a lot more engaging because the subjects come across as more human, which of course they are ;o), but you can also tell the story of the class, workshop or whatver it is we are covering with close ups, reactions and contact between the participants.
It all makes for a much better photograph in our opinion and shows professional dancers in particular as we know and love them, as hard working individuals who can laugh, smile and grimace, showing a side of their personality which can often get lost on stage!
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