Month: February 2019

With Christmas on the horizon and New Year around the corner, Nicholas and I have been reflecting on everything we have witnessed and achieved in 2017.

We can confirm that all our projects this year have been successfully completed or well on their way.

We have just returned from visiting WWT Caerlaverock to see the Artful Migration artist in residence work (Angela Alexander-Lloyd) based on the whooper swan migration from Iceland to Dumfries.

Otherwise all the carnival projects, Circus Magic and Daksha Sheth Dance Company projects are now complete so take a look at these highlights!

Into 2018 and beyond…plus take a little rest to enjoy the sites!

I will be going to India (Trivandrum, Karnataka and Jaipur Literature Festival) to research future partnerships for Moving Souls Dance in 2018 and beyond.

Wishing you well for Christmas and the New Year

Here are our highlights from 2017:

The Daksha Sheth Dance Company Residency Week consisted of various workshops for Primary School Pupils and for Youth Dancers from the MAC.

This blog will focus on the aerial and rope workshop with Young Dancers from Rogueplay which were conducted between 11th-12th October by Isha Sharvani.

The workshop included:

Brief introduction to Indian Dance and their contemporary work – this drew on classical and martial art forms and other aerial work.

Introducing students to dance and aerial work – this is the main part of the workshop. This will include exploring both Indian martial art form and aerial rope work that is combined in the performance work of the Daksha Sheth Dance Company

Choreographic Tasks – The workshop will culminate in a short opportunity for participants to develop their own choreography using the elements of dance and aerial work during the workshop.

Demonstration – Near the end of the workshop, Isha Sharvani may demonstrate to participants a sequence of movements that were used during Sari to show how the company itself is trying to develop it’s style.

The Daksha Sheth Dance Company Residency Week consisted of various workshops for Primary School Pupils and for Youth Dancers from the MAC.

This blog will focus on the workshops which took place in Primary Schools, across the Midlands between the 9th-12th October 2017.

Schools include:

• St John’s C of E Primary School, Birmingham
• Caslon Primary School, Halesowen
• Russells Hall Primary School, Dudley
• Alderman Richard Allen Primary School, Leicester

This workshop was led by Devissaro and Tao Issaro and lasted from one to one and a half hours. The object of the workshop was to introduce students to elements of Indian music, culminating in teaching them a short song with vocal rhythmic accompaniment.

In Indian music, the voice is supreme, and irrespective of whether a person wishes to train in vocal music or in any Indian instrument, the basic principle is that all Indian music first begins with the voice. The voice is therefore the ideal entry into Indian music.

The workshop will cover the following sections:

THEORY: A brief introduction to Indian classical music and its similarities and differences to western music.

MELODIC: The workshop included traditional Indian vocal exercises aimed at developing pitch literacy and fluency.

RHYTHMIC: Tao Issaro, will begin by demonstrating and teaching the basic talas (rhythmic cycles) of Indian music. He will then give exercises that develop the capacity to improvise rhythmically in talam, using both body rhythm and Konnokol, the Indian tradition of vocalised rhythm.

The workshop finished with participants being taught one original song, which incorporated various practices they learnt throughout the workshop.

Birmingham Weekender Procession  11am – 1pm Saturday 23^rd September starting High Street moving down Birmingham New Street to Victoria Square

 

I am so excited to finally see this amazing procession Utsav come to Birmingham New Street as a unique celebration of the diverse cultures of Birmingham with an iconic elephant leading the way!

Moving Souls Dance have been working with ACE dance and music and RJC Dance from Leeds to create award winning costumes and on Saturday morning these will be seen in Birmingham for the first time.  Come and see us dance Caribbean Carnival style in Victoria Square from 12 noon – 1pm!

Don’t miss this spectacular moment in Birmingham! 

Use #circuscircle for all photos you upload onto facebook and twitter so we can be the most popular in town.

See you there…

Nicholas and I had been anxiously waiting to get our summer intensive participant from Circus Magic to Canon Hill Park to test their new found circus skills at the back of the ACE Dance and Music Carnival Procession. Below you can have a look at the tricks that our participants have learnt during their intensive week, with staffs; poi, acro-balance and stilt-walking! We thought we would keep you on edge and reveal our fire artistry skills at the Birmingham Weekender on Saturday 23rd at 6:45pm!

The summer intensive programme has it’s 10th year anniversary last year and Moving Souls became involved this year through the blossoming partnership between Leaps & Bounds and Pyroproductionz.

This year, we saw two Ballet Hoo graduates return to support the project – Christina who was the nurse in the original Romeo and Juliet production and Leroy who was an ace sword fighter from the Montague clan. Christina is now in the Royal Navy police force and Leroy is a professional dance and parkour teacher who works closely with adults who have learning difficulties.

It has been amazing to see what young people can achieve in just 11 years! They returned with such care, determination and willingness to make a difference to other young people’s live and give back to Leaps & Bounds what Ballet Hoo had done for them.

It was a truly inspiring week and we hope to reunite with many of these young people in the Birmingham Weekender Festival.

We woke up on Bank Holiday Monday with the sun shining down on us and a great day of dance ahead of us. Our two coaches were filled with laughter, nerves and a lot of stress. With the hair braiding, make-up, nail varnishing and final adjustments done we arrived at the Leeds 50th Anniversary Carnival at around 12 noon with our 120 performers, family supporters and ACE dance and music artists in tow.