*Made in Holland*
Jack Gallagher and Eline van Ark are working on a solo. It is about dismantling all the shoulds in dance making and instead activating the performative pallet that they both bring with them every day into every process.
This Sunday they present the result of phase II:
6 pieces of music, 6 different genres, 18 pillows and a black suit.
35 minutes
Sunday 13 April, 18:30 CLOUD studio
Come and see refreshing combinations of dance stuff that doesn’t belong together. Not as a hodge podge, but as a fusion and an evolution.
Of course we’re looking for quality here, so we made some rules:
> No original steps
> No original production designs
> No illusions of Grandeur about the piece and it’s future
> No nudity
> No seduction of the audience
> No selling of sex
> No suspending disbelief
> No pretentions about a special crowd with a special gaze
> Art as crowd pleaser but in ways they least expect it…
> It will be intellectual accidentally
> Play the situation from inside out
> Gender is not performed but embedded in the gaze of the audience
Because in the end, that’s what CLOUD is for, to try weird things :)
After the inspiring classes of Marta Reig Torres, we invited a new teacher to get your bodies and minds bent and stretched in ways you didn’t know you could do.
On 3 and 10 April, 10:30-12:00, Jack Gallagher (Bodies Anonymous) will come to CLOUD to teach his Vigorous Risk Technique class, which he is teaching all over Europe with great success.
Jack gives a rigorous upright class which challenges the body with a series of exercises based on expanding a body’s interaction with space and bringing artistry to the surface. The emphasis is on effective effort, dynamic versatility and calculated risk. The class combines different mental and physical efforts simultaneously, releasing one into the other, creating reciprocal flows of cause and effect.
The normal duality in dance between what is considered ‘formal’ or ‘theatrical’ dissolves into more contemporary issues: energy management, articulation, bio-feedback and making use of personal experience: The intelligence of our embodied cognition.
Vigorous Risk is a principled class, structured with an open view on the inter-dependency between the mental and the physical realms: brains, languages, signals become interactive with trunks, legs and heads.
By using questions like: “What goes where?” and “What effects what?” – a very different artistic experience is generated in contrast to and yet complimentary with ‘form based’ techniques.
By rigorously training the use of three primary efforts- directing, sourcing and sequencing, an artistic transparency arrives in the training.
By processing these efforts, the dancer learns what (s)he uses and is using, what (s)he has learned and is learning, releasing in the process her/his embodied cognition.
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CLOUD TECHNIQUE CLASSES
Thursdays mornings
From 10:30 – 12:00
€7,- per class
3 & 10 April with Jack Gallagher
Open for dance lovers who have some movement experience.
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Bio:
Jack Gallagher studied dance in New York at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center. In New York he began his career in 1990 w with Nikolais Dance Theater (USA). While in N.Y., he danced with Tere O’Connor and ISO Dance while studying and performing with with Zvi Gottheiner. Since moving to the Netherlands in 1995, Jack has performed with Krisztina de Chatel (NL), Amanda Miller (Germany) and been a long time member of the Anouk van Dijk dance company (NL). Gallagher is currently performing in the international sensation ‘Trust’ by Falk Richter and Anouk van Dijk. Since 2009, ‘Trust’ has become part of the repertoire playing regularly in Berlin and been invited to Festival d’Otono in Madrid, Festival TransAmeriques, Montreal, Avignon Festival, Perth International Arts Festival, Australia.
In 2002, Mr. Gallagher formed an ad hoc interdisciplinary dance company under the name Bodies Anonymous. Under the motto of Pure Dance/ Non-Fiction, he formulates new principles for dance and performances for the theatre and on location. Bodies Anonymous has been supported by National and Local Dutch Art Funding bodies per project, has appeared in The Hague’s CaDance Festival in 1999, 2004, and 2010 and performs regularly in Amsterdam. Since its humble beginnings, Bodies Anonymous has toured to Germany, Belgium, Russia, Turkey, Australia and Israel.
Jack is a dance researcher and former fellow at Danslab in The Hague, and was an guest artist at International Choreographic Arts Center Amsterdam investigating the both the Performative Speech Act Theory and the Actor Network Theory in dance performance. Jack is a founding organizer of The Network For Choreography & Related Art, an advocacy group for Free Lance Performance based Choreographers.
Jack gives lectures in a variety of settings and events where dance and body, leadership and wellness intersect.
We’re setting up a research sharing in CLOUD, on the 2nd of March, at 18:00.
Together we want to dive into our current interests: what keeps us dance/performance/movement-makers and researchers of today awake? What interests us? What are we looking for and what strategies do we find to get there?
Departing from our individual projects and interests, we seek a common ground – and with that a good basis to share and exchange about our explorations, discoveries and methods.
For this gathering we’ll keep it open and personal, depending on the direction that our discussion takes, we could experiment in the studio, make some charts and word clouds, watch a video or just keep on talking :)
If you’re interested in coming, bring some food to share, so together we can make a nice meal and let the cooking be a preparation of thoughts as well.
Let us know if you come, and as a preparation send us a topic you are interested in, together with a (preferable short) video that illustrates the problem/journey/quest/theme you’re busy with.
Sharing of the research: Thursday 27 feb. @ 6:30 pm
Makom
by Idan Sharabi & Dancers
Choreography & Soundtrack: Idan Sharabi
Music: Byetone, Joni Mitchell, F. Chopin, Interviews by Sharabi.
Dancers: Rachel Patrice Fallon, Dor Mamalia, Ema Yuasa & Idan Sharabi.
For the past three years I have been exploring the concept of home in my choreographic work.
This word has always had deep emotional connotations for me. Recently, I was curious to find out more about other people’s views, so I started interviewing some friends of mine. The interview began with the questions: What is home for you? Where are you from? Where do you live? Do you feel at home now? All interviews interpreted home as different things, creating opportunities to discuss broad concepts such as origin, identity, society, body and more. It became clear to me that people perceived themselves as the reflection of their homes; their language, family, occupation, possession, injuries, love, etc. Eventually, when starting my creation process with Dor, Ema and Rachel, I felt the need to find a new home for all four of us.
“Makom” in Hebrew means a place.
We started by looking for a common place and we ended up here, today.
a little preview of their research work in CLOUD:
Idan Sharabi & Dancers was founded by Sharabi in fall 2012.
In Aug. 10′, Sharabi created “Home”, which was the first step in getting the group together. Two years later, he created “Joni Solos Series” which was immediately invited by ilDance to tour Sweden. Then the group was invited to perform a full evening “3Works”, in Suzanne Dellal Center, Tel aviv, in April 13′. The following August the group was invited to perform it again in The Macholohet Summer Dance Festival 13′. Following these shows, they were invited by The Danish Dance Theater to perform “Adar” in The Copenhagen Summer Dance Festival, Denmark. The next fall Sharabi & Dancers were supported by The Israel Festival and Israel Ministry of Culture to premier “Nishbar” as a part of Curtain Up in Suzanne Dellal, Tel Aviv and right after were chosen to participate in The International Exposure Festival 13′.
Idan Sharabi was born in Israel, 1984. He graduated Thelma Yellin and The Juilliard School before he danced in Netherlands Dans Theater and Batsheva Dance Company. He was chosen to create for NDT Upcoming Choreographers 10′ and has won The Zeraspe Award 06′, Copenhagen International Choreography Competition 12′, and The Mahol Shalem International Competition 13′. Between 2011-13 he created for “TheProject” of The Israeli Opera House, KCDC, The Israel Ballet, Ballet Junior de Geneve, NND, ZDT, and EBBC. Last season, Sharabi was chosen to be one of the 9 promising young artists of Israel by American Express and founded his group ‘Idan Sharabi & Dancers’ in Sep. 12′.
Idan Sharabi has been supported by American Express TYP Project, The Ministry of Culture, The Israel Festival, Suzanne Dellal, Bikurey Ha-Itim, The AICF, The Israeli Opera House, The Juilliard School Donors and a donor of The Dance Library of Israel Organization
Dor Mamlia was born in Israel, 1985.
Dor is the 2013 Israeli Minister of Culture Prize winner for ‘Best Cast Performance’, and the winner of ZOA scholarship for young artists in 2006. He started his training in The KCDC Workshop Institute, before joining KCDC. After he joined Fresko Dance Company and ‘TheProject’ of The Israeli Opera House. There he danced pieces by William Forsythe , Jacopo Godani, Emanuel Gat and Idan Sharabi. Then he joined Vertigo Dance Company and freelanced with Sharabi. A year later, he joined ‘Idan Sharabi & Dancers’, and ever since he has been performing with the group and teaching Sharabi Workshops in Europe. Dor has also worked with Barak Marshel, Saar Magal ,Karl Schreiner and Keren Rosenberg.
Ema Yuasa was born in Japan, 1983.
Ema started dancing in Ikemoto Ballet School, in Hiroshima, before she entered The ‘Académie de Danse Classique – Princesse Grace’, in Monaco. Upon her graduation, she joined Dresden Ballet and later joined Ballet de l’Opéra de Nice. After she joined Nederlands Dans Theater where she met Sharabi. In 10′, She joined ‘Idan Sharabi & Dancers’, dancing ‘Home’ in Suzanne Dellal Center, Tel aviv, Israel.
Rachel P. Fallon was born in the U.S, 1990. Post graduation from the Lines Ballet Training Program, she went on to dance for companies such as Tiny Pistol, Sidra Bell Dance New York and Zhukov Dance Theater. She is currently freelancing with Loni Landon Dance Projects, Bryan Arias and Idan Sharabi and Dancers.
We’d like to thank The CLOUD Den Haag, Tami Weiss, and Mary Louise Albert for granting us the opportunity and making this possible.
Sharing of the research: Sunday 9 February at 18:00
Voor het dans onderzoek naar gelijkheid op de werkvloer heeft Joop Oonk, Mathilde Dirkzwager uitgenodigd om een twee weken samen te dansen.
Mathilde is 16, houdt ontzettend veel van dansen en heeft Down Syndroom. Door verschil in geestelijk vermogen en danstraining ontstaat er al snel ongelijkheid,
maar hoe kan deze ongelijkheid voorkomen worden. Hoe gaan we beginnen?
Mathilde en Joop zijn de afgelopen week druk bezig geweest met het verkennen van de ruimte, het lichaam en elkaars lichaam. Voor Mathilde is dit werkproces compleet nieuw. Ze heeft wel op dansles gezeten en klassiek ballet, maar daar ging de les vaak over het kopieren van de juf en meedoen. Nu wordt er verwacht dat ze zelf mee denkt en ook dingen onthoudt. Het is moeilijk en vergt veel energie, maar er is niets dat ze niet kan.
Gestructureerde improvisatie opdrachten en controle geven tot nu toe de basis van de choreografie. Vanuit interesse gebieden en herkenbare thema’s zoals ‘de zee’, ‘de wind’ en ‘spiegelen’ zijn we in verschillende bewegingen en bewegings dynamieken gekropen. Door elke dag een klein stapje verder te gaan durven Mathilde en ik samen steeds meer.
Next two weeks from the 21 January – 1 February Aïda Guirro is doing a research process in CLOUD. She is happy to be accompanied by the dancers Michael Wälti and Inbal Abir and the musician Arvind Ganga. During this week they will be teaching dance and movement in Cloud studio in the afternoons and welcome people to join their classes and explore with them. Michael Wälti teaches martial arts- impro class. Inbal Abir and Aïda Guirro contemporary.
In the world of the wisher, he will meet his God and his mind
When we think about wishes, we tend to relate them to fairy tales, kids matters or naive subjects.
I look for ways to recognize our behavior in relation to wishing and having goals. How do we achieve a wish? How do we act when we really want something or not?
Goals, there are different kinds depending on society, personal development, culture influence, etc. Depending on the situation we are in, specific wishes will be brought to light.
Either way, they are there waiting for us to be heard.
We researched into questions like:
How can we know about our wishes?
What is listening to them?
How intense can wishing become?
Is there a separation between thoughts and the wishing person?
Do thoughts relate in conflict or with harmony?
During two weeks we have dived into the wishes world. That was just the beginning of a research which has the potential to develop in many different directions. I am glad I can research along my daily life about it, that’s what is about.
Outcome PRESENTATION 31/1, of their two weeks research at 19:00 in CLOUD. You are welcome to watch and feedback us!!
CLOUD Winterfestival in Theater De Vaillant, Den Haag
“Colorful Wonderful Winter Dance Express”
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CLOUD, the dance & performance research lab in Den Haag, organizes a special day to celebrate it’s two year anniversary. Saturday January 18 we have a day packed with open classes, workshops, artistic research presentations and performances, in collaboration with the street dance work shop DansWerkPlaats in De Vaillant, the local theatre in the Schilderswijk, Den Haag.
You want to indulge in African dance or improvisation class? Do ballet or classical Indian dance? Go Azonto or House? Start up with a Zumba work-out or recover in a yoga class? For just 5 euro’s you can spent the whole saturday doing lessons, participate in workshops and join presentations of CLOUD projects.
Artists working at CLOUD will present their dance and performance research, especially those projects in which audience has been participating. In the evening the urban crews of DansWerkPlaats will present Dance Express, with a HipHop freestyle and Azonto battle immediately after.
Classes and workshops start at 12 and will continue till 6 pm. CLOUD presentations and performances start are between 6 and 7 pm.
Bring all your friends, and come to taste all the wonderful colors of dance!
This project got a small subsidy of €4000,- by Gemeente Den Haag.
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CLOUD, platform voor dans en performance research, organiseert een heus winterfestival.
Wil je eindelijk eens Afrikaanse dans of een improvisatieles doen? Wil je kennis maken met ballet of Indiase dans? Een Zumba workout proberen of lekker bijkomen in een yogales?
Voor slechts €5,- kun je op zaterdag 18 januari in De Vaillant tussen 12:00- 18:00 alle mogelijke lessen volgen. Daarna zullen kunstenaars van CLOUD hun onderzoek presenteren in het kader van “CLOUD nodigt uit”.
Publiek is gevraagd om mee te werken met de kunstenaars om het werk verder te ontwikkelen. Aansluitend zullen de urban crews van de DansWerkPlaats hun Dance Express laten zien en vind er aansluitend een HipHop freestyle en Azonto battle plaats.
Neem je vrienden mee, en kom samen proeven van dans in al zijn geuren en kleuren!
With a group of people I want to explore how you can achieve an evolution in movement through playful exercises. With simple movement actions such as walking, standing still, moving in spatial figures and moving in layers in height, we explore how movement develops in space. I research the idea of connection and patterns, logic and dynamics that arise. The goal is to develop movement games that lead to interesting results in terms of choreography. I invite you to move and puzzle along!
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In deze werksessie wordt onderzocht hoe speelse oefeningen leiden tot ontwikkeling in beweging. Dit doen we aan de hand van simpele bewegingsacties als lopen, stilstaan het bewegen in ruimtelijke figuren en het verplaatsen in hoogtelagen. We onderzoeken het idee van verbinding en kijken naar logica, patronen en dynamieken die ontstaan. Ik nodig je uit om mee te bewegen en te puzzelen!
Jip Heijenga is danseres en student aan de dansacademie ArtEZ in Arnhem, afdeling dansmaker. Zij deed een onderzoek naar de ongepolijste bewegingsinput (materiaal en presence) van niet-getrainde dansers. Nu wil zij met conservatorium-studenten (jazz en compositie) een volgende stap maken door hun bewegingen als muzikant te bestuderen, maar ook met hen als bewegers aan de slag te gaan, los van hun instrument.
Jip Heijenga zal dit jaar afstuderen aan ArtEZ school of dance in Arnhem als danser/dans-maker. Ze is nu bezig met haar stage bij dansgezelschap de Stilte. Daarnaast is ze voor de minor dans–maker begonnen aan het project M | M mirror’s me (working title).Via Fransien vd Putt is ze betrokken geraakt bij Cloud en kreeg ze de mogelijkheid om onderzoek te doen voor haar project.
Tijdens het kijken naar jazz optredens raakte Jip geïnspireerd en ontdekte een minimalistische dans in de bewegingen van de muzikanten. Ze bewegen niet op de muziek, maar bewegen om muziek te produceren. Muziek nodigt niet alleen uit tot beweging, het ontstaat als gevolg van beweging. Deze ontdekkingen inspireerde Jip als dans maker.
Dit bracht haar tot een samenwerking met Justina Šikšnelytė, master student compositie aan het koninklijk conservatorium Den Haag. Samen creëren ze één score voor de dansers en muzikanten die de structuur zal vormen voor hun stuk mirror’s me. Onder leiding van de choreografe en componiste experimenteerde en improviseerde drie dansers, drie saxofonisten en een percussionist in de Cloud studio met het idee; muziek spiegelen aan dans, en andersom. Tijdens het proces werd spiegelen verder onderzocht en kreeg een groter belang. Hoe spiegelt (interpreteert/vertaald) een danser de melodie van de saxofoon in haar eigen instrument het lichaam? Kunnen de bewegingen van de twee instrumenten (lichaam/saxofoon) dichter bij elkaar komen? Jip en Justina zijn opzoek gegaan naar een nieuw genre van optreden waarin muziek en dans niet in dienst staan voor elkaar maar een synthese vormen met een eigen betekenis.
A simulation of a sword fight between Bima Engels and Lukas van Buuren at Cloud.
“My love for abstract painting is strongly related to my fascination for skies, endless landscapes and astronomy. ”
During my stay at CLOUD, I investigated the meaning of story lines and how they slowly become an abstract story of silence, movement, emotion and war.
I am not a story teller, still my love for theatre, dance, mime and performance played an important part inrealizing this performance. By incorporating these elements in my project, I hope to create a performance which showed some kind of Japanese, abstract fairy- tale.
But the key stone of the performance was not based on a story or a crystal clear concept. No, I just wanted to understand the universal character of story lines, how they move, how they flow, how they suddenly reappear making a statement.
Statements like:
Sword fighting , placing a chair, walking over chairs, standing up and sitting down, making a line on a white surface, standing behind a chair , observing the drawing of a line on the wall etc…
All these key moments are connected with one and other, forming a network of story lines.
The topic of making connections between the different chapters of the performance was one of the things I wanted to experience. Because I am painter who loves painting lines who break or go on , especially the lines who go on in endeavoring new directions. This forms the foundation of the performance I developed in CLOUD.
Also my love for sword fighting reflects, IF, it is used in the right way, something which has nothing to do with killing or breaking your opponent at all. No, in the contrary, a good sword fight is not about hatred or fear, but giving strength and making dark emotions disappear. Making yourself and your opponent stronger and wisher.
It was a personal eye opener , when I realized that the lines I painted so many times , suddenly became alive and were walking outside their framework of paper and paint
A strange, but marvelous experience.
I …. also was confronted with the hard reality of fighting and giving calmness.
It’s too early to say what the impact will be of this experiment . Nevertheless it opened too me a new area of space and line.
Bima Engels
The main topic of my work is painting gigantic, endless, abstract worlds which form poetic reflections of an universe.
Already during my Academy time, I instinctively started investigating these directions.By studying modern abstract painting , combined with Classical Japanese landscape painting , I slowly developed a style, which forms now the basis of my work.
I came to the conclusion that an abstract painting should be more than only an expression of an emotion or an abstract impression of reality. It also should contain stories, maps, war zones, ideas, experiences or beautiful areas, which just consist of colours and lines.
The large scale of my paintings emphasizes the grandeur and infinity of the abstract image. But more important, I actually have to work with space, when I am standing in front of a huge canvas , a challenge which gives me every time a kick.
Violence plays a significant role in my paintings , because if you paint an abstract world you eventually will discover that you can’t ignore the disharmonious elements. This means an abstract painting should show a totality , which of course , is not only beautiful but also has shadow sides to it.
The rough philosophy of Heraclitus and Nietzsche from essential guidelines for me to understand this aspect.
Still the real starting point always will be the phrase: My dear universe,
By simply addressing a space with “My dear universe,” I can start painting an abstract world which reflects something of an universe.
Wen and Evangelia share the first findings of their research in experimenting with how we can use the body to operate an instrument, and how an instrument and the sound it creates can move the body.
Presentation on Sunday 15th December at 8pm.
Wen Chin Fu graduated in 2006 from the Classical Music Department of Shih Chien University, Taipei, and continued her studies at the ArtScience interfaculty of The Hague, where she graduated in 2010. Her performances explore the relationship between physical movement, sound and the environment. A key element of her practice is concentration, which opens the senses for perceiving things through new perspectives.
Evangelia Kolyra is a Greek born London-based independent choreographer and dancer, interested in choreographing within theatre, site-specific, film, and installation contexts. She endeavors to offer audiences a kinesthetically rich experience of unexpected, humorous, and sometimes dark or sinister sides to the psychology of human experience, presented within highly detailed and physical performances where ideas are derived through movement.
Her work has been featured in various platforms and festivals throughout Europe, and her aim is to develop a cross-disciplinary and highly collaborative practice.
Evangelia has an MFA in Choreography from Roehampton University, a BA in Dance from Professional Dance School D.Gregoriadou, and a BA in Greek Philology-Linguistics from National & Kapodistrian University of Athens.
