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Category: Previews
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Published: Friday, 06 July 2012 00:28
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Written by Chantal Guevara
There was a recent discussion on Twitter about which dance companies we find exciting, and although our list is very short, New Movement Collective is very firmly on it, even though they're a long way from a typical dance company.
Founded in 2009, New Movement was founded in 2009 as a collective to enable a group of established dancers to challenge the scope of choreography and performance, and increasingly, to explore the meeting of dance and architecture. If you're looking for a "normal" dance performance in a theatre, then this won't be for you, but if you're open to some great dance in an unusual setting with creative use of film, architectural sets and space to create a memorable experience indeed, then book your ticket now.
Casting Traces is their latest work, inspired by Paul Auster’s seminal novel ‘The New York Trilogy’, set in an architect-designed paper labyrinth in a former dairy. Lasting 45 minutes, this will be a promenade performance, inviting the audience to explore the venue at length, with the help of film and live camera feeds. Their most ambitious project yet, New Movement Collective have received their first ever Arts Council funding to assist with the development of this work and of TestBed1 as a suitable venue.
New Movement Collective have performed a number of works in London, Madrid and Cologne, and last September, they performed 'Exquisite Corpse' at the Architectural Association in Bloomsbury. The first part of the performance took place in a long room with an improvised catwalk at one end, with beaded curtains at the other end. Outside, white cloths had been draped between buildings; a brief performance on the catwalk was followed by shadowy figures dancing behind screens and dance films projected onto the beaded curtains then onto the cloths, creating a very dramatic effect.
The main appeal of New Movement Collective will undoubtedly be the dancers who form it, making it something of a contemporary dance supergroup - all the more so since Jonathan Goddard and Gemma Nixon recently left Rambert Dance Company in order to focus on their own futures as choreographers.
Jonathan Goddard is likely the best-known of New Movement's dancers, having been nominated for a South Bank Show / Times Newspaper Breakthrough Award, an Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dance and twice nominated in the Critics' Circle Awards for Best Male Dancer, winning in 2008. Since 2009, he has been choreographing with Gemma Nixon as the Goddard | Nixon Project, now Goddard Nixon, with their works performed at The Place in Resolution! and Spring Loaded, at the Linbury Studio in the Royal Opera House and at Cloud Dance Festival.
Kevin Turner and Anthony Missen are known to many as the two halves of Company Chameleon, currently touring an outstanding duet, Push, around the summer outdoor festivals, including a recent performance at the Greenwich + Docklands International Festival. Joe Walkling was a member of Matthew Bourne's New Adventures for several years, and last autumn, he performed in Arthur Pita's Metamorphosis at the Linbury Studio, Royal Opera House. The other members of New Movement Collective are current or past Rambert Dance Company dancers, and have also worked at many of the major contemporary dance and ballet companies.
Battersea might be off the beaten path for many of us, but you can trust that New Movement Collective will make it worth your while!
Injury is all around us. Just yesterday, Alina Cojocaru was tweeting about it being the six-year anniversary of the surgery for a whiplash injury which could have ended her career while this morning, Lauren Cuthbertson sadly tweeted about a final-hour injury which has taken her out of the upcoming Royal Ballet performances of Manon.