Blue Eyed Soul Dance Company, Shrewsbury, Shropshire

2009

The Company returned to Hong Kong to deliver Wander a human landscape hosted by the Centre for Community Cultural Development and supported by The British Council in Hong Kong.  The project provides Hong Kong artists with training and was performed at Hong Kong’s prestigious Jockey Club Theatre on the 19th and 20th December.

It follows on from the Company’s tour to Hong Kong in 2006. Artistic Director Rachel Freeman leads the project alongside digital artist Arnim Friess and assisted by Tids Pickard who has worked on numerous projects with the Company.

Wander a human landscape draws upon the personal and shared experiences of participants to create a shifting landscape of their lives and bodies.  It focuses on intricate details as well as bigger pictures, exploring colours, textures, contours, perspective through live and recorded movement and digital media.

Watch this clip from the first day of their rehearsal….

2008

Exchange programme, Madrid Spain

The Company worked with Enrique Cabrera (Aracaladanza) on a research programme into inclusive performance work for family audiences hosted by DanceXchange.

Exchange programme, Hong Kong

Mok Chui Yu, Chief Executive of The Centre for Community Cultural Development Hong Kong visited the Company to shadow practical sessions and develop plans for a participatory programme in Hong Kong 2009.

2007

‘Sixth Sense in Performance’ festival of dance in Taipai, Taiwan

As part of the Don’t Push Me tour with three sell-out performances in the Gulking Avant Garde Theatre plus a workshop and seminar session. The Company’s visit won wide critical acclaim and attracted press and media interest, including national television.

“Physical poetry”
- The China Post

“As an inclusive dance company, Blue Eyed Soul are an absolute success”
- The Stage

2006

Touch / don’t touch, San Francisco

“Blue Eyed Soul’s Touch / don’t touch — a dry title for a savory piece — paired Jami Quarrell, a big, burly performer, with minuscule Claire Cunningham, who danced on crutches. While the physical disparity between these two artists was striking, Curtis’s inventive choreography emphasized their equality. Touch trajectories drew the dancers from wary separation into a weightless togetherness only to send them on their individual ways again”

- Rita Felciano, San Francisco Hereld

Epice de Vie commission by Danse Habile, Geneva

Created over a ten-month period of exchange between companies, a dance about the shared and different experiences of five women premiered at the Danse Habile Festival.

“This combination of dancers, which could be seen as very strange, gives rise to true homogeneity… In this performance, the idea of a body made for dance is thrown out of the window… The power of expression of people who are different is enormous… in all of this there is great joy for the dancers and genuine pleasure for the audience.”

- Tribune de Geneva

International Festival of Inclusive Arts in Hong Kong

Performances of aerial work Catch and Touch / don’t touch plus residency with local artists.

Bill Shannon NY, USA

Wait was created with multi media artist Bill Shannon (aka the Crutch Master) and was toured alongside the Company’s outreach programme.

2004

Danse-habile, Switzerland

At this biannual festival performances of I do… were met with a riotously enthusiastic reception and company members were praised for their workshops.

VSA International Festival of Disability Arts, Washington D.C. USA

Fifty-two countries were represented at the festival, which included live performance, art exhibitions and seminars at venues all over the city. Blue Eyed Soul Dance Company opened the festival with a performance of ‘Wondered’ and exerts from I Do… on the Kennedy Centre, Millennium Stage.

2002

European Parliament in Brussels

Performance of Song for Two Voices directed by Kate Gowar (Ricochet Dance Company)

2001

Diverse Dance residency in Seattle, U.S.A

An eight day retreat where dance, music and issues of disability/ability/integration and self-sufficiency were explored in self generated groves of research.  Supported by the Lisa Ullmann travelling scholarship

ECITE in Bern, Switzerland
(European Contact Improvisation Teachers Exchange)

Workshops exploring inclusion and presentation of Letting Go dance/video  work Directed by Kevin Finnan (Motionhouse Dance Threatre), Video by Paul Harrison.

“Dancing above and below the water, in and out of wheelchairs this piece defies gravity”

“beautiful images”

1998 - 2000

Exchange programme, Eugine Oregon, USA

Workshops and performances in the UK and USA in collaboration with dancers from Touch Monkey and Joint Forces Dance Company, USA.