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Jobs

Work With Us: Apprentice Dancer

We are looking for a Sussex-based ‘Apprentice Dancer’ to join our team!

Find out more via the link below.

Katie Dale-Everett Dance Apprentice Dancer Job Description 2024

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Jobs

Work With Us: Project Assistant

We are looking for a Sussex-based ‘Project Assistant’ to join our team!

18 days @ £125 per day

Flexible hours between February and August with possible extension.

Find out more via the link below.

Katie Dale-Everett Dance_Project Assistant Job Description 2024

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Latest news & Articles

Supported by Arts Council England National Lottery funding to build more galaxies in 2024!

We are so excited to share that we are being supported by Arts Council England National Lottery funding to build more galaxies in 2024. 

With this support, we will be exploring how we can develop our motion capture work ‘Playscape: How to Build a Galaxy’ so that it can engage more young people who are not as often involved in scenarios that promote the development of their talent. More details to be announced soon! 

📸 by KDE Dance during a workshop with Spun Glass Theatre.

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Get Involved

Autumn Workshops: Get Involved

 

Stanwell Event’s Fun Day

About: We are pleased to be returning to Stanwell to deliver a dance, creative game and repertoire workshop taking inspiration from our latest work ‘Playscape: How to Build a Galaxy’ as part of Stanwell Event’s Fun Day.

No dance experience is needed and the workshop is free. Drop-in throughout the day is available. Attendance is free and there will be other great family activities to get involved in.

Date: Sunday 1st October 2023

Time: 11.00 – 15.00 (drop-in available)

Age Range: Young people

Cost: Free (no need to book)

Location: Long Lane Recreation Ground, Long Lane, Cordelia Gardens and Cranford Avenue, Stanwell, TW19 7ER

Access: Adaptable for different access requirements.

Getting There: 

  • Buses 203 &442 stop nearby.
  • There is free parking on the surrounding roads and recreational ground car park.

Find Out More: Email: anna-marie@stanwellevents.org.uk

 

Magic Moves: Motion Play

About: Is dancing something you enjoy, and do you also have an interest in technology and/or gaming? If this sounds like you, you will love our latest workshop with Katie Dale-Everett Dance, ‘Motion Play.

This workshop for 9-14-year-olds is based on their latest piece ‘Playscape: How to Build a Galaxy’ which combines dance and motion capture technology. Expect to:

  • Get a basic understanding of motion capture technology.
  • Learn movement from the show with Ed Elford, a company dancer.
  • Take part in choreographic creation.
  • Explore various space-inspired landscapes.

Date: Saturday 18th November 2023

Time: 12.30 – 15.30

Age Range: 9-14 years

Cost: £22.50 Early Bird (by 18th October 2023),  £27 after, 20% Sibling Discount

Location: Hanover Community Centre, 33 Southover St, Brighton and Hove, Brighton BN2 9UD

Access: This workshop can be adapted for participants with SEN. Workshop leaders have SEN facilitation experience, and the workshop can also be suitable with just parts of the suits being worn if needed.

Getting There: 

  • Buses 21, 25 & 18 stop nearby.
  • Train: 17-minute walk from Brighton Station.
  • There is pay-and-display parking on the surrounding roads.

Find Out More and Book: Here

 

Mini Playhouse Workshops:

Preschool:

About: Follow Gabby and Ed’s space exploration adventure as they discover and learn about the universe. We’ll build space junk, dance on the moon, and create new moves. (Participants do not wear motion capture suits).

Date: Sunday 19th November 2023

Time: 10.00 – 11.00

Age Range: 3-6 years

Cost: £5

About: Do you ever dream of wearing a motion capture suit? This is your chance! In pairs, team up to explore different space-inspired landscapes and create your own universe. Motion capture suits will be worn by the performers. (Participants do wear motion capture suits).

Date: Sunday 19th November 2023

Time: 10.00 – 11.00

Age Range: 7-11 years

Cost: £7

Location: Mini Playhouse, 26 White Rock, Hastings TN34 1JY

Access: Not able to book as a pair? Let us know and we can talk to you about matching you up with another participant! This workshop was made so that people could get to know each other, in particular young people who struggle with communication.

This workshop can be adapted for participants with SEN. Workshop leader Katie has SEN facilitation experience, and the workshop can also be suitable with just parts of the suits being worn if needed. 

Getting There: 

  • Buses 20, 21, 22 & 70 stop nearby.
  • Train: 10-minute walk from Hastings and  18-minute walk from St Leonards Warrior Square Station.
  • There is pay-and-display parking on the surrounding roads.

Find Out More and Book: Here

PHOTO BY PHOEBE WINGROVE

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Latest news & Articles

Artistic Director Katie is now a Mental Health First Aider!

“It is well established that reduced wellbeing in children and young people increases likelihood of poorer wellbeing in adulthood, which may lead to reduced opportunities and outcomes within work, health and relationships.” (Mental Health Foundation, 2022). We hope, for a future where nobody is at risk of this and aim to be part of the conversation, action and impact helping to reduce this.

This is why Artistic Director Katie has become a Mental Health First Aider.

The course by MHFA England taught knowledge and skills for providing first aid to support people who may be experiencing poor mental health.

We commit to keeping up to date on best practice and to being there for our communities, beneficiaries and team.

Thank you to Active Surrey for supporting us to take this course!

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Uncategorized

Creating Social Impact Through Technology In Dance – By Producer Frances Livesey

For theatre, alongside its younger (and somewhat better-funded) cousins in television, film and gaming, power lies in immediacy. For the former, this is in one respect quite literal: there is a certain magic in the connection that we find through existing in the same space as the players on stage, just inches from the drama. But in a society ever more digitally-minded, and at the same time plagued by a silent epidemic of loneliness, how can we use theatre together with screen-based technologies to build immediate connection, both with the stories we tell on stage, and with one another?
This drive towards connectivity lies at the heart of our latest project, ‘Playscape: How to Build a Galaxy’ — a dual performance and interactive workshop experience, designed to be taken to young people in community settings. Performers and participants alike collaborate, explore and play within both physical and digital space, in an experience uniting dance, motion capture technology and a game-inspired virtual universe projected onto
surrounding screens. It is a project that also prioritises social impact, with a particular focus on young people impacted by social exclusion. To date its reach includes young people living in sheltered accommodation, children in receipt of free school meals, and young mothers with children in foster care, amongst many others.
Last month, I was invited by Falmouth University to deliver a keynote speech on how at KDE Dance we are using technology and creativity to create a positive societal impact, as part of the Research & Knowledge Exchange segment of their Core Academic & Technical Training. For anyone as unfamiliar with this concept as I once was, knowledge exchange is the practice of taking knowledge generated from academic research, and using this to generate positive economic, environmental or social impact, often through collaborations with external organisations. Falmouth is on a mission ‘to be the leading institution for nexus between creativity and technology’, and having been lucky enough to see a small part of this process in action, it is easy to imagine their success in this endeavour: it was incredibly inspiring to hear about ongoing work on campus and beyond, for example supporting SMEs across Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly to integrate immersive technologies into their businesses.
‘Playscape’ is of course a product of knowledge exchange itself, having been developed through our residency at Goldsmiths, University of London. It was wonderful to have an opportunity to share our learning from the project, both as an evidenced example of how creative technology can drive positive social impact, and as a testament to how powerful relationships between academia, industry and community groups can be. I was also immensely grateful for the insightful and thought-provoking conversations I was able to have with other speakers and delegates — all of which are invaluable as KDE Dance moves forward with ‘Playscape’ and as an organisation.
Despite having arrived equipped with no less than three different types of sunscreen, I returned to London with not inconsiderable sunburn, but nevertheless a fresh excitement for the future of technology in dance theatre. Watch this space for more from ‘Playscape: How to Build a Galaxy’ and Katie Dale-Everett Dance!
Frances Livesey, Producer
Photo by Steve Tanner
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Blog

‘Playscape: How to Build a Galaxy’ Phase 1 Outcomes

With the support of the Goldsmith’s Mocap Streamer Residency, Newhaven Grassroots Arts Award and Arts Council England National Lottery Project Funding we set out to answer the following question:

How can we build inclusive digital and movement-based artistic settings where people can contribute toward a shared vision and discover their sense of play and creativity?

This was important to us as we were observing many missed opportunities for meaningful connections on a daily basis within our community and in the communities of those we were working within. We therefore wanted to create something that would help young people who identified as from/who:

  • Low social economic backgrounds
  • Struggled with communication
  • Did not engage in physical activity/dance

to find more confidence in their ability to contribute creativity and playfully to their own environment as well as that of their communities.

This nine month R&D project benefited 1812 people living in areas surrounding Newhaven, Brighton, Staines, Woking, London and internationally.

The project included bringing  performances, workshops and opportunities to contribute to the creative process directly to schools, local youth club and people’s homes enabling us to reach people who face barriers to seeing performances. 10 out of 16 young people we engaged at a performance in Newhaven for example had never been to the theatre before.

We engaged young people aged 4-26 experiencing some or multiple forms of social exclusion. Circumstances included young mothers with children in foster care, those living with mental health challenges, receiving free school meals, in temporary accommodation, within the care system, who have different learning/communicative needs or/and who have identities that have been marginalised incl. people from the LGBTQIA+ community. We also engaged adults and dancers in training wanting to up-skill in digital arts practice who were finding the cost of this training inaccessible .

We are very proud of this project and look forward to delivering phase 2.

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Goldsmiths Mocap Streamer Collaborative Innovation Showcase

 

We are bringing our work ‘Playscape: How to Build a Galaxy’ back to London on the 15th of June as part of the ‘Goldsmiths Mocap Streamer Collaborative Innovation Showcase’. Book for free here.

The day will consist of demos, workshops, and performances. All work is informed by innovation in motion-capture exploration of avatar embodiment, communication, and interaction in shared virtual spaces. This event will be of interest to dance professionals, creative technologists, and anyone interested in emerging immersive performance practices.

1. Playscape: How to Build a Galaxy – a live installation performance with connected interactive workshops by Katie Dale-Everett Dance. Playscape is an immersive performance installation performed by dancers or played with by participants that combines dance, motion capture technology, and visuals to open-up new possibilities for physical, social and digital connection between people.

2. DISCORDANCE live dance performance and VR experience by Clemence Debaig of Unwired Dance Theatre – Exploring themes of belonging, multi-identities, otherness and the search for human connection, DISCORDANCE is a one-of-a-kind hybrid performance featuring dancers in London and New York connected in real-time, using motion capture and VR.

3. Digital Dance Studio – demo and workshop of a digital dance compositional software tool created by Alexander Whitley Dance Company. An innovative user-focussed immersive software app for digital choreographic composition, planning, teaching, learning, and rehearsal. It offers a simple and intuitive immersive interface for creation and manipulation of choreographic sequences in virtual space.

4. Designing Avatars and Interactions for Diverse Movement Expression – Hosted by research collaborator and art director of Figural Bodies, Neal Coghlan, this demo and workshop is a showcase of the different avatars created during the Mocap Streamer project and residencies programme according to a diversity of professional, cultural and disability needs. Participants will gain an understanding of how the design process works for each character type, from the initial 3D sketches through to the working, mo-capped models and the unique interactions that accompany each one.

 

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Latest news & Articles

Finding Fathers R&D 2022

A special project of ours was working  on 'Finding Fathers' a film, dance and music journey exploring the intimate stories of real people seeking out their birth fathers, directed by Matt Kowalczuk. Here more about what he thought of our time in the studio together here.

Matt's Reflections: 

I am very happy to announce that the 1st phase of Finding Fathers R&D was a very successful experience. We spent one day exploring ways to develop choreographic movement to extract filmed interviews based on the themes of fatherless and masculinity in the 21st century, turning this into a contemporary dance piece/ film documentary.

I worked alongside the exceptional talents of Katie-Dale Everett (Choreographer), Gabby Sanders (Dancer) and YiAnn Kok (Assistant producer). We collaborated together and have created some content for us to explore these stories even further and deeper.

None of this would have been possible if it wasn't for the following help and support. Firstly thank you to our contributors (whose identity will remain anonymous as it is a sensitive subject), who have shared the stories of the relationships or their lack of; with their fathers and have given this project a rich abundance of storytelling that we can explore. I can definitely relate to their journeys and this has touched me deeply.

Secondly, I would like to thank Phakama who have been our funders for the R&D at this stage through the Phakama Artist Bursary. Thanks to Anna Glarin from Project Phakama for coming to Brighton and seeing our R&D. Also thank you to Phillip Edgerly@ Institute for Contemporary Theatre (ICT Brighton) for letting us have a space to explore these stories and to Jess Cheetham from Spunglass Theatre for her advice.

What's next?

I filmed what we created on the day. I will be in post-production over the next couple of weeks, editing what we created. I will share once completed. This will be used to secure further funding hopefully to scale things up, including adding more content by conducting more interviews around the country, working with two dancers instead of one, and creating a hybrid/poetic dance documentary and a theatre production.

Because my own story is still being explored as I don't know my father, I am on my own journey within this project. I'm currently doing some family research on my background; as there has been a lot of vague and conflicting stories that I got from my mother. I've ordered a DNA test and I will share the results once I have done the test.

Finally, we are always looking for people who would be willing to share their experience of fatherlessness. It doesn't matter what perspective you are coming from, but we would like to see this explored from a female perspective next time! If you are interested please PM and I will contact you.

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Blog Latest news & Articles

Get To Know… Aurea Williamson

Aurea is a former Nurse and performer in 'Rebel Boob' a verbatim theatre show by Speak Up! Act Out! CIC (Angela El-Zeind) which our Artistic Director Katie was asked to choreograph. For National Nurse Week we sat down with Aurea to reflect on Rebel Boob and how it was combining her passion for the arts with her long career in nursing.

What is your background both in and out of the arts/theatre industry?

I trained as a nurse when I left home aged 18 working in both NHS and private sectors mainly on the surgical side – to begin with in orthopaedics and theatre departments where I quickly realised, I prefer people awake, before working out I wanted to focus on oncology, specifically breast care. I worked agency and in various other areas becoming an Oncology Research Nurse and then, in 2006, specialised in breast reconstruction surgery. I got my dream role in 2011, a hospital-based Macmillan Clinical Nurse Specialist in Breast Care (that's a mouthful!).

Since school, I'd always enjoyed drama and been involved in my local community group but after I was treated for cancer myself, I stopped planning what I'd do in years to come, just in case I didn't have that time. I started taking opportunities and in 2017, encouraged by my husband and son, I started a part-time acting class, for no other reason, but to see what I was capable of.

In 2019 my agent took me on, and I decided to take a year-long career break from nursing and see what happened, expecting nothing but to re-coup some energy. Since then, I consider myself lucky to have had some screen experience (a small role in a feature film, done shorts and student films) and become increasingly involved in (often ongoing) theatre projects which has allowed me to perform at Brighton Fringe, see parts of the country I'd never been to (Theatre In Education touring for example) and a highlight - visiting Amsterdam with Rebel Boob.

Why did you want to work on Rebel Boob?

I never went back to nursing (apart from a little pandemic interlude). The director of a play I was involved with at the time knew my background and showed me an advert looking for performers for the Rebel Boob R&D. I was on my career break at the time, and I'd been feeling guilty about even considering leaving the healthcare profession, but I knew straight away I wanted to be involved in some capacity, so I applied.

Rebel Boob felt like three different areas of my life coalescing into one. It was a theatre piece, and I was on a yearlong career break looking at changing direction to performance. It matched my background and experience perfectly so I felt I could add something worthwhile to the project. I also felt it could be cathartic for me personally. I had been treated for breast cancer myself in 2013, looked after by my colleagues at the time, before returning to the same nursing role.

At the time Rebel Boob was looking for performers I was seriously considering leaving nursing permanently. Partly because of that, I felt I could allow myself to be more honest and open (to others) and as a result, I felt vulnerable.

This might sound odd, but I wanted to see if I could speak, in an authentic way, other people's words about their diagnosis, treatment, and how they felt at the time and after treatment when everyone expects them to get on with it. Some of the words really resonated with me personally. Without the protective layer of being a nurse, which I had used (very successfully I might add) as a method to cope, could I, Aurea, as opposed to Aurea the nurse, vocalise those words? I didn't know. Through my diagnosis and treatment, I had one person (and a diary) I was completely honest with, but other than that I kept a certain amount of emotional distance and privacy about what had happened and how I'd felt. Six years post-diagnosis I felt ready to face my vulnerabilities in a more head-on way. The timing felt right. I felt it could make me stronger and I was ready. But I didn't know if I could do it. It felt very personal.

Since that first R&D in 2020, I have seen how audiences (including Health Care Professionals) respond – those who have been affected by cancer as well as those who haven't. There are so many themes within Rebel Boob I have heard patients say time and time again over the years; all this has just built on my passion for the project. I felt and still do feel strongly it is a show everyone should see.

Can you tell us more about how movement comes into your role in the piece?

In Rebel Boob I speak the words of different women. Choreography often accompanies those words sometimes in a supporting way. I speak a wonderful monologue "Love is in the air" about living in the moment where movement joyously accompanies the words.

At other times the movement opposes the words spoken just like in real life. I am not a dancer, but I get to create movement with a beautiful one; and while a monologue is spoken, we create the emotional relationship between a mother and a daughter.

Why do you think the movement is important as part of the construction of the show?

Movement is vital within the show It often depicts emotions that cannot or are difficult to express just by words, demonstrating engagingly, the difference between what is said and what might be felt. Movement holds the whole show together. And it gives the audience something to look at!

What is your favourite piece of music to dance to?

What a hard question! I don't think I can choose – I like loads of stuff … but I do like something with an underlying beat, a bit rocky …. so maybe something that gets all my limbs flaying about!

 

Read more on Rebel Boob