Taal in Exposure: Dance @ROH2 (Programme 2)
21 & 22 July 2011, 7pm

Clore Studio Upstairs,
The Royal Opera House,
Bow Street,
Covent Garden,
London,
WC2E 9DD,
United Kingdom

» Info & Tickets (ROH website)
» ROH Location & Transport (ROH website)

Taal is a collaboration between Alesandra Seutin (Afro Eclectic dance) and Annette Walker (Tap dance). It is one of the new ROH2 commissions for Exposure: Dance 2011

Exposure: Dance celebrates distinctive work created by inspiring young and more established choreographers.

Exposure: Dance PROGRAMME 2 21 AND 22 JULY: Stephanie Schober ‘Traffic’ / Alesandra Seutin ‘Taal’ / Devaraj Thimmaiah ‘Arranged Marriage’ / Cameron McMillan ‘If Nobody Speaks’
Running time: 1 hour 10 minutes (no interval)
Price £12.50 (£10.50 student)
» Info & Tickets

As a result of this opportune meeting with Stagestep at Flints I was able to invent a portable, sprung tap dance board ideal for practice and gigs, which is built by Flints from the Stagestep Encore hardwood dance flooring ‘click & go’ panels.

The bespoke PORTABLE TAP BOARD is available from Flints Theatrical Chandlers

If you order the ‘Portable Tap Board (FHSTB1)’ or ‘Portable Tap Board and Carry Bag (FHSTB1K)’ please reference ‘Annette Walker’

Semi-portable tap dance stage – Encore Sprung Timber Floors

For those of you interested in a portable stage suitable for tap dance then contact Flints with your required dimensions for a quote on a bespoke floor using the Stagestep Encore timber panels.

Tap dance flooring

• Tap Dance Flooring requirements (previous post)
• Portable Tap Boards from Flints (UK)
• Stagestep Encore Sprung Timber Floor from Flints (UK)
• Information on Stagestep’s Encore click-and-go transportable hardwood dance floor (USA)

Preview of C Jam Blues and Pink Panther

The Clappy Hour Cabaret, Dance Attic, London, UK, 19 March 2011

Download PDF of the full report (from LUTSF website)

The project outline
The Lisa Ullmann Travelling Scholarship Award enabled me to undertake the international travel element of my Trailblazer Fellowship (Sept 2009- Nov 2010), which was awarded by The Association of Dance of the African Diaspora (ADAD). My Trailblazer Fellowship project involved professional development in my career as a tap dancer. The aim was to develop skills and experience to work more closely with musicians in order to fully integrate tap into a jazz band. As well as ongoing tap training I was also developing my musicianship by training as a musician and had begun working more closely with a jazz trio for tap dance performances prior to the project. Travelling to New York was a key element of research in the relationship between jazz and tap, and training in tap dance.

Dates of travel to New York USA, July 1st – August 6th 2010

Planned activities
• Attend Heather Cornell’s Manhattan Tap New York City intensive, 12th–23rd July 2010
• Research archives at The Lincoln Center: New York Library for the Performing Arts

Additional activities
My previous experience of travelling to New York City enabled me to be prepared for the many opportunities that appear in a short space of time. Below is an outline of tap and jazz related events that were either recommended or I find out about whilst in the city. There were also many other events and social activities related to dance and music that contributed to the purpose of my trip.

• The World of Tap Dance: A two-day celebration, 6th – 7th July 2010 (Conference)
• Tap City: The New York City Tap Festival Awards ceremony, screening, show, 8th-9th July 2010 (Festival)
• Savion Glover’s SoLE PoWER, 8th July 2010 (Tap/Dance theatre)
• Tap Jam at Smalls, 4th & 25th July 2010 (Tap/live jazz show)
• Heather Cornell’s BBQ & jam, 17th July (Tap/live music show and jam)
• Barry Harris Trio at the Village Vanguard (Live jazz show)
• Malika Zarra at Bar 55 (Live jazz show)
• Roxane Butterfly’s tap performance, 31st July 2010 (Tap/live jazz show)
• Cotton Club Swing Dance Night, 2nd August (Live entertainment: tap, big band and social swing dance)
• Lafayette Harris Jr Quartet at Zinc Bar, 4th August 2010 (Live jazz show)
• Choro Ensemble at Zinc Bar, 4th August 2010 (Live jazz show)

How far the purpose of the project was achieved
As far as the trip to New York it matched my expectations and provided the grounding and experience I was aiming for. The two-week tap intensive was challenging but in very supportive environment that helped ensure it was an enjoyable experience. It was particularly grounding to be amongst other professionals and share knowledge and experience of tap and jazz. When I returned to London I was pleased to find musicians relating to me as a musician as well as a dancer since this was one of the purposed of the project.

As indicated by the list of additional activities above, I was able to attend numerous events and jams in New York. The only element of my trip that could have improved was to have more time for research at the Lincoln Center although I managed to see some archived footage of tap dance and live music theatre shows as I had planned.

Highlights

Dinner with tappers @Cleopatra's Needle

There were so many interesting events happening while I was in NY but some great moments have to be the impromptu dinners and informal discussions with an eclectic mix of people from the international tap dance community. I made good connections with other international professional tap dancers and New York-based musicians. Working with musicians during the intensive was a great experience as it enabled me to realise my existing skills and build confidence as a tap dancing musician.

Another highlight was my surprise to see AboutTime included in the World of Tap Dance conference during the segment of tap dance in Britain/ Ireland.

Suggestions for future Awardees
It helps to allow for flexibility within a planned schedule. I had tentatively planned to attend a tap dance festival during my first week in New York. It turned out I was too unwell to do the festival classes during the first few days but I was able to attend tap conferences, screenings and shows, which turned out well, if not better than planned.

Always plan rest time. I was fortunate to able to extend my trip in order to cover further research elements since I was so exhausted after the intensive!

A Trailblazer’s journey: Thinking, planning and doing
Included in the report was my article that featured in ADAD’s Hotfoot magazine, Special edition, Sept 2010

To order a copy email hotfoot@adad.org.uk

Links
• Trip photo album
• Lisa Ullmann Travelling Scholarship Fund Award Winners List 2010-2011
• Download PDF of the full report (from LUTSF website)

Finally, I’ve found a plugin/widget that allows users to connect their social network account (Facebook, Myspace, Twitter etc) to my WordPress blog. I’m still in the early development (learning) stages so please bear with me as I tweak and refine the admin side of things.

For anyone who’s the slightest bit interested in getting their fingers into this sort of code here’s a link to the WordPress plugin I’m using: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/gigya-socialize-for-wordpress/. However you may want to take a look at what’s required for the setup before you dive in http://wiki.gigya.com/030_Gigya_Socialize_API_2.0/050_Socialize_Plugins/Wordpress_plugin.

Part of the Gigya Socialize set up requires getting a Social Network Application key for each social network you want users to connect to your blog through. I spent some time (40min) setting up a Facebook Application (Annette Walker’s blog) to get up and running straight away, but you can fill out a form on the Gigya website to do all this for you (5 business days). I’m filling out the form to get other Social Network Application keys (for Myspace, LinkedIn, Yahoo and one for when I join Twitter). In the meantime users can login to comment on blog posts through Facebook only (login available in the sidebar on the right).

Comments are allowed on this post so give it ago!

The LUTSF supports travel to attend a conference, to pursue a research project or undertake a short course of study in the field of movement or dance. For further details of how and when to apply go to www.lutsf.org.uk

It’s certainly proving to be good year so far when it comes to my professional development project in tap dance.

Annette Walker be covering for Junior Laniyan’s Rhythm Tap classes at Pineapple Dance Studios from Saturday 9th January until early February 2010.

Every Saturday, 2-3pm (Starts back 9 Jan 2010)

Level: Intermediate-Advanced

Cost: £6 + membership
(See www.pineapple.uk.com for details)

Address:
Pineapple Studios,
7 Langley Street, London,
WC2H 9JA

Tel: +44(0)20 7836 4004

As well as the latest news about me, including the latest on my ADAD Trailblazer Fellowship, there’s a post about my first Glastonbury Festival experience and a summary of my journal for the first part of 2009.

For a full list of all categories see Blog categories in the sidebar on the right.

Today I attended the Service and reception of A Celebration for the Life of James Maddison Clark (23rd July 1922 – 30 October 2009) in Dunstable. The service was held at the gorgeous Priory Church in Dunstable at 12.30pm. Jimmy’s close brother Steve, members of his family, friends and those whose lives he had touched filled the church to attend the service and show their love and support. It was a beautiful and moving service with hymns, prayers, a reading and tributes to Jimmy from his family and members of The Grand Order of Water Rats.

As well as refreshments the reception provided the space for old friends to catch up, new friends to meet. Old memories and stories were shared and new ones created, all under the shadow of Jimmy’s living memory. Steve was sure Jimmy would have been pleased at the proceedings and had a warm and giving smile, though touched by sadness.

Before leaving Dunstable for the 2 hour drive back to London I went, with several tap friends, to visit Jimmy’s grave. We soon realised that it might turn into an impossible task with the fading light and lack of directions. But whilst walking through the cemetary, amongst the many burial sites and plots and having no idea where we needed to go, we somehow found ourselves at Jimmy’s grave. After paying respects we headed back to our cars whilst reflecting on the seemingly miraculous occurence of actually finding Jimmy’s final resting place in the early dark and cold of a November evening.

I plan to use this opportunity for research and development in tap and jazz music practice, and also towards building an independent tap and live music group. This project idea had been floating around in my head for sometime but things started to fall into place when I first sat down and wrote out my plans earlier this year before I found out about the bursary. Writing the proposal helped me to refine the project idea and had already made up my mind that I would make a start even before I had applied.

One of the tasks I assigned myself to compliment my continuing professional development as a tap dancer was to take up playing the piano again so I could expand my jazz musical prowess! Grateful for all those classical piano lessons and grades I did until I was 19 (plus a short introduction to jazz I did back in 2002) I was able to sign up to an Intemediate Blues Piano course at Goldsmiths College.

I’ll be keeping an online journal on the details and progress of my project over the next few months so keep an eye out under the blog sub-category Trailblazer Fellowship. I’ll also be blogging about how the piano lessons are going and the first entry is Blues Piano 29 September – 9 November 2009.

Find out about ADAD’s Trailblazer Fellowship