Passing Strange and Wonderful

Dance & Film
Wed November 16th 12-1pm
Venue: Bishop Otter Campus: Room LO3
Free admission

Marisa Zanotti screens excerpts of her new film of choreographer Ben Wright’s duet, and reflects on the research process in the project so far.

African Contemporary Dance: current developments, challenges and visions

Dance
Wed November 2nd 12-1pm
Venue: Bishop Otter Campus: Room LO3
Free admission

Western perspectives of dance in Africa frequently focus on spectacle and ritual. The newly emerging art form of contemporary dance in East Africa challenges such perceptions.  This paper considers the limited training opportunities for artists and the focus of some of their choreographic work. Many artists in the region are driven by a desire to make work which is politically motivated, exploring themes such as female genital mutilation. These choreographers have to negotiate the tension between the need for western financial and artistic support and marginalisation by the western canon. The work also draws on a strong dance tradition in which dance practice has been embedded in communities but often read as spectacle by western audiences. I argue that contemporary dance from Africa offers an important contribution to the art form and the potential to re-consider dance practice in a global context.

Los(t) Anghel-ease

Visual Art – Paintings
Wed October 19th 12-1pm
Venue: Bishop Otter Campus: Room LO3
Free admission

These angel things are a bit of an anomaly. I’ve been making them for years, as missives, and shadows…. but never before as an exhibition …. and I’m not sure they’re too mad about the idea now. And why angels? – it’s to do with the intangible, the ineffable. Angels offer an image for essence, and for change; they’re elementals, portents, orisons, harbingers; they are of us, of materiality.,,,, and yet of otherness. They can, by turns, be importunate and taciturn, mischievous and solicitous, resplendent visions and unconsidered trifles – that unexpected shiver, that flicker on the edge of vision…….

Work in progress
*** EVENT CANCELLED ***

WED 30 NOV
7:30pm
Full £4 / Conc £3 / Schools & Colleges £3
Age 14+

The neo-cabaret-tandem-riding-jack-of-all-theatre-trades Milk Presents stage a selection of ideas for their new show. Returning from their successful run at the Edinburgh Fringe they offer a taste of their latest work. Sharing their curiosity of gender roles in common stories  through analogue contraptions, this is recycled theatre with anarchic storytelling at its heart.

“Amidst all their madcap capers, they really do tell the story, and tell it rather well”
FringeGuru.com.
www.milkpresents.com.

*** EVENT CANCELLED ***

Due to strike action at the University of Chichester on 30/11/11 we are sorry to have to cancel Milk’s production of Work in Progress. Apologies for any inconvenience.

The Making Of Bull: The True Story

THU 24 NOV
7.30pm
Full £10 / Conc £6 / Schools & Colleges £5
Age: 14+

‘Let’s get this straight folks, Bull: The True Story was a pack of lies!’
‘Bull: The True Story was a cover up, it was a performance set up to upstage the truth.’

The Making of Bull: The True Story unravels mysteries…including the mysteries of why we make art and how our art makes us. It questions what’s real and what’s fake. Inspired by the film Fargo, which proclaims in its prologue, ‘This is a true story’, Stacy Makishi finally comes out and tells the whole truth as she brings forth an elliptical tale trying hard not to tell itself. Just what is she hiding? You’ll have to see it to believe it.

Here lies a true story about lies, Fargo, maps, donut holes, murder, secrets, kidnaps and how to get lucky. It’s a tall tale and a love story that goes anywhere but straight. Part mystery, part satire, part How to Make A Performance…it’s about partings and the absence that defines us. The Making of Bull: The True Story is a fusion of physical theatre, music, film and text. The stage is a battleground between truth and lies; what’s spoken and what’s omitted; what’s fiction and what is documentary.

www.stacymakishi.com.