Professor Christopher Bannerman
First posted: September 2018
Update: March 2021
DU 2018 talks, panels and events
This part of the DU at 40 website is particularly significant as it captures some of the things that occur around the performances, both the pre/post-performance talks that are offered where artists speak about their work, as well as lectures and panel discussions addressing wider issues that relate both to the arts and society more generally. This is a significant feature of Dance Umbrella and of some other arts organisations that is often under-reported, and the sessions demonstrate not only an active engagement with issues of the day, but also a contribution to those issues and the discourses that surround them, from an arts and/or artist perspective.
Even the 40th Fling event, the party to celebrate the anniversary could not just include the usual speeches but had to feature an interview with the two former and one current festival director chaired by Rose Fenton the founder of the LIFT festival. I say ‘had to feature’ as DU rarely misses an opportunity to engage with ideas, intellectually stimulating ideas, thoughtfully presented as an essential part of the festival.
These are curated as an intrinsic part of the festival and, in the case of the ‘Out of the System’ discussion below, extended over a three-year period curated by Freddie Opoku-Addai who has now (March 2021) become DU Artistic Director/CEO, following Emma Gladstone’s departure. This website captures the 2018 festival sessions and includes interviews with DU directors past and present and with DU artists featured in 2018, so that they are available for future reference when other web records may no longer exist.
Also included in this section are the London-based Studio Sessions from the 2020 festival and in this case, the website captures material that is beyond public view and reveals another aspect of DU’s role in the dance ecology. The Studio Sessions are attended by inter/national arts professionals who are introduced to work-in-progress often by emerging artists and who then are able to link with artists and colleagues as a way of producing or presenting new dance works.
This work is equally important to those who wish to understand how dance artists develop and grow and to academics who so often look only at the work of artists without examining or accounting for the wider arts context in which they operate. At this moment, as we begin to emerge from the grip of the Covid-19 pandemic and as artists seek opportunities, the work of the arts professionals involved in producing and presenting dance is more important than ever.
Friday 28 September
Voices Off: A conversation with Annie-B Parson and Emma Gladstone
The Old Vic
Tuesday 2 October
Motive Force: performance and the social body. Ruth Little in conversation with Vicky Featherstone.
The National Theatre
Thursday 4 October
Meet the Artists: Wen Hui
Southbank Centre
Tuesday 9 October
Open Forum: Future Facing. With panelists Siobhan Davies, Shobana Jeyasingh, Alexandrina Helmsley & Paul Hughes.
Siobhan Davies Studios
Wednesday 10 October
Panel Discussion: Out of the System. Chair Oluwatoyin Odunsi and panelists Mina Aidoo, Dr Olu Taiwo and Jenny Sealey.
Shoreditch Town Hall
Saturday 13 October
40th Fling: a celebration at Somerset House featuring DU Chair, Robin Price and Middlesex University Executive Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Creative Industries, Carole-Anne Upton and interviews with previous and current DU Directors Val Bourne, Betsy Gregory and Emma Gladstone, chaired by LIFT festival founder Rose Fenton.
Tuesday 16 October
Meet the Artists: Dimitris Papaioannou
Sadler’s Wells
Thursday 18 October
Meet the Artists: Colin Dunne
The Pit, Barbican Centre