Women’s Movement 100

Angels of the North

Dance for Film Project

Very strange times indeed, whilst the population navigates their way through the Corona virus and the lockdown measures that come with it, here at Tenfoot we’re working really hard to keep ourselves sane if nothing else but to bring some more of this beautiful project to you. Working in dance your motivation and creativity derives from all sorts of scenarios but this time I wanted to explore the concept of collaborating with academics, giving artistic form and movement to their research. Quite often by using an alternative form such as dance or art you change a means of access to research, a new way of engaging and focusing others into questioning and acknowledging information. Over the course of the last 2 years, we’ve been very busy working alongside  incredible academics and students from The University of Sheffield researching the Women’s Suffrage movement and Emancipation. We have visited parliament and it’s archives, and had the opportunity to explore choreography within the motion capture laboratory’s with the bio mechanical department.  Sheffield gathered an unreal dance team from their communities who threw themselves wholeheartedly into learning choreography and filmed their incredible journey over a 14 hr day! As promised early on in this update, very soon in September as part of the Festival of the Mind 2020 we will get to show everyone what we’ve been working on. 

GO FUND ME!

Women’s movement 100; Angels of the North is a dance for film community project.

In the current uncertain times for the future of arts funding
we’re doing it for ourselves.
It probably goes without saying but without financial assistance, we cannot continue to create this work, the project and its exhibition comes to a halt.
What does your money go towards? costumes, filming, photography, graphics and print works, delivery of choreography, studio hire, music, filming locations, the exhibition and its tour, research and resources.

BE A PART OF THE JOURNEY!

 To help continue this work
please take a look at…

www.gofundme.com/f/womens-movement-100-angels-of-the-north

Angels of the North Dance Project

WOW, what a weekend! We have just filmed in Newcastle the first section of an amazing project looking at Northern city’s and suffragettes marking the 100 year anniversary of gaining the right to vote. Here at Tenfoot we are embarking on an incredible journey drawing 100 women together from 4 Northern city’s to come and create a beautiful yet challenging project. We are not only creating performance opportunities but the project will be used as an exhibition for next year.  Sheffield, Liverpool and Hull… here’s your heads-up! Get in touch, be apart of something amazing & join the movement.  

Day for Remembrance at Hull Paragon Interchange

Here we are, the beginning of October and we are gathering ourselves together, our cherished memories of those loved and lost, our casts, our sets, scenery and costumes to bring back for the third year running ‘The Way We Were’. But this year comes with many exciting additions. This year marks the 100th year anniversary of Poland’s Independence and as such we have teamed up with the local Polish schools to work new scenes into our production. Also this year sees the development of a new piece ‘New Beginnings’ war refugees building new lives and if that all wasn’t enough… stick the date in your diary and come take a look for yourself!
Saturday 10th November at the Hull Paragon Interchange.
Too late to join in you ask?! No of course it’s not too late to join in… we have 2 amazing cast scenes in which you can join… the Grand opening dance hall scene with Swing dancing and the beautifully serene final scene with our amazing veterans Sequence dancing! If you would like to take part, get in touch with us… tenfootdance@outlook.com

LIVING THE DREAM

2018, WOW what a year so far, and it’s set to become even more exciting! Sorry it’s been a while but as co directors of Tenfoot dance both myself and Fred have been splitting our time between many projects not just Tenfoot related!

Working with a local theatre group ‘Silent uproar’ getting ready to tour their award winning show ‘A Super Happy Story About Feeling Super Sad’, rehearsal director for Akram Khan’s mass movement piece ‘Kadamtti’ and a new production for the National Theatre ‘Pericles’ has kept me quite busy to say the least, let alone Fred who’s been working on a huge new community engagement piece ‘Angels of the North’ looking at our northern Womens  rights, empowerment, strength and beauty to running around the country weekly teaching Salsa classes in Liverpool, Newcastle and Sheffield!

As exciting as this all is, and we love our work so it all very exciting… the project myself and Fred really want to shout about is a Hull based project Tenfoot is offering.

‘Dancing with Parkinson’s’

 Dancing with Parkinson’s is now heading into its third term.  Massive support from John Hinson of Parkinson’s U.K Hull and east Yorkshire branch, our super experienced dance artist Pauline Phillips, Musicians Gary Hammond and Sam Pirt ( together ‘The Hut People’) and Hull Truck Theatre. We are aiming to make Dancing with Parkinson’s as big as possible with currently over 50 people accessing this project so far, it not only offers people with Parkinson’s the chance to meet and socialize but it gives carers and relatives the chance to come together and experience dance and movement in a class that is designed and focused to their needs.

It is an amazing project to be delivering and here at Tenfoot we feel such a sense of privilege and honour to be working with such group of phenomenal people… we all look forward to Thursday mornings – It’s quite the highlight of our week for all of us.

Tenfoot dance holds its 1st Audition

On Sunday 17th October 2017 we held our first audition for the company, by sheer coincidence it just so happened to be the day after the Royal Ballet’s incredible opening gala for Hull’s New Theatre as part of the Hull 2017 celebrations.

We had an enormous response to our audition notice with over 250 dancers applying from all over the world! From which 30 were shortlisted and invited to come to Hull and spend the day with us. The day was a huge success with a positive response from everyone who attended.

“Thank you. Sundays audition was so refreshing; it was great to see so many happy people sharing and genuinely enjoying themselves in an “audition” so thank you for creating a perfect working environment” Stephanie Bently (Dancer)

“it was such a pleasure to attend an audition and be made to feel so comfortable and most importantly allowing us to be ourselves!” Paige Lyon (Dancer).

“Thank you very much for a great audition. I had a really good time and it was one of the best audition I ever attended, the atmosphere was brilliant.” Rafal Minkiewicz (Dancer)

We were so excited and proud to have such talent in our home city auditioning for us. We finally chose two fantastic dancers to join the company, Joseph Delaney and Alicia Meehan (see our Dancers page for more details). We have already been working really hard in the studio to develop their new duet as part of “The Way We Were” for 2017.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all those that applied and those that  joined our audition day. We are really looking forward to the next chapter in our companies journey and will keep you all posted on it’s progress, watch this space!

Jon Beney & Fred Garland

Directors of Tenfoot Dance Company

!AUDITION NOTICE!

Tenfoot dance company are auditioning for 2 dancers (1 male and 1 female) to join our production of ‘The Way We Were’ for November 2017 with further touring opportunities in 2018.

Deadline for applications Friday 8th September 2017.

Audition Sunday 17th September 10-4pm , Hull city centre ( Location tbc)

‘The Way We Were’ is a tale of two main characters set during WWII and how historically dance as an expression of freedom was prevalent during this time of conflict, ‘The Way We Were’ will be performed several times on 11th November, 2017, as a contributory piece to the Remembrance Day commemorations. Beautifully set  in Hull’s Paragon Interchange – an iconic setting which offers some thoughts of the transitory experiences of life, the piece comprises of live musicians, a multigenerational community cast of over 100 participants from children to veterans.

We are seeking two dancers to join our existing company. Applicants ideally will be strong performers with a background in contemporary dance and social partner dance forms, experience in contact improvisation and partnering work. Experience of performing in an outdoor context is desirable but not essential. In the absence of formal training, experience in a professional working context is accepted.

Contract comprises of R&D and rehearsals 25th-28th September with a further dress rehearsal Friday 10th November, performance date Saturday 11th November. Fee £700.00

To be considered please send a C.V to: tenfootdance@outlook.com

Jon 07956424238 or Fred 07828161242

Please ensure you are available for dates mentioned above.

Suitable applicants will be invited for audition.

RUSH… It’s in Hull….

Another amazing opportunity has arisen for you to get involved!

Newcastle based dance company ‘Southpaw’ are bringing their performance of ‘RUSH’ to Hull for the Freedom festival weekend. Trust me it is a phenomenal mass movement piece!

Rehearsals are already underway but it’s not too late to join…why not come and join me and everyone else taking part- there’s loads of us and it’s really good fun!

Take a look

http://southpawdancecompany.co.uk/

Sign up to join in

madeleine@freedomfestival.co.uk

Freddie Garland, co-artistic director Tenfoot Dance

ONE HULL OF A VISIBLE SUCCESS

Tenfoot dance company’s collaboration with Protein dance proved to be a massive success with over 200 performers from 10 local dance and non dance groups performing as part of Invisible dancing.

We had been working on recruitment for the 2017 city of culture finale of Invisible dancing since February and we are so pleased we had such a massive response from great groups Kingston Swing, Evolve inline skaters, Skyline dance, Tango hull, St Paul’s boxing club, Armstrongs social club sequence dancers, O’Connor academy of Irish dance, Capoeira Conviver Hull, David Lloyds dance fit group and a star in the making in 8yr old Joshua representing Invictus mma.

The finale really was a showcase of hulls finest talent young and old and in my 7 years performing and touring invisible dancing with Protein Dance I can say one of the biggest finales for local groups taking part.

I was so proud that as Tenfoot Dance we were able to encourage so many people to be a part of (In)visible dancing and thank Protein Dance for putting their trust in us as a new emerging dance company to get the job done.

(In)visible dancing in Hull saw Proteins 5 company dancers join a local cast of 5 newly graduated or still in training dancers 5 local musicians and a team of Hull 2017 volunteers take to the streets performing for 8 days to build up to the finale on the 1st of July 2017. Over the 8 days and including the finale approximately 3000 people saw the show with the final cast being nearly 300 strong.

Martin Green CEO & director of Hull UK City of Culture 2017 said

“What a triumph this weekend. The essence of what City of Culture should be – diverse, inclusive and quality. I stood transfixed with joy”

A proud moment for me being a local lad and a landscape moment for dance in Hull bringing together so many people to celebrate dance in a city the really does have some amazing dance/movement groups doing some amazing work.

Tenfoot Dance would like to thank all involved and watch this space for the next opportunity to work with us again.

Jon Beney ,co artistic director tenfoot dance.

2017 Makes Tenfoot Dance (In)Visible!

Tenfoot dance is kicking off 2017 with a huge collaboration with Luca Silvestrini’s Protein Dance Company. We are so excited to be part of the recruitment for Protein’s Invisible Dancing. A piece that was first created in 2010 for the Birmingham international dance festival has been touring both nationally and internationally since 2012  is now coming with a special addition show for Hull City of Culture 2017.

Tenfoots role in this will be to get as many local people to take part in a huge finale on July 1st 2017. We are looking for dance groups of all styles young or old and because this is a special addition show protein are not just looking for dance groups we want skateboarders, boxer’s, footballers, gymnastics groups, essentially any movement based activities that can become part of our performance.

Our very own co-founder and artistic director of Tenfoot Jon Beney will not only be working behind the scenes collecting these groups together but having been a member of Protein Dance since 2008 and touring invisible dancing since 2010 he will be performing in the show as well!

“We are so excited that Tenfoot dance is collaborating on this special edition of (In)visible dancing. It is one of my all time favourite shows because it brings together so many people from musicians to dancers to non dancers and of course  an audience experience like no other. I’ve performed this show all over the world and now after 7 years finally get to do it in my home city”

Exciting Times with amazing  opportunities!

We are pleased to announce that Tenfoot Dance Company are collaborating with Luca Silvestrini’s Protein Dance Company…

Auditions for Apprentice Dancers Luca Silvestrini’s Protein is coming to Hull with its celebrated outdoor show (In)visible Dancing.
We need five local dancers to join us for this  unique street performance supported by Hull UK City of Culture 2017.
This is a great professional opportunity for all those dancers who seek to get creative and perform alongside Protein’s dancers.
“Amazing support from the whole company, very generous people” “I felt like part of the company” (local dancers’ feedback from previous residencies)
We will be auditioning in Hull on Sunday 19th March 2017 To apply, please send your contact details, CV and a letter of interest to: jemma@proteindance.co.uk
Please note: this position is paid expenses only.
Get a taste of (In)visible Dancing here:  https://youtu.be/A0pNP_q_sZc

Christmas Wishes

Saturday 12th November 2016

Wowee, what a day! 4 performances, a cast of 70 dancers, 4 musicians, 2 official photographers, 1 videographer ( + crew ), 1 hair and make-up stylist, 1 stage manager, 1 producer and us!  And it all came together beautifully…..

Here’s some feedback;

“I thought it was very good indeed. Loved the mixture of generations and the storyline was extremely moving. Really well worth coming along to see it. A difficult venue for speech but very good for music and dance.”

 “It was brilliant. That’s how I used to dance. It was more than I expected. Loved the dancers from different ages and the ballroom and everything. Very good indeed, those two dancers. No need to watch Strictly Come Dancing as it’s right here in Hull Station. A really good idea to use this space, more of it. We’d love to see more of their work.”

“I thought it was beautiful and wonderful and a wonderful tribute to all of the veterans.”

“I thought it was absolutely amazing and the most impressive thing is that such an ambitious idea has been realised and that so many brilliant people were involved in the project. It was really good.”

“I found it very exciting and thrilling. I loved the story behind it.”

“I cannot praise the whole thing highly enough – absolutely beautiful to watch, tremendously moving and the significance of the frame of Paragon Station/Royal Station Hotel means that I will never look at the place in the same way. Everything worked beautifully and you deserved massive congratulations for bringing this all together. I would never have thought of attending a dance performance in the past – and so you’ve certainly opened my eyes to just how beautiful and powerful dance can be.”