Oxford Contact Dance – Andrew Dance

Stage dancing : Christmas Lights 2019, Oxford

On Saturday 16 November, dancer Jo Dyer, cellist Josie Webber and I, took to the stage in Oxford at the Christmas Lights Festival. We performed a revised version of the ‘In-between’ dance created earlier in the year.

‘I learn so much from my [dance] students’

‘I learn so much from my students’ is often said by those who teach. But is it true? Teaching/facilitating at a session of Oxford Contact Dance in October, I had something of a rude awakening!

Yoga into dance : narratives from yoga & dance

Yoga into Dance was a two hour class led by me and Ashka from Ashka Zasada Yoga on 13 October at Oxford Contact Dance. Afterwards, I pondered our use of narratives in the session.

Fountain: a dance

Ideas for dance rarely come from nowhere. A few years ago, I saw a fantastic image of a man throwing a handful of small sticks into the air. The photograph had caught the movement, and indeed the moment in time as the sticks were suspended in a ‘stick cloud’. That was my starting point for a dance involving buckets and water.

In-between Performance films

There were two films of the In-between performance shot on Saturday 25 May by Fiona Bennett. A short feature with highlights, and a full length version. Both are presented here.

‘In-between’ performance

The Turrill Sculpture Garden in Oxford was the venue of my latest public dancing in a performance called ‘In-between’: two dancers, two cellists and a lawn to dance on. Thankfully, it didn’t rain!

Photographs of the ‘In-between’ performance by Andrew Bell

Photographer Andrew Bell took some great black & white photos of the in-between performance at the Turrill Sculpture garden on May 25 which you can see here.

Composition & rehearsal: ‘in-between’ performance

We had a composition and rehearsal session on Saturday 18 May for the ‘in-between’ performance. Cellists Bruno Guastalla & Josie Webber and the dancers – me and Josephine Dyer, created a score and jammed ideas for the performance the following week.

Jamming at Oxford Contact Dance

We had a silent jam (dance session) for contact improvisation at Oxford Contact Dance on Sunday 17 March 2019. Here’s a few photos of a very juicy jam! Photos by Piotr Znamierowski.

Saluto! A dance

Offbeat – Oxford’s fringe festival – invited submissions for its 2019 programme and so I made a proposal. ‘Saluto!’ is a participatory dance performance based on Italo Calvino’s short stories. Here’s the details.