Place Prize for Dance 2012/13 – Finalists Announced

Original press release on Place Prize Commissions

_{Saturday 22 September 2012}

Four dance pieces have been selected to go through to the Finals of The Place Prize for Dance, sponsored by Bloomberg, after the last Semi-Final performance.

The four Finalists include h2dance’s Duet, which was the most popular piece as voted for by the live audience, with a score of 4.1. Riccardo Buscarini’s Athletes, Rick Nodine’s Dead Gig, and Eva Recacha’s The Wishing Well, were selected by the Prize’s judges Roberto Casarotto, Director of Dance Projects, Operaestate Festival Veneto (It), Sarah Crompton, Chief Arts Editor, The Daily Telegraph, Jonzi D, Artistic Director, Breakin’ Convention, Siobhan Davies, Artistic Director, Siobhan Davies Dance, and Stine Nilsen, Co-Artistic Director, Candoco Dance Company. The panel was chaired by Eddie Nixon, Director of Theatre and Artist Development at The Place.

The four pieces will compete against each other for their chance to win £25,000 cash prize, and a total of £10,000 audience prize, which will be awarded in nightly prizes of £1,000 by the live audience.

h2dance (Hannah Gillgren and Heidi Rustgaard) have been working together since 1999, producing provocative performance work that addresses political issues with humour and emotion. The company often works in collaboration with interdisciplinary teams and local communities to create evocative performances that challenge and respond to the audience. Together they have created a body of touring work. Duet is a bitter-sweet autobiographical piece questioning the very essence of h2dance’s dance production, in which the artists ask questions about the art of dance and professional partnerships in a personal, social and political context.

Riccardo Buscarini is an Italian dancer and choreographer based in London. He trained at Accademia Domenichino da Piacenza and at London Contemporary Dance School. In 2011 he was a Place Prize finalist with Antonio de la Fe, and became a creative in residence at The Hospital Club. Athletes, in collaboration with fashion designer Brooke Roberts, is a reflection on competition, viewed as a tension between man and machine, set in a futuristic world where cold mechanisms shift from cooperation to conflict, from solidarity to cruelty.

Rick Nodine graduated in biology before studying contact improvisation in the 90s. He has danced in many contexts, including theatre, dance-theatre, digital media, opera, television and site-specific dace. He has choreographed for the National Theatre, Glyndebourne Opera, Shift, EDge, Coventry University and London Contemporary Dance School. Dead Gig is a tribute to hippie dinosaurs The Grateful Dead, who made the choreographer discover dance.

Eva Recacha is a London based choreographer and a Work Place artist. Her choreographic practice focuses on exploring juxtapositions of movement and text. The Wishing Well explores the ritualistic dynamics of desiring and wishing, creating a tale-like narrative.

The Place Prize, sponsored by Bloomberg, is the biggest private source of commissions for new short works in British dance. By the end of this edition, it will have enabled the creation of 92 original pieces of choreography, many of which have remained in the artists’ repertoire, and have been toured in theatres and festivals nationally and internationally. The Place Prize has already invested over £1m in new British dance, and has brought leading artists, including Rafael Bonachela, Hofesh Shechter, Nina Rajarani, Adam Linder and Ben Duke & Raquel Mesenguer (Lost Dog), among others, to international attention.

Listings

The Place Prize for dance, sponsored by Bloomberg
Finals: Wednesday 17 to Saturday 27 April 2013, 8pm
Address: The Place: Robin Howard Dance Theatre, 17 Duke’s Road, London WC1H 9PY
Box Office: www.theplace.org.uk / 020 7121 1100

Editors’ notes

The Place Prize for dance
The Place Prize for dance, sponsored by Bloomberg, is the leading competition for UK-based dance makers. Uniquely, it is a competition for commissioned works, and entrants are given funds, free studio time and technical support to create their work. The competition was launched in 2004 and runs biennially. Previous winners include Rafael Bonachela (2004), Nina Rajarani (2006), Adam Linder (2008) and Ben Duke and Raquel Meseguer (2011). The Place Prize for dance is sponsored by Bloomberg LP. For full details on The Place Prize, see www.theplaceprize.com

The Place
For over forty years, The Place has engaged with audiences and participants, championed the best ideas, and created inspiring conditions for artists and enthusiasts to realise their potential. The Place combines London Contemporary Dance School, Richard Alston Dance Company and the Robin Howard Dance Theatre, together with pioneering learning, teaching, outreach, recreation and professional development projects. Our approaches to participation, education, creation and performance inform each other, respond to today’s world, and embrace risks. Our goals for the future build on the achievements of our history: to transform and enrich lives, to continue to shape where dance is going next. www.theplace.org.uk

Bloomberg
Bloomberg, the global business and financial information and news leader, gives influential decision makers a critical edge by connecting them to a dynamic network of information, people and ideas. The company’s strength—delivering data, news and analytics through innovative technology, quickly and accurately—is at the core of the Bloomberg Professional service, which provides real time financial information to more than 300,000 subscribers globally.
Through the philanthropy programme, Bloomberg help charities and non-profit organisations around the world with education and literacy programmes, health and medical research, social work, arts and culture, public parks and the environment.