Josephine Leask is a dance writer and lecturer. Having written for a range of dance and art publications, she currently writes for Londondance and the Dance Insider. She lectures in cultural studies at London Studio Centre. Follow her on Twitter @jo_leask
Under are the articles written for DanceTabs.
Voguing at the Southbank’s Ulimited festival – “Vogue: The Unlimited House of Krip”
Part lecture and panel discussion, part documentary screening and part performance “Vogue: The Unlimited House of Krip” was a good introduction to voguing culture, presented as part of the Southbank’s Unlimited festival and built around the deaf and disabled dancers that form the House of Krip.
Pierre Rigal – Scandale – London
★★★✰✰ Rarely seen in London apart from performances at Breakin’ Convention, French choreographer Pierre Rigal brings something different to the hip-hop dance theatre scene with Scandale.
Woman SRSLY – 1st Birthday – London
★★★✰✰ What I loved about it was that none of the acts fitted into neat categories but spilled out through porous art boundaries.
East London Dance, Hofesh Shechter Company & LIFT Festival – East Wall: Storm the Tower – London
East London Dance, Hofesh Shechter Company and LIFT Festival East Wall: Storm the Tower ★★★★✰ London, Tower of London eastwall.org www.hofesh.co.uk www.liftfestival.com www.eastlondondance.org Sitting outside on a balmy summer evening in London, watching…
Alexandra Waierstall – And here we meet – London
★★✰✰✰ Waierstall explores themes of extinction through the impact of humans on the earth’s geology and ecosystems. While thematically and visually intriguing, And here we meet lacks coherence…
Rhiannon Faith – Smack That (a conversation) – London
★★★★✰ Rhiannon Faith’s hard-hitting show coats the horrors of domestic violence in the saccharine sweetness of a girly party.
Splayed Festival with Florence Peake and Eve Stainton, Sheena McGrandles, Hilde Ingeborg Sandvold – London
★★★✰✰ Curated by dance artist Amy Bell, Splayed seeks to mess up stereotypical, heterosexual representations of the female body and replace them with other dynamic alternatives.
Festival of Korean Dance – Jinyeob Cha X Vakki and Lyon Eun KWON – London
★★★★✰ Two works by up-and-coming female Korean choreographers hint at South Korea’s progressive and rich dance culture.
Wayne Parsons Dance – Meeting, Vestige – London
★★★✰✰ Although I haven’t seen Parsons’ work before, I can see very quickly why it’s riveting.
East London Dance / Tony Adigun – IDENTITY – London
★★★✰✰ Identity is a celebration of East London’s diverse creativity – a dazzling clash of fashion, dance and music… and featuring Houston Dance Collective, Avant Garde Dance Company, House of Absolute, & Rugged Estate.
Jacky Lansley – About Us – London
★★★✰✰ About Us is a collection of personal stories and political musings communicated through a multidisciplinary framework of movement, music, singing, text and film and performed by an equally eclectic group of multigenerational artists.
Tilted Productions – Constructions of Thin Air – London
★★★✰✰ Constructions of Air evocatively suggests our relationship with the past, our own histories, memories and how we make sense of change.
Amy Bell – The Forecast – London
★★★★✰ Bell’s brave work although addressing us all in our fluctuating states of being, speaks out especially to queer women, non-binary and trans people.
Sasha Waltz & Guests – Körper – London
★★★★✰ Waltz asks many questions which are still relevant eighteen years after the piece was first premiered in Berlin…
Sweetshop Revolution – Beautiful – London
★★★✰✰ Sally Marie’s show is about female sexuality, love and pleasure. Her main question is how women experience sex now in our female empowered, gender-fluid days of multiple choices. Are we enriched by having it all or just confused?
Úrsula López, Tamara López & Leonor Leal – Painter & Flamenco: J.R.T. – London
★★★★✰ In each section of Painter and Flamenco the dancers personify not only the spirit and energy of de Torres’ portraits but also the poetry of his art.
Claudia de Serpa Soares on dancing and all things Körper – Sasha Waltz’s legendary work, about to return to London
Claudia de Serpa Soares is performing with Sasha Waltz & Guests in Körper on the 1 – 3 March 2018 at London’s Sadler’s Wells – full details www.facebook.com/claudia.d.soares.52 www.sashawaltz.de www.sadlerswells.com Sasha Waltz &…
Vincent Dance Theatre – Shut Down – London
★★★✰✰ Shut Down is a hard-hitting work about men. Actually white privileged men. It portrays a bleak landscape of absent fathers, depressed teenagers and confused blokes.
Maud Le Pladec & Okwui Okpokwasili – Hunted – London
★★✰✰✰ Munyaneza rises to the challenge of the show with her provocative, fearless performance, but it’s still difficult to sit through.
Protein – Border Tales – London
★★★✰✰ Is this depiction of divisive ‘insider/outsider’ British society really a true reflection?
