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.
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?
Cia Maduixa – DOT – London
★★★★★ What makes the show so seductive is the smooth and slick integration of visual effects with movement.
Igor and Moreno – Andante – London
★★✰✰✰ Igor and Moreno warn people in the programme notes for Andante that there will be smoke and perfume – lots of it.
Dance Umbrella – Shoreditch Takeover – London
★★★★✰ Wrapping up Dance Umbrella, “Shoreditch Takeover” was a celebration of cross-disciplinary work. It featured two dance works, poetry and a film, not to mention a DJ…
Anne Juren – Anatomie – London
★★✰✰✰ Beautiful, calming imagery is not in the vocabulary of Anatomie.
Dance Umbrella Lecture 2017 – Liz Lerman: “Finding the Thread, Losing the Plot”
Liz Lerman is an enlightened performer, writer, educator and speaker. A tiny woman with a quietly formidable presence, her lecture was an inspirational manifesto for dance and life.
Jean Rene Lemoine – Medea (Written in Rage) – London
★★★★✰ Testory is a phenomenal story teller; confessional and intimate, I could listen to his lilting intonations forever.
Fevered Sleep’s Men and Girls Dance at Tate Britain
In at the start of the process Josephine Leask talked to Fevered Sleep’s artistic directors Sam Butler and David Harradine about re-staging “Men and Girls” for Tate Britain. It’s an emotive and challenging work to present to an unsuspecting passing audience…
Angela Woodhouse & Nathaniel Rackowe – (Un)touched – London
★★★✰✰ Conti and Nilsen explore the space, the installation and each other’s forms without making direct contact, their interaction always mediated by a panel of glass or steel meshing.
