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Leading dance makers to collaborate with “multifaceted, dynamic and adaptable” company of young performers

Wed 22 January 2020

Didy Veldman, Dog Kennel Hill Project, and Rahel Vonmoos will create a triple-bill of new works in collaboration with Transitions Dance Company 2020/21

Highly sought-after choreographer Didy Veldman has created 45 works for 27 international companies including Rambert, Northern Ballet and Scottish Dance Theatre. In 2019 she created a new work, collaborating with composer Gabriel Prokofiev, the grandson of Sergei Prokofiev, for Birmingham Royal Ballet’s inaugural ‘Ballet Now’ programme. Didy is a former dancer of Rambert, one of the UK’s leading dance companies, and founded her own London-based dance company Humanoove in 2016. The company has already toured nationally and internationally with two production and is working on their third, titled @Home.

Dog Kennel Hill Project (DKHP) is a UK-based collective of three artists: Ben Ash, Henrietta Hale and Rachel Lopez de la Nieta, who have collaborated for 15 years. Their socially engaging, interdisciplinary projects often take place in unconventional sites (such as a forest, a library, a canal boat) and span a range of forms including performance, sculptural instillation and text. Most recently the collective were commissioned for a 2-month retrospective solo exhibition at the new CCA Gallery in Brighton, 2019. Other partnerships have included Modern Art Oxford, Scottish Dance Theatre, Whitechapel Gallery, Dance4, and Candoco. DKHP have presented work nationally and internationally, including at British Council Edinburgh Festival Showcase, Barbican, Brighton Festival, Aerowaves Festival, Springdance Utrecht, OperaEstate Festival Veneto, Italy, and Dance Umbrella. Currently, DKHP is re-exploring the complexity of the relationship of audience and performer, looking at questions of ethics, risk, intimacy, tension and care, and is particularly interested in addressing the absurd politics that underpin culture.

Swiss-British independent dance maker Rahel Vonmoos has created a substantial body of work for theatres, galleries, festivals and site-specific venues nationally and internationally, including the Hayward Gallery and Dance Umbrella. She has also worked collaboratively with dancer/choreographer Wally Cardona and filmmaker Ruth Schlaepfer amongst others, and has performed works by Rosemary Butcher, Iztok Kovac (for film), Philippe Gehmacher, Charles Linehan, Cie Pool, and Philippe Saire. She has been commissioned by Tanzhaus Zurich, Switzerland and Joyce SoHo, United States. Rahel was a Compass Commission recipient in 2014/15 for ’to find a place’ which was performed in UK and abroad.

The creators will work with the 2020/21 Company to devise original performance pieces that showcase the next generation of contemporary dance performers, sharing a wealth of knowledge of contemporary dance in practise and experience of collaborative performance art before the company embarks on an international tour of the triple-bill in spring 2021.

“Working with Transitions Dance Company gives me the opportunity to explore new ideas, challenge all involved and collaborate with the students, creating a unique and exciting work.” – Didy Veldman

 “Why do we perform dancing? It’s such a weird thing to do. This is a recurring question over our 15 years of making work. We are really excited to re-open it with a group of young curious people, find out what drives them, what frustrates them and how their perception can expand. We hope to see what exquisite and strange beings they are becoming.” – Dog Kennel Hill Project

“I am curious and excited to collaborate with this multifaceted, dynamic and adaptable company of young performers who are transitioning from student to professional work life; to explore specific ideas and tasks which I will bring into the space and to get to know and understand their way of thinking and investigating.” – Rahel Vonmoos

By allowing company members to gain practical experience of life in a touring dance company, whilst simultaneously completing their MA/MFA in Dance Performance at Trinity Laban, the programme bridges the gap between training and a professional performance career.

This year’s company is currently touring Europe with a dynamic and varied programme by award-winning Scandinavian choreographer/performer duo H2DANCE, New Zealand-born, London-based choreographer, dance artist and movement director Cameron McMillan, and Italian choreographer and dance educator Elisa Pagani, the founder and Artistic Director of DNA. Tour dates for the 2020 Tour can be found on the Transitions website: trinitylaban.ac.uk/transitionsdc

Applications are open for 2020/21 entry to the MA programme, with first-round UK auditions taking place on 27 February 2020 and 5 March in London with a recall on 6 March. 

For more information on the course and how to join Transitions, please visit trinitylaban.ac.uk/madanceperformance

Images L-R: Didy Veldman (credit: Chris Nash), Dog Kennel Hill Project (credit: Cécilia Jardemar), Rahel Vonmoos (credit: Roger Wooldridge)