Watch This Space

On the 26th and 27th June at 8.30pm, 5 short works will be showcased at Cottier's Theatre as part of the Cottier Dance Project.  Some pieces have been performed as part of a larger work and have subsequently been explored further, and some are new works in progress.  Little snippets of genius in 1 hour!

Meet the choreographers...



Diana Loosmore - 'Fragments'   

photo: Oran O'Neill

Diana's performing career as a dancer expands over the last 20 years. Originally from Australia, she has worked and toured throughout Australia and London, finally bringing her to Scottish ballet as a soloist in 2003. Diana's choreographic career began at Scottish ballet under Ashley Page. Since 2006, she has created works on Scottish ballet (winning the Peter Darrel award in 2007), The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and Ydance. 

Daniel Davidson - 'Lewd Duality'    

Daniel trained at Dance School of Scotland and Millenium Dance 2000 before joining Scottish Ballet in 2005. He was promoted to Coryphée in 2009 and has danced all of their prestigious repertoire, including works by Page, Tharp, Bruce, MacMillan, Pastor, Forsythe and Bourne. He has had many roles created for him, notably; Don Jose (Alston's Carmen), Petrushka (Spink's Petrushka) and Sandman (Hampson's Hansel and Gretal).

Matthew Hawkins - 'Double E' (Dancers' Emerging Bursary Scheme)  
Matthew Hawkins is the choreographer of Double E and the mentor to the DEBS (Dancers' Emerging Bursary Scheme). Seen recently in Natasha Gilmore's 'A Conversation with Carmel' (Barrowland Ballet) and in Andy Howitt's 'Deliberance', Matthew enjoys his Edinburgh-based freelance practice in ballet, contemporary dance and teaching - this having followed a chequered three-decade career in performance and choreography. www.matthewhawkinsdance.co.uk

Fuora Dance Project - 'T-his and T-hat'   

Giulia Montalbano graduated from LCDS and joined Scottish Dance Theatre as an apprentice for 2012/2013. She is experienced in ballet, contemporary techniques, physical theatre, and specialises in improvisation, contact work and choreography. She is currently teaching mixed ability groups, adult and youth dance companies around Scotland, including The Dundee Rep (Scottish Dance Theatre). Giulia can be seen in 'GRIT', a major new theatre collaboration by Cora Bissett, in June 2014. 

Federica Esposito graduated from 'Modem' and has since worked with companies including Compagnia Pareri Variabili, Compagnia Zappala Danza, Legitimate Bodies Dance Company, Animated State Dance Theatre Company, Teatro Stabile of L'Aquila, Cie Eco, Altered Skin, and Gwyn Emberton Dance. She teaches a wide range of students at both professional and amateur level, and has taught at Viagrande Studios in Italy and Dundee Rep in Scotland, amongst others. She is currently based in Scotland.

Tamsyn Russell - 'Go Get 'em Kid'  

Tamsyn Russell studied at Unitec Performing Arts (Auckland, New Zealand), majoring with a Bachelor in Contemporary dance. After graduating she worked with many established choreographers in New Zealand, including Michael Parmenter, Raewyn Hill, Chris Jannides and Ann Dewey. Since moving to Scotland she has worked with Skye Reynolds, Imaginate, Ian Spink and Janis Claxton Dance as a dancer and a choreographic assistant. With JCD she has performed in the Falling light tour, Human Animal, Humanimalia Tour, Enclosure 99 Humans at Edinburgh Zoo, Chaos and Contingency, and travelled to China to perform in the Shanghai Expo and work with LDTX. An emerging choreographer, Tamsyn created I.D Me in 2013, which was performed at Merchant City Festival (Glasgow), Heads Up (Edinburgh Fringe), Pivotal Dance (Inverness), Dancelive (Aberdeen) and Livebites (Leeds). She also choreographed for the Ydance connections weekend. Tamsyn recently received a bursary from Creative Scotland to develop her choreographic practise. 

For more information please visit www.cottierchamberproject.com/ccp/dance

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Alba to Oz

High Heels and Horse Hair are part of Enterprise Music Scotland's residency project.  They're a violin and cello duo, half Aussie and half Scottish.  Violinist Alice (the antipodean) shares her thoughts on their programme ahead of their concert on Thursday 12th June at 8.30pm.

ALBA to OZ Blog- Alice Rickards

I think Australia as a colony of Britain has struggled to come to terms with finding it’s own identity.

I grew up on a farm where my father bred Angus cattle. I wore a Hunting Stewart Tartan kilt to a high school that was situated in a town called Armidale, named after Armadale on the Isle of Skye, but seemingly the city fathers were not good spellers! Controversially Armidale lies in an area called ‘New England’ surrounded by deciduous European trees, dry harsh farmland and plenty of deadly snakes. We have a nearby Glencoe, some brand new standing stones at neighbour town Glen Innes and on the way there you can visit Ben Lomond Village at 1,370 m elevation, making it the highest village in northern New South Wales.

When Australians were asked in 1999 if they wanted to become a Republic they said No! It was just too much to consider replacing Her Maj, whose picture furnishes the walls of every Returned and Services League Club across the country. And so, 15 years on, Australians will be in Glasgow to compete for medals at the 2014 Commonwealth Games.

How wonderful to be part of this event by living here! Scotland has such a wealth of history, an awesome landscape and a fantastically rich culture steeped in a diverse celtic heritage. Many Australian’s nostalgically identify with this heritage as confirmed in 2009 when they came in droves to Homecoming Scotland events. More importantly Australia has a unique indigenous culture. One that is arguably the oldest of civilization and has it’s own magic that’s intrinsic to the landscape.

So where does that leave the contemporary Australian composers? Where do they belong and what should they represent?

Alba to Oz is a recital that explores these questions. Scotland’s musical history is celebrated in this programme and contrasted to contemporary sounds created by Australian composers who love the landscape and indigenous heritage of their southern continent.

It is of course the music of our homelands, which is why we want to share it with you the most!

This recital will be accompanied by stunning landscape photography created by Simon Butterworth, UK Landscape Photographer of the Year, 2013.

When Simon was asked in an interview for a photography magazine what he did in his spare time, the BBCSSO principal bass clarinettist replied, “I play the clarinet.” We have the pleasure of working with this rather talented gentleman with the orchestra at City Halls. Last Australian summer he stayed with my family during his 5 week photographic sojourn of Oz. The projections in correlation to the music are from a collection of his work- from Scotland and Australia.