Congratulations James!

Scottish Dance Theatre's dancer and new Acting Artistic Director, James MacGillivray, was "Mentioned in Dispatches" in the category Outstanding Achievement in Dance Performance by the British dance portal Article 19.

James was praised as 'a dancer of incredible experience and poise' for his performance of Joan's duet Dreamt for Light Years at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Click HERE to find out more about the rest of winners.

Rehearsal Director

Janet Smith, Scottish Dance Theatre Artistic Director for 14 years, is to take up the post of principal at Northern School of Contemporary Dance (NSCD) in February 2012.

Until a new Artistic Director is appointed next Spring, Rehearsal Director James MacGilllivray will be acting as Artistic Director and Joan will step up as Acting Rehearsal Director.

Interactive performances of 'Love Games'

Joan's latest work Love Games will be performed as part of Scottish Dance Theatre's interactive performances at Dundee Rep Theatre  and the Tramway  (Glasgow) the coming 15th and 24th of November '11.

SDT Interactive are performances aimed at young and new audiences who are not familiar with theatre and contemporary dance. Artistic Director, Janet Smith, SDT dancers and SDT technical team explain and show how dance theatre is made through performances of small sections of the current programme. The audience is then invited to discuss their own ideas about the work and the show ends with a final question and answer session.

If you want to know more about it, check this short video about SDT Interactive:

Scottish Tour of Dreamt for Light Years

Joan's work Dreamt for Light Years will be presented as part of Scottish Dance Theatre's Autumn Tour across different venues in Scotland. The duet will be performed in SDT's Interactive Performances, where Artistic Director Janet Smith will introduce several short works and extracts from SDT's repertory to new dance audiences.

© Cara Pirie

Natalie Trewinnard will be dancing the piece for the first time, alongside Dreamt veteran James MacGillivray. You will have the chance to see them on:

28th October, Ardrishaig Public Hall, Ardrishaig (Argyll)

3rd November, Universal Hall, Findhorn Foundation, Forres, (Moray)

11th November, Howden Park Centre, Linvingstone, (West Lothian)

Click HERE for more information about the performances and SDT's Autumn Tour '11.

More Love Games

After its premiere last Summer, Joan's latest work had two more performances at Dundee Rep Theatre. Love Games featured in the second showing of Scottish Dance Theatre's programme Under Construction 2, alongside works of other company members. Love Games was also invited to this year's Great Big Dance Show at the Rep, organised by SDT's Creative Learning team.

© Fotos by Andreé Freire

Re-views // Inter-views

After a week's run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, several reviews of Joan's duet Dreamt for Light Years have appeared on printed and digital media. Here's a selection of press quotes:

©Cara Pirie

Broadway Baby: 'It is an intense and engaging work: flowing, varied, perfectly paced and danced with moving tenderness.'

What's on Stage: 'haunting and beautifully evocative'

Edinburgh Guide: 'This exciting and beautiful choreography, danced with superb skill and strength, made tangible the inescapable truth that change is unavoidable and necessary.'

SGfringe: 'This was dance at its best.'

Across the Arts: 'Dreamt for light years left me with a lump in my throat (...) It isn't often that a duet based on a relationship let's you in to their world; I felt involved in the relationship with every step, shift and emotion.'

+ Click HERE to watch Article 19's interview with Joan and Scottish Dance Theatre's Assistant Director, Sally Owen.

Interview with The List

Read Joan's interview with The List's Edinburgh Festival Guide HERE.

Joan's duet Dreamt for Light Years will be performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival from the 23rd to the 28th of August as part of Scottish Dance Theatre's programme Matters of the Heart.

Dreamt for Light Years at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival

Joan's duet Dreamt for Light Years will be performed at this year's Edinburgh Fringe Festival, as part of Scottish Dance Theatre's programme Matters of the Heart, featuring works by New York based choreographer Kate Weare and  SDT's Assistant Director Sally Owen.

The programme has been included in the 2011 Made in Scotland showcase, curated by the Scottish Government’s Edinburgh Festivals Expo Fund, which is a partnership between the Festival Fringe Society, the Federation of Scottish Theatre (FST) and Creative Scotland. To find out more about it and  to download the full of programme of Made in Scotland go to:

http://www.scottishtheatres.com/madeinscotland/index.html

Scottish Dance Theatre will be presenting Matters of the Heart at Zoo Southside (venue 82) from the 23rd to the 28th of August (show starts at 6.30 pm). Book your tickets now clicking here.

Caducifolio in Japan

Last 15th and 16th of July, Joan's work Caducifolio was re-staged in Osaka. The piece was originally created in 2008 for the Young Choreographers' Workshop of the Graz Opera (Austria). In this occasion, it was part of the programme Collage, directed by Japanese dancer and choreographer Young na Hyun. The show featured emerging European and Japanese dance-makers and had two sold out performances at the Ai Hall.

Four dancers joined Young na herself and Matthias Strahm, who were dancing in the original production. The newcomers were Koto Aoki (freelance dancer based in Graz), Norikazu Aoki (member of the Graz Opera Ballet), Reona Sato (soloist of the Slovakian National Theatre) and Shota Inoue (dancer of the Leipzig Ballet).

These performances were also very special for Matthias, since they were his farewell from the stage as a dancer. Matthias received his dance training at the National Dance Academy in Amsterdam, and since then has worked worked in several companies in Portugal, Spain and Austria. He's moving now to the UK where he will focus on his career as a fashion and costume designer.

New work under construction

Joan's new work Love Games will premiere next 27th of July at Dundee Rep Theatre as part of Scottish Dance Theatre's Under Construction 2 programme, the company's platform to promote emerging choreographic talent.

Trying to move away from the clichés that often surround love in our society, the work tries to explore the irrational and almost violent nature of love and our ambiguous relation with it.

Love Games features SDT dancers Nicole Guarino, Jori Kerremans, Naomi Murray, Matthew Robinson and Solène Weinachter, as well as costumes by Swiss designer Matthias Strahm.

To book your tickets click here or call Dundee Rep Theatre's box office on 01382 223530.

Dancing on the tele

Joan's duo Dreamt for Light Years featured in the new BBC 4 documentary Dance! The Most Incredible Thing about Contemporary Dance. Conductor Charles Hazlewood explored contemporary dance together with some of the leading members of the dance community in the UK in an effort to bring the art form to a wider audience. 

The BBC crew visited Scottish Dance Theatre's headquarters at Dundee Rep Theatre, where SDT's artistic director Janet Smith introduced several extracts of the company's repertory to a group of local people.

If you are in the UK, you can watch the full documentary on BBC iPlayer for a limited time.

You can also have a look at this clip from the Italian news featuring the site specific performance of In-boscati at the festival Il Giardino delle Eperidi. For this work Joan collaborated with SDT dancer Jori Kerremans and jazz musician Adalberto Ferrari among other artists.

Ciao Milano!

Joan will take part as a dancer and choreogrpaher in the 7th edition of the festival Il Giardino delle Esperidi. For more than two weeks, the festival offers a mixed programme of dance, music, theatre and poerty within the stunning environment of Monte Brianza, near the city of Milan.

For this occasion Joan has joined forces with dancers Ruth Janssen, Solène Weinachter and Jori Kerremans, as well as with Glasgow-based musician and composer Jer Reid. Under the name of Starting Points (and with the support of Scottish Dance Theatre) they will present the programme 2nightsarebetterthan1. The evening will feature Joan's duet Dreamt for Light Years next to Sally Owen's A Little Shadery and Ruth Jannsen's Revelator. For the second half of the show, Solène and Jer will premiere their new creation Cairngorm Snow.

The Scottish crew will also collaborate with the hosts of the festival, the theatre collective Scarlattine Teatro, to create a site-specific work (In-boscati) which will lead the audience into a series of encounters with dance, live music, theatre and sculpture through the forests and paths around the village of Campsirago.

Sounds tempting, doesn't it? To see the full programme of the festival click here.

Dreamt for Light Years at the 'TanzArt ostwest' festival

On the 10th of June, Joan will be performing with Scottish Dance Theatre his duet Dreamt for Light Years at the TanzArt ostwest festival in Giessen (Germany).

The festival is organised by the Stadtheater Giessen and directed by resident choreographer Tarek Assam. Its aims are to promote the artistic exchange between dance companies from Western and Eastern Europe, and to present current choreographic trends.


For more info and a full programme of the festival visit http://www.tanzart-ostwest.de/index.asp

BolEro(s) tour

The Space Cadets will be touring Joan's latest work BolEro(s) in May and June around the UK. Here are the tour dates:

• Fri 27 May, London: Robin Howard Dance Theatre (The Place)
• Thu 9 to Sat 11 June, Dundee: The Space (Dundee College)
• Tue 14 June, Edinburgh: Broughton High School
• Sat 18 June, Leeds: The Riley
• Sat 25 June, Aberdeen: The Lemon Tree

For more info visit http://www.dundeecollege.ac.uk/SSCD