Previous Participation & Education Projects
Living Room Outside (2010)
Specially commissioned by West Sussex Arts Partnership, Making Tracks rural touring scheme, The Living Room Outside was a 45 minute site-specific event. Created with a large cast of local young people, University of Chichester graduates and YFNS company members it involved dance interventions throughout the village of Billingshurst alongside a presentation of the interactive installation Everything Looks Beautiful in Slow Motion in one of the high street shops.
The dancers inhabited the high street, local shops, parking bays and bus stops making the High street their home. The dances, surprising, inviting, peculiar or pedestrian ask us to reconsider movement as part of our everyday, finding the poetic in the mundane and with a wry touch disturbing the familiar.
"The Living Room Outside was a great opportunity for young dancers from the village to work with professionals… and the benefit they got from it was evident in the high level of commitment and performance they produced. The public were intrigued and delighted… it brought together all parts of the community… The evening performance of The Living Room by the company was inspirational… many in the audience had never experienced modern dance before and came away wanting more."
Gillian Knight, member of the Billingshurst Community Partnership, West Sussex
The Living Room Participation (2010-2011)
Youth Dance Company commissions for Merseyside Dance Initiative, Northern School of Contemporary Dance Youth Dance, Hampshire Youth Dance Company, Swindon Dance, Youth Dance Academy & Brindley Arts Centre
"Yael's work has been an absolute inspiration to the 39 young people from all over Merseyside. There was an amazing amount of company rep material shared with the young people as well as beautifully structured creative tasks for their creativity and imagination to blossom. It is a pleasure to watch young people who are passionate about dance, work hard, enjoy and interact with sensitive and inspiring choreographers like Yael. We want more!!"
Mira Balchandran Gokul, Youth Dance Development Officer, Merseyside Dance Initiative
"Being taught by Yael is an inspiration for me and I thoroughly enjoyed the workshop."
Participant, MDI master class, age 17 years
24 Feet (2008)
Commissioned by Hastings and St Leonards Excellence Cluster, the company ran a dance film residency in Hastings, creating a short dance film with young people from Hastings and the surrounding area. The resulting film was showcased as part of the Doing, Done & Undone tour as well as being presented in a local cinema in Hastings Old Town.
“I really enjoyed the whole experience. The improvisation was very useful – it gave me the chance to transfer skills. I really liked the filming as part of the project. The project reflected a wider view of the performing arts industry”
Project Participant.
Woking Dance Festival Open Day (2005)
Set up in partnership with Woking Dance Festival the open day brought together over a 100 performers and attracted over 450 visitors. The day included Shrink’d performances and installations alongside community dance pieces and taster workshops. Over a period of six weeks the team worked with Surrey County Youth Dance Company, Local Schools and Surrey University Students creating short dance pieces for the open day performances.
“Great performances… Just a good community feel.”
Audience member
Shrinkin’ (2004)
Inspired by Shrink’d, the project brought together 60 young people aged 14-18 from the boroughs of Lewisham and Greenwich. Using interactive video to get as close as possible to the performers, Shrinkin’ looked at putting a magnifying glass to the body. With young people as on stage VJs, virtual and live performers were spun together in a gravity-defying dance. Shrinkin’ was a culmination of the weeklong Christmas Youth Dance Project, a Laban Centre and Greenwich Dance Agency joint initiative.
Wallflower (2003)
Inspired by Wallpaper, Wallflower was choreographed on the ground in the air and on film with a cast of 30 young people and their virtual friends. A culmination of a week-long Bedlam Dance Company Summer School, the project was developed in partnership with East London Dance and BBC/Blast. In addition to the performance element 2 young film makers were invited to create a documentary of the project as well as independent, Wallflower inspired, films that were shown on BBC2.
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