Saturday 17 December 2016

Sharing!

Many things to share:
Olga's 80th Birthday!
Olga was in Shallal Dance Theatre for many wonderful years and now performs regularly with Echoes Dance co and Star.
We wish her a Happy and Wonderful Birthday and send her a huge Thank you for such lovely times together!
I rummaged and found this photo, there maybe many more, there was a wonderful short film by Phil Jacobs, Olga was in period costume with peacocks i remember, from MASK i think. Danu Fox was our manager then and her daughter Molly is now one of the most recent members in Shallal Dance Theatre!
Olga with Valerie and below Liam, Valerie and our old mutual friend Eileen.



Also I remember blogging Kerry standing tall some years ago, now this is her normal posture - fantastic and good to have her back after being unwell.
As usual a fun Christmas Party, Demleza and i agree it's one of our highlights! a shared lunch, good company, this year a spontaneous Charade style game in the centre of the tables by individuals, a hearty sing-a-long, ( thank you Glen and the Wheeler family, Demelza and Tina especially for enthusiastically inspiring this!) some dancing and a photo session with Father Christmas who came rather late - out of Peter's bag!!
more photos on FB:
Carving workshops have been really successful and very popular, there are two more after Christmas.
Many people especially Peter and Ben take it to it so naturally "a chip of the old block!" more photos on FB.

Express Yourself goes from strength to strength and just needs more funding, all our community groups are healthy in creativity and people but all vulnerable financially as at present they have no major funding, short term projects and sustainability in action for now, so this year our Sponsored Dance on 6th January is particularly for them. Since our monthly business meetings so much more is now possible and we all feel on the pulse of it all and working to sustain and develop the work from the vision of all those involved.

Review of Doorways rehearsals at SDT yesterday, more work to come and lots to think about, a challenging but wonderful site, with four distinct areas and all public spaces!
I came home to a video of the Liskeard groups Bodmin performance and well done to them and how exciting to see it. We need to try to film them with music we can have in the public domain a project for Next year! Peggy joined us this week she is 95!
Victoria and i plan to re-sort out the Shallal archives in the new year!

Off to Hall for Cornwall ( HFC) on Sunday to see the Pantomine with Shallal 2, thanks to HFC Community Club Project. We have four members under ten at present so we all chose a child friendly show, boo hiss etc!!

Wednesday 14 December 2016

Christmas News

We round off the year with Shallal Dance Theatre informal Christmas Party tomorrow and yesterday saw Express Yourself's ( EY) Christmas Sharing and Zoe and George at St Johns Hall, Penzance dancing for 80 Cornwall council workers.....

I heard great things of Express Yourself and was sorry not to be there but had seen some of the work earlier in rehearsal.

Yesterday morning while last minute searching for music for Zoe, i thought of George and thankfully he was able to come which made a more exciting combination, our slot was reduced from 20 mins to 10 they were running late, so very glad to go but also glad not to have brought more people....
we now have a minimum combination 3 of us up to our 30! and all in between, i have just finished Pop Ups report and though i struggle to write and answer criteria it was good to re-reflect on it all - a really simple and effective project.

Have written late to invite our visiting/guest artists this year to our Christmas Party - thanks to Doorways funding - we have had a rich input of many art forms and are very grateful.

Also really good AGM recently so a time to Thank everyone who makes it all possible!

Oh and pick up your Shallal Sketchbook from Falmouth Art Gallery and settle down to fill it over the Christmas Holidays
for an exhibition in Falmouth Art Gallery in February!

Fun to be working with Victoria and Lou on developing it and
lovely to hand on ideas, groups and see them flower: Colin at EY and Victoria with the Sketchbooks! Thank you to them both.


new red dress works well




notes on shows

So looking forward to Wednesday .....Zoe and I are going to St Johns Hall, Penzance, to dance and sing a little and introduce Shallal's work to some of Cornwall Council staff by invitation of Aaron Rodger. We celebrate 28 years of working together!
I am still really enjoying working with the new group at Liskeard, they have gelled so quickly it no longer feels new! The nature of the work is every group, every person, teaches you so much!


So two shows in the making, a report to finish (so blogging instead of committing to good prose!) and an exhibition at the beginning of the new year! variety......
Nice work in the morning, i came in needing more material for Doorways Falmouth and we now have three or more potential pieces to build on, Demelza and Peter and Jonathan and Star, Molly and co, groups for building, Passmore's new hat...
Shallal 2 are half way there in the new work, music and themes identified just need to form it more, and lastly the order.