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Scottish Dance Theatre is set to delight young audiences at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig on 25th April with What on Earth!?, its acclaimed dance work for children aged 5 years and upwards.
Combining dance and animation with a soundtrack from around the world, SDT takes its young audience on a curious night time journey full of surprise encounters with strange flora and fauna.
What’s on Skye caught up with Assistant Director, Sally Owen to ask a few questions about the performance on Skye.
What’s the background behind the ‘What on Earth’ theme?
I can’t remember exactly where our ideas started. We both wanted to make a show for children as we felt there was a gap in our repertoire and the company had not made children’s work before. I know we are both interested in our planet Earth and it’s amazing life and environments both big and small. Also we have worries that human beings do not look after these wonderful things as well as we should. We didn’t want to tell an existing story so decided to make our own story with little ‘pods’ of dance. These became ‘awake’ pods or ‘dream’ pods. Pods gave us the freedom to follow lots of ideas.
Janet and I talked a lot about what we were interested in and how we could make a show together although we have different ways of working. We had great fun brainstorming ideas around planet earth and talking about dream worlds. We didn’t want to tell a story that had been told before but discovered a series of dream places that the five performers could move through. They could be the dreams of one or more characters. It was very exciting to find that we could work together as choreographers and that our different approaches complimented each other.
Who are the dancers?
What on Earth!? has 5 dancers who come from all over the world; Joan Clevillé from Spain, Nicole Guarino from Brazil, Jori Kerremans from Belgium, and Matthew Robinson and Natalie Trewinnard from the UK. All of the dancers have also choreographed their own work for Scottish Dance Theatre with Natalie’s solo All in Grip becoming part of What on Earth!?
Find out more here: http://www.scottishdancetheatre.com/index.php?pid=90
Why Skye?
Scottish Dance Theatre, travels internationally and in the UK. We get to perform in large theatres that seat 2,000 and small theatres that seat 100 or less. Two years ago we returned from a tour of where the company had played to massive audiences only to travel straight to Ardrishaig to perform in the local school dining room, where we laid our dance floor and performed to the community. The dancers feel so privileged to be able to perform to communities in such different places and meet people from such different cultures. In the end, for us it is about touching hearts and stimulating the imaginations of as many people as possible, wherever they are. So, why not return to Skye?!
What’s next?
In May, the company are travelling to Malmo in Sweden to perform with other companies from around Northern Europe. We also have a very busy summer ahead with our first ever performances at the Edinburgh International Festival where we’ll perform SisGo by our Artistic Director Fleur Darkin and the world premiere of a new work by Henri Oguike. We’ll also be performing our second work for children, Innocence, by Fleur Darkin and the hip hop inspired Second Coming by Victor Quijada at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
What on Earth?! will be showing at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig on 25th April.