Another new addition!

Henry Anthony Walshe was born to Alicia and Fred on Wednesday 10th October at 4.59pm. He came out two weeks early, weighing 6lbs 7oz and 21 inches long.

Now, Alicia's gorgeous flexibility as a dancer is something that often leaves Laurie and I in awe. However, I was certaintly not expecting her to still be quite as bendy after childbirth. When I visited her in Holles St Hospital a day after Henry arrived, she demonstrated fully her 'pushing positions' - legs stretched up in the air - and I winced in anticipation of pain, until I realized that this is Alicia. And Alicia must surely be the only person I've ever met who could stretch with the best of them straight after emitting a human being.

Congrats you guys!

We are YouTubers!

A few videos have now been uploaded to You Tube, with more on their way, so it's now possible to see longer versions of the clips currently on the website.

For some reason (a moment of madness on my part) we're listed not as expanDance but as 'nefariousfaery' on You Tube. You can check us out here:

http://www.youtube.com/user/nefariousfaery

...and if you feel so inclined (and you are, unlike many of us, quite familiar with YouTube-isms) feel free to add us as a 'friend', leave a comment, or even subscribe! Oooh the excitement...

New aspects to the work

Vanessa Marsh, visual artist, has been in the studio with us a few times over the last couple of months.

Recently she has been working on a series of 'scores' that accompany our improvisations. After a group meditation and visualisation, we (dancers) start improvised movement, and Vanessa starts moving her paintbrushes.

Using rolls of paper, Vanessa interprets how she sees us moving (and feels, in the overall and ever changing energy in the studio) onto paper. Starting at the left hand side of the paper, she paints and walks, creating a visual score of our movement. If a particular improvisation is, say, 7 minutes long, and Vanessa is painting for 7 minutes, we then have a score which represents the full improv, through her perception. We have found that, after each improv, we are often able to correspond parts of her painting to parts of our improv. For example, one part of her work may be rather chaotic-looking, and this is where, 2 minutes in, our movements had a strong sense of chaos.