A trip home, and a visit to Ré Órga

As many of you know, expandance celebrated 5 years in existence last week. To celebrate, I flew home to Ireland from my current digs in NYC in order to be with Laurie and Alicia, and to meet with a couple of venues we may perform in in 2012. (More on that soon!) It was lovely to be back in Dun Laoghaire and to be able to catch a performance and a ballet class at Dance Ireland while in Dublin.

One of the highlights of the trip turned out to be my visit to Alicia's Over 60s expandancers Ré Órga at the George Bernard Shaw Theatre in Carlow. Alicia speaks highly of this group - it's been going strong now with over 25 regulars in attendance for over a year - and I was looking forward to meeting them. What I didn't expect was their overwhelming welcome, nor their joyous and obviously solid rapport as a group.

I spoke with many of the dancers over their tea break and without exception they thought Alicia was 'full of enthusiasm' and great to work with, and enjoyed their weekly classes with her. I was also delighted to see them rehearse a couple of their fabulous, and quite beautiful performance pieces. 

Ladies: It was so lovely to meet you, after writing blog posts about you, hearing about you all for so long, and working with Alicia and GB Shaw on the administration required to get this programme off the ground. Thank you for such a generous welcome, and for your commitment to expandance!

- Rachel 

p.s. did you notice the new name? After months (and months!) of deliberation, Alicia, along with our Over 60's group has decided on a name: Ré Órga - literally translated from Irish it means "Golden Age" - but as our very own Donnacha MacAodhagáin explains, it's more than that: 'Ré is a lovely word - doesn't just mean an age, or period of time, but is an old Irish word for the moon, too - which they used to measure time, long long ago....'

Dancing down South....

 Photo credit:  Maria Nilsson Waller

Alicia had a great day performing at the Fusion Dance Platform in Waterford yesterday.  Thank you to Libby Seward and Animated State Dance Theatre for the wonderful opportunity!  Alicia showed a solo excerpt of a new work she's developing in collaboration with Laurie.  The audience was interested, supportive, and full of feedback, which added to the success of the performance.  Alicia and Laurie will perform the piece December 8th at Riverbank Arts Centre in Newbridge as part of Comfort Dance, a shared evening of contemporary dance by expandance and Folded Productions.  Check out this link to book your tickets, http://www.riverbank.ie/shows/comfort-dance

Happy 5th Birthday expandance!

Happy Birthday to us!
Laurie, Alicia and I managed to be in the same country, the same city AND the same restaurant this evening to celebrate 5 years together as a company. We had a good time, as you can see...

Thank you to all of you who have supported us over the last five years: to all our dancers, collaborators, families, friends, our teachers, our mentors, our supporters, our funders, to the people who showed up at performances even when it was raining, to those of you who helped us with technological things we didn't understand, with websites and lighting and music and costumes and marketing questions and everything in between.  

You're all amazing and we love you.

- Rachel Wynne, Laurie Schneider, Alicia Christofi-Walshe

Upcoming Performance Sat Oct 29th

Alicia Christofi-Walshe performs a solo section of a duet currently being made with Laurie Schneider at FUSION - part of the Imagine Arts Festival this year.

Date: Saturday 29th October 2012 at 2 pm 

Location: The Large Room, City Hall, the Mall, Waterford.

Entry: €5

FUSION showcases original works by Irish choreographers in an informal setting, with audience Q&A afterward.

FUSION Choreography Platform is an initiative of Animated State Dance Theatre Company, promoting the next generation of Irish based dancers and choreographers. This dance platform celebrates collaboration, fusion and experimentation across all arts disciplines.

Culture Night is this Friday September 23rd

expandance will be holding a short performance and leading a talk on contemporary dance at Riverbank Arts Centre in Newbridge this Friday, September 23rd at 7:30pm.  The event is free of charge and is part of Culture Night 2011.

After our performance there will be a showing of the 3D dance film PINA by Wim Wenders. Here's the trailer:



We're super excited, for three reasons: We love to perform our work, we love to talk about dance, and we love love loved the late Pina Bausch.
See you there!

New Rock Om Rehearsal shots NYC

Some recent Rock Om rehearsal pics, from Gina Gibney's studio 6, and Anna Sperber's 'Brazil' studio in Bushwick!

 Brazil studioin Bushwick (Brooklyn, New York) - Clare, Hunt, Matt and Erica

 In studio 6 at Gibney Dance - Krista, Alicia (over from Ireland!), ChristinaNoel and Clare working on one of the Rock Om travelling sequences.

 In studio 'Brazil' - Hunt and Clare, Matt and Erica.

 In Studio 6 at Gibney Dance - Krista, ChristinaNoel, and Clare being creative on paper after an improvisation.

Brazil studio - Matt, Erica, Hunt, Clare and Krista our rehearsal director.







 p.s. Our apologies - our website will be down for a day or so while we do maintenance - Rachel 

Audition NYC - male dancer

We are looking for a male dancer over 21 years old for a continuing project with strong improvisational & partnering skills, along with solid modern / ballet training. A background in martial arts, yoga, or meditation is a plus. You should be open to working in a process-oriented way as the work is extremely collaborative, and based in meditation and improvisation. Dancer must be available to commit to Tuesday night and Thursday morning rehearsals beginning August 23rd - end of Sept, totaling 4 hours a week, and rehearsals in Nov, Dec & Jan (times TBD). expandance has booked performances in Boston in January and a tentative week long Ireland tour in April 2012. All performances are paid and travel expenses covered.

Audition will be Wednesday August 17th from 12-2PM. If interested, please email your resumé in PDF format, headshot, and a cover letter introducing yourself to info@expandance.com with 'Audition' as the subject line. We will respond with further information.

Sunday's surprise playlist

Hello all,
Here is the playlist Alicia and I put together for Laurie's performance on Sunday. These are all available to download on iTunes -  we've linked to You Tube here for you -

1. The Cat Empire - Miserere
2. Mika - I See You
3. The Cat Empire - Down at the 303
4. Fleet Foxes - White Winter Hymnal
5. Jem - It's Amazing
6. Florence + The Machine - Cosmic Love
7. First Aid Kit - Heavy Storm
8. Ani DiFranco - Evolve
9. Laura Love - Mahbootay
10. Rufus Wainwright - Oh What a World

Laurie danced to number 7. The video is up somewhere on Facebook - we'll get it here soon!

- Rachel  

Improvised Performance this Sunday in Dublin - YOU choose the music!

THIS SUNDAY Aug 7th

Laurie Schneider will perform a completely improvised piece using the expandance technique as her starting point. Laurie is a gorgeous improviser, so this in itself will be a beautiful show. But...what? Not exciting enough for you? How's this: Not only will she not know her movements before she steps on stage, she won't know the music she will dance to either. 

Alicia and Rachel (both currently in New York City) have created a playlist of 10 songs for Laurie, each of which contains a message from us to her. Some are literal - in the lyrics of a song, for instance. Others are pieces of music that represent a shared history between the three of us.

Laurie hasn't seen the playlist (we're sending it directly to the event's organisers) - nor will she see it until after her performance. The first time she will hear the music will be when she is already standing in front of you, in her first moment of performance. And YOU dear audience, will get to choose what Laurie dances to. When you enter the performance space on Sunday, you'll be asked to choose a number between 1 and 10. Don't think about it, just blurt out the first number that comes to mind. Laurie will dance to whatever song corresponds to the number on the playlist most popular with the audience. In the event of a tie, a coin will be flipped to determine the song.

The playlist will also be available to audience members after the show, should any of you be interested in viewing it and talking to Laurie about the meaning behind our choices. And we'll put it up here on the blog.

Laurie's intention behind this work is in essence to have Alicia, Rachel, and her audience in charge of the piece. Vulnerable? Yup. Courageous? We think so. Magical? It just might be!

Check it out.

The Church Bar

Junction of Mary St & Jervis St, Dublin 1, Ireland

Sunday 7th August 2011 at 8pm

Performance takes place in The Cellar of Church Bar as part of 'Celebrating the body in dance' - A summer evening of dance filled with belly dance, flamenco, tango performances, live music and dancing, hosted by Junonia Dancemble . This event aims to celebrate a positive body image through dance and to promote a familiarity with the work of Bodywhys! There is no cover charge at the door and audience will be given the opportunity to make a donation if they so wish! http://www.bodywhys.ie/