MOVERS SHAKERS MAKERS

The last 18 months have been a trying time for everyone’s mental health. But how have dancers been uniquely affected? A group of artists whose lives and identities are notoriously tied up in training and career—what happened when the theatres went dark and the studios fell silent?

Through interviews with a range of dancers, host Emma Lister explores mental health during the pandemic— taking in depression, PTSD, body image issues, substance abuse…and some surprising positive effects too!

Interviewees:

Isaac Bowry

Crystal Costa

Ash Mukherjee

Vanessa Vince Pang

with Kristen McGarrity, BSc (Hons) Psychology


SURVEY RESULTS

Has the Covid-19 pandemic affected your mental health negatively? (you can tick multiple)

Anxiety | 73.65%
Depression | 51.26%
Insomnia | 31.77%
Loneliness | 51.26%
Boredom | 50.9%
Fear | 44.04%
Anger | 35.38%
Obsessive behaviour | 19.13%
Alcohol/substance abuse | 13.36%
Stress | 64.98%
PTSD | 6.86%
Suicidal Thoughts | 9.75%
No it hasn't affected me negatively | 4.69%

Has the Covid-19 pandemic affected your mental health positively? (you can tick multiple)

Time to reflect | 67.03%
Time to rest | 63.41%
Time to heal (physically or mentally) | 46.38%
Spend more time with loved ones | 52.54%
Reconnected with people | 28.62%
No, there have been no positives | 5.43%

REFERENCES

PubMed article

Forbes article

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email [email protected] or [email protected]

In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is at 800-273-8255 or chat for support

Other international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org

Kristen’s references:

Cooley, C.H. (1902) Human Nature and the Social Order, New York, Scribner.

Hollway, W. (2012) Social Psychology Matter, The Open University, Milton Keynes, Chapter 5: Self, pp. 123 - 124.

Mind.org.uk

In this, the first episode of our mini-series Dance in the Time of Corona, Emma Lister is joined by cohosts Zoë Ashe-Browne and Shelby Williams. They reveal the results of a survey they conducted after the controversial Venice Biennale College Danza audition call and the ensuing movement: #payyourdancers. 

The survey was open to ALL professional dancers, past and present. Respondents represented every corner of the dance world: Jazz dancers, tap dancers, commercial, Irish, Hip Hop, classical Indian, classical ballet, contemporary, musical theatre and ballroom.  What do they all have in common? Well, 92% had seen something advertised or were approached about unpaid work. When is this OK? When is it exploitative? How will the pandemic affect dancers being offered such work? 

Featuring an interview with Friedrich Pohl, of Dancers Connect.

REFERENCES:

www.dancersconnect.de

Facebook thread from Venice Biennale College Danza

Whistle While You Work 

Royal Family Dance Crew

Broadway show attendance

80% of dancers in UK freelance

West End box office figures

Ballet Black Trainee position

Adrian Berry is Artistic Director of the UK's leading circus and arts centre, Jacksons Lane. He is also a producer, writer and director and wrote and directed the successful stage play From Ibiza to the Norfolk Broads, which toured the UK racking up 143 shows and has recently been released as a spoken word album on iTunes. 

He spoke to Emma from a North London park about  the newly renovated Jacksons Lane, why it was cathartic to write about his teenage eating disorder and how running away to Liverpool at 18 changed the course of his life.

Listen to From Ibiza to the Norfolk Broads on iTunes HERE
Jacksons Lane's website: www.jacksonslane.org.uk

The 3 Questions...

Was there a piece of art that changed everything?
Seeing Belgian theatre group Peeping Tom perform 32 rue Vanderbranden

 Is there a piece of art that you didn’t love, but you respect or think has value?
The films of Peter Greenaway

Who should we check out that we may not know about?
Musician Shuggie Otis and magician Kalle Nio 

Stina Quagebeur is the associate choreographer and a first artist at English National Ballet. Nora, her first mainstage choreographic work for ENB, was based on Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House and premiered at Sadler's Wells in 2019. Since then she has been choreographing steadily for the company; most recently the duet Hollow and the raucous Take Five Blues, both of which finally had their post-lockdown premiere to a live audience.

In this episode, host Emma Lister and she discuss making narrative vs abstract work, her obsessive research and how she can rely on her 'gut feeling' when making decisions in the studio.

Stina's Instagram: @stinachoreographer
Stina's website: www.stinachoreographer.com

You can rent Take Five Blues from English National Ballet's "Ballet on Demand" HERE

The 3 Questions...

Was there a piece of art that changed everything?
Swan Lake, and working with contemporary choreographers Russell Maliphant and Akram Khan.

 Is there a piece of art that you didn’t love, but you respect or think has value?
The work of choreographer Pina Bausch

 Who should we check out that we may not know about?
Director Emma Rice and her company Wise Children

Manjinder Virk is an actor, writer and director. As an actor she can currently be seen on The Beast Must Die with Jared Harris and Cush Jumbo on Britbox, and is shooting Jed Mercurio’s Trigger Point for ITV. On film she stars in the documentary The Arbor, for which she received acting nominations from the BFI and British Independent Film Awards. As a writer director one of her works, a short film Out of Darkness won Best of Fest award at the Aesthetica Short Film Festival in 2013.

In this, the first episode of season 3, host Emma Lister and Manjinder discuss how her dance training enriches her acting, why she feels it’s important to be creative without judgement and what life event inspired her award winning short film.

Manjinder’s interview is another link in our ‘artist chain’ after having been nominated by Rhoda Ofori-Attah in season 1!


Watch Manjinder's film Out of Darkness HERE

Manjinder's Instagram:  @manjinder23

Twitter: manjinder_virk

The 3 Questions...

Was there a piece of art that changed everything?
Derervo, clown troupe

Is there a piece of art that you didn’t love, but you respect or think has value?
Comedy as a genre

Who should we check out that we may not know about?
Artists and writers:  Amber Lone, Sue Vincent, Rhiannon Tisse

Season 3 of MOVERS SHAKERS MAKERS is out now!

Featuring a new set of interviews with fascinating artists and the mini-series: DANCE IN THE TIME OF CORONA.

Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen...

www.makeshiftcompany.com

In the last episode of series 2, Emma talks to Alice Williamson--a difficult artist to categorise. Essentially, she works with movement and design, be it making costumes or dancewear for her label Designed by Alice, her photography and illustrative work, toy design, research on 'skin hunger' or her collaboration with Dr. Merrit Moore combining robotics and dance.

Her design work begun when she had a parallel career as a ballet dancer in companies such as: Hong Kong Ballet, Northern Ballet and Staatsoper Ballet Berlin. She talks to Emma about staying creative when you're in a big organisation, her new found love of robotics and the journey a fishing net takes to become recyclable fabric for her “thoughtful” dancewear.

Alice's website
www.Designedbyalice.co.uk

Instagram:
@designedbyalice
@shop_designedbyalice


The last three questions.....
 
PIECE THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING

Nope. There wasn’t one!

PIECE THAT DIDN’T LOVE BUT HAS VALUE

AI: More than Human exhibit at The Barbican

NOMINATE AN ARTIST FOR US TO CHECK OUT

Neri Oxman, designer

Juggler Sean Gandini and his partner Kati Ylä-Hokkala have built one of the UK’s most successful contemporary circus companies: Gandini Juggling. Gandini has directed multiple full length circus pieces: Spring, 4x4: Ephemeral Architectures, Sigma and of course Smashed, their Pina Bausch inspired mega-hit that has toured the world. He also has the Olivier Award winning Philip Glass opera Akhnaten under his belt as choreographer and is currently working on LIFE, a new piece with the Cunningham Foundation. But, just to be contrary, we decided to talk about an earlier piece, a darker piece, a less loved piece...

CLØWNS & QUEENS premiered in 2013. Right after their hit Smashed. For them, it is a relatively little performed piece; an investigation of the perversity of circus. There is nudity, the threat of violence, actual violence….and some baroque music.

Watch a full version of CLØWNS & QUEENS  HERE!

Direction: Sean Gandini and Kati Ylä-Hokkala
Dramaturge: John Paul Zaccarini
Lighting Design: Jean-Ba Laude
Costume Design: Gemma Banks
Juggling based on ideas: Sakari Männistö
Performers: Caterina Boschetti, Marinna De Sanctis, Iñaki Fernández Sastre, Sean Gandini, Doreen Großman, Christelle Hersscher, Sakari Männistö, Francesca Mari, Silvia Pavone, Jon Udry, Kati Ylä-Hokkala, Cecilia Zuchetti

Gandini Juggling Website
CLØWNS & QUEENS  Website

Book referenced in interview:
Thomas Wilson's biography of Gandini Juggling: Juggling Trajectories
Available from Gandini Press Website


The last three questions.....
 

PIECE THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING
Juggler Sergei Ignatov’s juggling to Chopin

The work of choreographer Merce Cunningham 

PIECE THAT DIDN’T LOVE BUT HAS VALUE

Soviet propaganda art, or other morally didactic work.

NOMINATE AN ARTIST FOR US TO CHECK OUT

The work of choreographer Jonathan Burrows


This season of MOVERS SHAKERS MAKERS has been made possible by grants from the Norfolk Arts Project Fund and using public funding by the National Lottery through  Arts Council England.

Why is the bullying of boys who want to take ballet so persistent? Emma Lister seeks to answer this question and why their love of dance is often defended with the usual football comparison/"real men lift women" trope. 

In the final episode of of our mini-series, Ballet for the Twenty-first Century, we'll open up topics such as: body image, casting, role models, gendered ballet technique, The Billy Elliot Effect and homophobia.

Special guests: Denzil Bailey, Richard Bermange, James Forbat, Matthew Paluch and Mark Samaras.

---Articles or videos we referenced in the ep---

M. Paluch. (2019). There's an elephant in the room and it's gay.... Dancing Times. October 2019, p29-31. www.dancing-times.co.uk

Here's a link to the conversation with Kenneth Tharp and Royal Ballet dancers for Black History Month

This mini-series  has been made possible by a grant  using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.

In this episode of MOVERS SHAKERS MAKERS mini-series, Ballet for the Twenty-first Century, Emma Lister and guest Phil Chan discuss his first book Final Bow for Yellowface: Dancing Between Intention and Impact, and his upcoming work, Shades of the Orient, in which Chan supports his claim that Orientalism is one of the major pillars of classical ballet. He puts forward some constructive solutions on how to stage problematic works (La Bayadère set in 1930's Hollywood anyone?!) and discusses the impact that recent social justice movements have had on ballet companies.

Chan is cofounder of Final Bow for Yellowface, a pledge to eradicate outdated portrayals of Asians on stages the world over. To date, almost every major American ballet company has signed this pledge, and several international companies as well.

Final Bow for Yellowface Website:
www.yellowface.org

Follow them on Instagram: @finalbowforyellowface

THIS EPISODE HAS BEEN AUDIO TRANSCRIBED.

This mini-series  has been made possible by a grant  using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.