The Place Prize for Dance

The line up for the Semi-Finals for The Place Prize for dance has been announced. The 16 entrants will present 16 new works across four evenings at the Robin Howard Dance Theatre at The Place on September 15, 18, 20 and 22.

The Prize has come in for criticism in recent years for its emphasis on theatre rather than dance. However, this year we are promised "a wide range of contemporary styles...reflecting the diversity of today’s British contemporary dance scene." We shall see.

Ahead of the Semi-finals, the 16 pieces will preview at The Place from September 6 to 13.

Four works from the sixteen will be chosen to go through to the Finals in April 2013 when they will compete for a chance to win £35,000. Three of those will be chosen by a panel of dance experts, chaired by Eddie Nixon, Director of Theatre and Artist Development at The Place. The other panel members are:

Roberto Casarotto, Artistic Director, Operaestate Festival Veneto
Sarah Crompton, Chief Arts Editor, The Daily Telegraph
Jonzi D, Artistic Director, Breakin' Convention
Siobhan Davies, Artistic Director, Siobhan Davies Dance
Stine Nilsen, Co-Artistic Director, Candoco Dance Company

The fourth finalist piece will be the most popular one as voted by the live audience, over the course of Semi-Finals.

The Place Prize is sponsored by Bloomberg.

This year's semi-final line-up is:

Sat 15 September
Moreno Solinas, Life Is a Carnival
Riccardo Buscarini, Athletes
Tony Adigun, The Lake
Joe Moran, Obverse

Tue 18 September
Mamoru Iriguchi, One Man Show
Dog Kennel Hill Project (Ben Ash), Execute Now
h2dance (Hanna Gillgren & Heidi Rustgaard), Duet
Rick Nodine, Dead Gig

Thu 20 September
Nina Kov, Copt
bgroup (Ben Wright), A short lived alteration of an existing situation
Neil Paris, The Devil’s Mischief
Darren Ellis, Revolver

Sat 22 September
Goddard Nixon (Jonathan Goddard and Gemma Nixon), Third
Seke Chimutengwende, The Time Travel Piece
Robbie Synge, Flux
Eva Recacha, The Wishing Well

Previews: Thu 6 – Thu 13 September 2012; Tickets £12 (conc. £9)
Semi-Finals: Sat 15 - Sat 25 September 2012; Tickets £ 17 (conc. £14)
All performances start at 8pm.
Box Office: http://www.theplace.org.uk/ 020 7121 1100

The Finalists Announced

Four dance pieces have been selected to go through to the Finals of The Place Prize for Dance, after the last Semi-Final performance.

The four Finalists include h2dance’s "Duet", which was the most popular piece as voted for by the live audience. Meanwhile, Riccardo Buscarini’s "Athletes", Rick Nodine’s "Dead Gig", and Eva Recacha’s "The Wishing Well", were selected by the Prize’s judges Roberto Casarotto, Director of Dance Projects, Operaestate Festival Veneto; Sarah Crompton, Chief Arts Editor, The Daily Telegraph; Jonzi D, Artistic Director, Breakin' Convention; Siobhan Davies, Artistic Director, Siobhan Davies Dance; and Stine Nilsen, Co-Artistic Director, Candoco Dance Company.

The four pieces will compete against each other for their chance to win £25,000 cash prize, and a total of £10,000 audience prize, which will be awarded in nightly prizes of £1,000 by the live audience.

A report on the semi-finals will follow shortly.

The Place Prize for Dance
Semi-finals
The Place, London; September 22, 2012

Jessica Wilson

The Place Prize for dance, sponsored by Bloomberg, is the UK’s most prestigious dance award. The competition is the biggest private source of commissions for new short works in British dance and has just returned for its fifth edition complete with four previews and the four semi-finals. 16 new dance works were commissioned for 2012 from 208 entries received; the highest number of entrants of any year to date.

It’s a prize worth winning, with a total of £35,000 up for grabs at the Finals next April. On top of that, the 16 entrants competing in the semi-finals were awarded a total of £100,000, and benefitted from free production time and support from The Place Prize team as they created and then presented their works to what were hungry semi-finals audiences.

The 16 works encompassed a huge variety of contemporary styles. Some of the commissioned artists for 2012 are already quite well-known, including Jonathon Goddard, former Rambert dancer, who was the first contemporary dancer to win the Critics’ Dance Award for Best Male Dancer in 2008, and who was working alongside his fellow Rambert dancer Gemma Nixon; 2011 Place Prize finalists Riccardo Buscarini and Eva Recacha; and former semi-finalists Ben Ash (2006), Bren Wright (2006 and 2008), and Darren Ellis (2010).

The fourth of the semi-finals presented works completed the two weeks of performances, and revealed which four entrants would to progress into the finals. Eva Recacha’s “The Wishing Well” displayed a solitary dancer donning a shocking yellow dress and projecting an even more shocking sound level of spoken word, which featured heavily in the finalists’ pieces. With frantic movement in places juxtaposed with a calming expression on the dancer’s face, the piece was filled with passion, repetition and ritual to be completed in order to succeed and progress. There were humorous references to the audience breaking the fourth wall momentarily, yet maintaining an essence of desperation through movement.

The second piece, Robbie Synge’s “Settlement” featured 3 pieces of plywood alongside a male duet, creating and destroying architecture as a metaphor for life, falling as easily as it stands. Interestingly choreographed full of risk and chance, the piece resembled Doris Humphrey’s fundamental technique of fall and recovery, contained a larger message than just a duet based around balancing and falling ‘architecture’.

“Third” was Goddard Nixon’s powerfully aesthetic piece surrounded release-based movement, with an intense connection between the dancers. With the setting cool and cold, the movement gave a yearning quality to the work as a creative and inspiring partnership between the dancers. The piece was the most adventurous of the four presented during the evening in terms of pure dance, which was both refreshing and reassuring simultaneously.

The fourth piece of the night, Seke Chimutengwende’s “The Time Travel Piece”, was an interesting interpretation of three dreams of the future, and what dance might look like in 30, 75 and 490 years time. Tongue-in-cheek and full of humour, the piece stabbed at the current state of the arts sector with Chimutengwende’s work pulling the night together in a both reflective and thought-provoking manner.

Following the fourth and final semi-final, the four dance pieces selected to go through to the Finals were announced as h2dance’s “Duet”, which was the most popular piece as voted for by the live audience with a score of 4.1, Riccardo Buscarini’s “Athletes”, Rick Nodine’s “Dead Gig”, and Eva Recacha’s “The Wishing Well”. The Finals will take place in April 2003, when the four works will compete against each other for their chance to win the £25,000 cash prize, and a total of £10,000 audience prize, which will be awarded in nightly prizes of £1,000 by the live audience.