PRESS RELEASE
Monday, November 8 2004
DANCEEAST ANNOUNCES FURTHER
PLANS FOR RURAL RETREATS DanceEast today announced further details of its 2005 Rural Retreat for international ballet directors, Ballet into the 21st Century. It also revealed plans for a further series of Retreats to benefit other areas of the dance profession, planned through to 2007.
The success of its first Rural Retreat in 2003, and the international interest the scheme has created, has put DanceEast and Britain on the map in the development of think-tanks for artistic leaders.
The next Rural Retreat will take place in Hertfordshire from 7-10 January 2005 and will bring together 27 Artistic Directors from ballet companies around the globe. For their second gathering, the Artistic Directors will focus in greater depth on issues and concerns facing the art form, in an environment of remarkable mutual understanding and support.
The 2005 Retreat will be facilitated by Sue Hoyle, Deputy Director of the Clore Leadership Programme and Prof. Christopher Bannerman, Head of the Centre for Research into Creation in
the Performing Arts (ResCen) at Middlesex University.
High-profile guest speakers from outside the world of dance, Nicholas Hytner and Gail Rebuck, will offer insights into working with creative teams and large institutions. Nicholas Hytner is Artistic Director of the Royal National Theatre and Gail Rebuck is Chief Executive of the publishing giant, the
Random House Group. Ms. Rebuck was recently named one of the 25 most outstanding female business leaders in Europe by the Financial Times.
Full list of Artistic Directors attending the 2005 Ballet Directors Rural Retreat.
Rural Retreat 2005
List of Artistic Directors 1. John Alleyne Ballet British Colombia
2. Frank Andersen Royal Danish Ballet
3. Reid Anderson Stuttgart Ballet
4. Mark Baldwin Rambert Dance Company
5. Kathryn Bennetts Royal Ballet of Flanders
6. David Bintley Birmingham Royal Ballet
7. Dinna Bjorn Finnish National Ballet
8. Ted Brandsen Dutch National Ballet
9. Didier Deschamps Ballet de Lorraine, France
10. Espen Giljane Norwegian National Ballet
11. Nanette Glushak Ballet du Capitole, Toulouse
12. Kevin Irving Goteborg Ballet
13. Marc Jonkers Linburg Ballet
14. Andre Lewis Royal Winnipeg Ballet
15. Ivan Liska Bayerisches Staatsballett, Munich
16. Monica Mason The Royal Ballet, Covent Garden
17. David McAllister Australian Ballet
18. Kevin McKenzie American Ballet Theatre
19. Mikko Nissinen Boston Ballet
20. David Nixon Northern Ballet Theatre
21. Madeleine Onne Royal Swedish Ballet
22. Ashley Page Scottish Ballet
23. Alexei Ratmansky Bolshoi Ballet
24. Paulo Ribeiro Gulbenkian Ballet
25. Zhao Ruheng National Ballet of China
26. Matz Skoog English National Ballet
27. Stanton Welch Houston Ballet
28. Emil Wesolowski Polish National Ballet
Four Retreats planned for 2006 - 2007 DanceEast has also announced a further series of Rural Retreats that will take place in 2006 and 2007. The first of these, Living Dangerously - How it is to be an artist today, will be a cross-arts Retreat that will take place at Snape in January 2006. The Retreat will bring together a cross section of artists from around the globe, representing different cultures and ways of working in the performing arts. It will look at making work in a shifting culture and economy and examine the relationship between the artist and the state.
A steering group has been set up to develop this Retreat and includes leading figures from across the arts: David Lan (Artistic Director, Young Vic), director Richard Jones, choreographers Siobhan Davies and Jonathan Burrows; Michael Morris (ArtAngel); Alistair Spalding (Artistic Director, Sadler's Wells Theatre), Jane Greenfield (Director, Dance 4); Rose Fenton (LIFT), Roanne Dods (Jerwood Charity) and Assis Carreiro (Director, DanceEast).
A further three Rural Retreats are currently in the planning stages. These include New Directions, a Retreat for Principals/Directors of professional ballet and dance schools around the globe. It became obvious at the first Artistic Directors' Retreat that many of the issues currently facing ballet companies could not be taken in isolation, but must be shared with the professional training institutions that feed the companies. The organisers believe that it is in the foundations of training that old habits can be broken and new directions for ballet can be seeded. Accordingly, the Retreat will look at a range of issues including: training, education, injuries, relationships with ballet companies, choreographic development and career planning.
A further Retreat, scheduled for 2007, is for Future Artistic Directors. This Retreat is designed for designed for those who would like one day to lead ballet/contemporary companies and is designed to be both inspirational and provocative - an opportunity to hear from the experts about the realities of the job, to share concerns and aspirations and to try to find new models of good practice for future leadership.
A final Rural Retreat, aimed to coincide with DanceEast's first year in its new DanceHouse on the regenerated Ipswich waterfront, is Fire & Ice - which will be both a Retreat and festival. It will bring together dance artists from Northern and Southern countries of the World and, in a series of public and private performances and discussions, will examine the influence of place on the creative process.
Rural Retreats are supported by Arts Council England, Arts Council England East, the Jerwood Charity, the Rudolf Nureyev Foundation UK, Freed of London, British Harlequin plc, Ballet-Dance Magazine (
www.ballet-dance.com), and the Embassy of Sweden, Canada Council for the Arts/Conseil des Arts du Canada, the Polish Cultural Institute, the Royal Netherlands Embassy and the French Institute.