As IDFB’s roving reporter (or beady-eyed blogger) I have put pen to paper on the daily events of the Home productions. However, when Katherine Flynn generously extended an invitation for me to attend the official VIP opening of the first night of the festival, I leapt (or pirouetted) at the chance. I pirouetted not because I am a dancer (the pen is my instrument, not my body) but because this very special performance was Artifact, a contemporary ballet by Royal Ballet Flanders, straight off the plane from Belgium.

The mood in the Patrick Centre was palpable; the air was thick and abuzz with talk of artistry, creativity and IDFB 2012, and it was instantly clear that all the beautiful people of Birmingham were under one roof (seeking much needed shelter from the downpour outside).The guest list read like a who’s-who guide for the arts in the West Midlands and even a few international accents could be heard through the laughter and chit-chat of the intimate venue.

The dark room was lit with soft violet hues that encouraged the eye upwards to a large screen overhead, displaying pictures and information of all the productions running during the festival. Once introductions had been made, hands had been shaken, munching and mingling well and truly underway, the eager guests were treated to not one but three great speeches.

First up was Stuart Griffiths whose words emphasised the importance of not only the festival, but of dance, to the city. His message was clear, “Let’s make dance a part of this city’s DNA”. What was striking here was just how much of the festival’s programme was new this year; new collaborations with Birmingham Royal Ballet and The Crescent Theatre, new initiatives such as Spill and Home and new artists who had never before stepped foot in Brum. Next up was Ros Robins, the Director of Arts Council West Midlands. An interesting angle, and one that is indeed both vital and valid, Ros’ speech centred on the economical draw that the festival possesses (in 2010 it created an economic impact of £6.2 million). The final speech by David Massingham (pictured) was a self-confessed “road map to the festival” and demonstrated the sheer scale of the event, which sees no less than six shows being simultaneously produced. The lasting impression of the speech was that IDFB 2012 wanted to create exactly that, a lasting impression of the power of dance on the city “anywhere and everywhere”.

After the speeches the creative crowd were dazzled by the dancers from Home and the silence that fell on the audience during the performance highlighted the captivating nature of the piece. I won’t, however, divulge what was on offer, as you too can enjoy your very own slice of the action during the pop-up performances taking place throughout the city centre up until Sunday 13 May, when Home reaches its climax.

The fifteen minute call then echoed through The Patrick Centre, which signalled my Cinderella-like cue to hobble out of VIP (heels, for the women, seemed to be a pre-requisite) and slink back into my place in the auditorium and reality. I sidled up beside my Mum and Nan who would ultimately become my reviewing counterparts, much like a dysfunctional X-Factor panel, if you will. Armed with buckets of enthusiasm and an open-mind, I dared Artifact to delight, entertain and surprise. And I can safely say, to all of the above and more, it did not disappoint.

Artifact is a combination of industrial lexis versus the true elegance of body beautiful in all its balletic glory. Artifact is the structural shapes of an urban jungle versus the organic and the natural. Artifact is mechanical and fluid, sharp yet soft. It shifts between strength, physicality and uniformity, punctuating each with the delicate; Artifact is a dream-like state. The contrast of spoken word and traditional ballet challenges the conformist perception of what ballet should or could be. With careful consideration of all theatrical aspects; from the playful use of shadows and light, producing trickery of the eye to the way the light bounced and rippled off the company’s muscular bodies and the elements of terror, explored by nightmarish sounds and clever choreography, Artifact packs a mean punch.

The troupe constantly reinvented the solid shape by embodying the harsh (box, square, diamond formations) and juxtaposing it with the softness and harmony of elegant bodies perfectly in sync. The dancers themselves were often made to look like mannequins and the overall feel, for me, was very 1984-esque. There was a continual and underlying battle between body and ballet, physicality and the mind.

Royal Ballet Flanders’ performance evoked a strange and very different response from the audience, who chose to talk, mutter and generally stir throughout. Was this the desired response, I couldn’t help but wonder? True, the performance was untraditional in its style (the company was already in full swing under house lights when the audience returned to their seats post interval) but does this mean that we are to discard traditional theatre-going etiquette? I fear that the true purpose of the small interludes of darkness could well have been lost. I can’t help but think that such short, sharp bursts of performance were clashed with the crashing down of the curtain and prolonged pauses in the dark in order to allow reflection and contemplation. Surely this explicit invitation demanded thought not talk?

Nevertheless, when watching Artifact you get the sense that you are witnessing something very special. An army of artists mapping out an avant-garde masterpiece through the skill of movement; arms and legs like brushstrokes, painting the storyline with every last muscle. It is incomprehensible to me that Artifact first hit stages in 1984 (a spooky nod to the aforementioned Orwell). What must an ‘80’s audience have made of this performance when a modern day one, immune to a fast-paced, digital, Big Brother world, is left awestruck? Intoxicating, hypnotic and dramatic, the synergy and sharpness of the Royal Ballet Flanders’ performance tackled themes of hard and soft, real and the unknown in a skilful and poetic way. And if all this hasn’t made you want to see it for yourself, then I don’t know what will.

Rosie Nicholas, IDFB 2012 Media Ambassador

Wings of Desire is a major outdoor dance theatre spectacular, including circus acrobatics, exhilarating dance and Victoria Square as you’ve never seen it before! Australia’s world famous Circa meets Britain’s urban hot ticket 2Faced Dance Company in this dramatic and awe-inspiring production, starring internationally-renowned film and TV star Goldie and featuring interactive performance experts seeper.

Take a look at the trailer for the event:

We are seeking a diverse range of Community Participants, aged 16-100+ to be a part of the show. You do not need to have specific dance or theatre skills to take part, just a keen interest and commitment to be involved in this exciting production.

Please click here for further details of how to get involved.

We are nearing the half way stage to the festival and so far we have had standing ovations at Warwick Arts Centre for Dave St-Pierre, a stunning production of Artifact, Breathe the Beat Roadshow showcasing world class and local dance talent in a slightly damp Birmingham city centre, sell-out performances of the world premiere The Impending Storm and a dance icon Louise Lecavalier. Phew what a two weeks and that isn’t including the films in our Light Fantastic film season and Home which has been performed on the streets and in the railway stations of Birmingham every day.

The middle weekend of the festival is shaping up to be a busy one too, with The Family Weekend taking over mac birmingham, Flamenco Workshops at DanceXchange, BRB performing at The Crescent, two more dance films and Home continuing to be performed across the city centre.

The Family Weekend is sure to be a great event taking place at mac birmingham and Cannon Hill Park from Saturday until Monday. We have performances by Spanish dance Company Aracaladanza and there are still tickets left to come and see their enchanting show Clouds. After catching a preview of Clouds today it is a wonderful show full of imagination which kids and adults alike can enjoy, with some great dancing and really magical moments. As well as the show there are free craft activities going on where children can decorate their own clouds to peg up to be displayed in the arts centre. There is also a chance to contribute to Home where we are creating a mini Hub within mac where anyone can come in and dance, draw or say what home means to them.

Let’s not forget the world premiere performances of Spill (pictured) which will be taking place outside *fingers crossed for no rain* in Cannon Hill Park. The show scrambles around, over, under and through swings, slides and roundabouts of the playground which I am sure kids will love – and after months of preparation I am just a bit excited to see it as well!

Away from the Family Weekend BRB are performing a triple bill including 2 world premiere’s at The Crescent Theatre. Both evening shows are now sold out but we have a few tickets left for Friday matinee. Our film season continues with a late night screening of the absurd and the ridiculous The FP and our Sunday afternoon film Fever Chart is a selection of experimental and documentary shorts exploring dance beyond the stage.

Finally if you want to get up and get dancing yourself come along to our Flamenco workshop weekend where there are classes for the complete beginners to advanced dancers.

It is most certainly going to be a busy weekend of dance and I hope to see you at an IDFB event over the bank holiday weekend…

If you would like to take part in Home, come down from 12pm and get involved!

My IDFB favourite: Breathe the Beat (28 April). This project has been an amazing online success globally, and I’m now looking forward to seeing it come to life on stage at Bullring. Brooke from Plague Dance Crew will appear alongside the best talent from the West Midlands. I might even be tempted to get on stage and freestyle myself!

While you’re in Birmingham, why not… grab a snack at Urban Coffee Company. It’s the perfect place to refuel, with amazing coffee and muffins – not to mention free WiFi, making it the ideal place to upload your IDFB photos!

Leonie Hart, Programme Coordinator

My IDFB favourite: The Impending Storm (1 & 2 May). The opportunity to see REMIX, South Africa’s only professional integrated company, is very exciting – plus I’m a huge fan of David Toole and Lucy Hind’s work. The way in which the creative team and company fuse the cultures of both nations makes for a culturally rich and visually exciting show. I can’t wait!

While you’re in Birmingham, why not… visit the beautiful Warley Woods. On Saturday 12 May there’s even a Tree Walk to entice newcomers!

Ballet is perceived as a very traditional and classical art-form yet in this year’s festival we have three ballet performances which push the art-form into various different disguises. Royal Ballet Flanders, Birmingham Royal Ballet and legendary ballerina Sylvie Guillem will all be performing as part of IDFB 2012 but in ways you may not expect to see them….

Would you place jazz music with ballet? …unconventional, but possibly. How about drum and bass? …well, probably not. However, this is some of the music accompanying Birmingham Royal Ballet’s Three Short Works.

Birmingham Royal Ballet has a classical and traditional reputation and their annual productions of the Nutcracker are sure to bring the house down. However, they are stepping out of their Birmingham Hippodrome home and moving down the road to The Crescent to perform an intriguing triple bill, including a Jazz creation from BRB Director David Bintley, a new work created by Company Dancer Kit Holder set to drum and bass, and, finally, a world premiere of a brand new commission by US choreographer Jessica Lang (pictured below in rehearsal), who is renowned for her unusual and striking use of sets.

However, this is not the first time the company has moved away from their classical routes – in fact it’s a regular occurrence. Each season, triple bills often feature which tend to pull away from the traditional. For example in 2010, I very much enjoyed their production of Twyla Tharp’s In the Upper Room where the dancers replaced their ballet shoes for trainers. These triple bills, and this exciting line up that includes two world premieres, demonstrate BRB’s commitment not only to performing traditional classics but to being a diverse company, producing ground-breaking new work and encouraging the choreographers of the future.

The legendary ballerina Sylvie Guillem is considered by many to be the greatest dancer of her era; she was the youngest ever etiole of the Paris Opera Ballet and former principal guest artist for the Royal Ballet. Her ballet credentials couldn’t be much stronger. Aged 46 she is still performing and touring worldwide and will be joined on stage at Birmingham Hippodrome by Russell Maliphant.

Sylvie has moved away from classical ballet and now almost exclusively performs more contemporary work, though losing none of her brilliance or elegance. She has, throughout her career, strived to experiment, to bend and mould the academic and classical rules of dance in the interest of greater expression. ‘Even as a young dancer my way of approaching dance was not their way’. This determination to create something unique and to push the boundaries earned her the reputation as a diva. Even in her days at the Paris Opera, she felt she had opened a window into the stuffy world of ballet she found herself in; ‘I felt completely trustful because it was a window on the real world, the world of today. And I was completely in trust even if I was not sure what I was doing, but that didn’t matter.’

Guillem has always strived to develop and to create new ways of dance. For her, learning and experimenting is of the upmost importance ‘If you want to give dance life you must give it fresh food, not keep going back to the garbage to look for old scraps’. It is through this philosophy that she has developed her style of performing; its base lying in the strict classical discipline but then progressing and maturing into something completely new and unique.

Artifact performed by Royal Ballet Flanders is probably the most explicit in its exploration of the balletic form out of the three ballet performances in IDFB 2012. Choreographer William Forsythe created the work 25 years ago and it was seen as radical and changed the way people looked at expression through dance.

The choreography plays with the traditional elements of ballet; ‘it shows how ballet vocabulary is built on specific physical principles, then elaborates and subverts them in ways that change our ideas of what ballet can be’ New York Times. The NYT review of the Flander’s production is well worth a read – it has certainly made me both intrigued and excited to see this work. It describes how various elements of lighting, dance, costume, music and spoken word combine in this groundbreaking work of dance, and explains further how Forsythe pushed the boundaries of classical ballet to create something altogether new; ‘The refusal to be content with sheer beauty, to force to continually reframe the dance, to question our preconceptions’ . The work has used the traditional and played with it, developing it into a piece of dance which is not only beautiful but also challenging.

So across the festival we have three “ballet” performances, but expect the unusual. All three performances are exciting, creating something new and different. They push our preconceptions, making us question them and demonstrate that ballet is not always safe, classic and stuffy but can be experimental, new and exciting. Whether it is through experimentation of music, lighting, set or movement these performances illustrate how ballet is not a fixed art-form but a constantly evolving organism. I believe there will always be a place for Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake and other such great classic ballets but equally we should always look to the new; strive to create something fresh, and this programme really reflects the versatility of what is perceived as a very rigid art-form.

First up is the premiere performance of Home, which starts at 1.30pm today, as dancers animate Birmingham city centre using ideas, inspirations and choreographic material contributed by 1000 individuals through workshops, open days, and uploading films online, all relating to people’s feelings about the theme of ‘Home’, and what it means to them.

Surprising shoppers, commuters and city workers alike, this bold, inventive new dance production promises three weeks of pop-up performances that will intrigue and fascinate in equal measure.

Individual doormats act as miniature stages for a cast of community and professional dancers exploring what home, identity and belonging mean to them; culminating in a grand finale performance right in the heart of Birmingham.

The full performance schedule for Home is below:

High Street & New Street
Monday 23 April – Saturday 12 May // Daily at 1.30pm

Brindleyplace
Sunday 29 April // 1.30pm

Grand Finale Performance // Bullring, High Street & New Street
Sunday 13 May // 1.30pm

You can also take part in Home workshops:

Brindleyplace (outdoor)
Sunday 29 April // 12noon – 1.15pm & 3pm – 4pm

Home @ the Hub, mac birmingham (indoor)
Saturday 5 May – Monday 7 May // Open daily 11am – 5pm

For the duration of the project, Home will have a base at Pavilions shopping centre, off High St in Birmingham (opposite Laura Ashley and H&M, lower ground floor). Come along and see dance pieces being put together, take part in performances, and pick up information about everything that’s happening during International Dance Festival Birmingham 2012.

The Hub will be open daily until Sunday 13 May 2012. Opening times: 10am-1.30pm & 3pm-4pm.

Image credit: Jas Sansi

In today’s Observer, Luke Jennings describes a “sublimely moving performance…one we will not forget“. He also highlights the worrying plight of Royal Ballet Flanders, after political interference has left the company with an uncertain future, as “the company is unlikely to survive [Royal Ballet Flanders' Director] Kathryn Bennetts’s departure in anything like its present form“, meaning this could be the last time the company performs Artifact.

Sarah Crompton and Judith Mackrell both gave the show five stars on Friday. Writing in the Telegraph, Crompton described this “lovingly and sleekly staged revival” of Artifact as “glorious and challenging in the same moment, it raises the spirits just as much as it taxes the brain. It is almost as if dance has broken free of the past and is whirring into the future“.

In the Guardian, Mackrell praised both Forsythe as “a master of ensemble, his choreography referencing a history of dance styles and a compendium of poetic imagery” and the company, adding “there’s joy and heroism in the enterprise, and the Flanders dancers perform it with rare passion and discipline. They honour the ballet and Bennetts, their retiring director“.

Royal Ballet Flanders perform Artifact at Birmingham Hippodrome on Wednesday 25 and Thursday 26 April, at 7.30pm.

IDFB.co.uk

The place to find the full festival programme, details of how you can get involved, and all the latest news for IDFB 2012.

Facebook.com/InternationalDanceFestivalBirmingham

Our Facebook page is the place to come to find all the very latest news, competitions and behind the scenes info!

@IDFB

Visit us on Twitter for top tips for the festival, and to follow IDFB conversations. Remember to tag your comments with hashtags, and search to find out what people are already recommending! #IDFB covers general IDFB chat, #davestpierre already has some interesting debates around the most controversial show in the festival, Un Peu de Tendresse de Merde, and #wingsofdesire will be the place to discuss our incredible outdoor spectacular. Remember, you can also start using your own hashtags for events, just let us know, and we’ll spread the word!

YouTube.com/IDFBonline

Our YouTube channel is the place to watch trailers, rehearsal footage, exclusive interviews and films from previous festivals. Whether you want to watch the Artistic Directors of IDFB and Warwick Arts Centre debating Dave St-Pierre’s controversial show, interviews with Birmingham Royal Ballet choreographers, or conversations with the creative team behind our flagship project Home, YouTube.com/IDFBonline is the place to go.

Flickr.com/IDFB

To see pictures from previous IDFBs, and to see this year’s festival unfold in pictures, visit it us on Flickr. You can also see all of the Home contributions that we’ve received, as well as pictures of the good looking bunch behind the project. Remember to also upload your own photos, and tag them with IDFB so we can see the festival through your eyes.

Enewsletters

Joining the mailing list is the best way to keep up to date with IDFB, as we send out receive regular updates about the festival.

Finally, you need to get in touch with IDFB, you can also email us, at IDFB@dancexchange.org.uk!

Usually found competing in (and winning) dance contests around the globe, Brooke from 2011 Hip Hop  International World Champions Plague Dance Crew, will be performing throughout the tour, alongside other special guests. Brooke is one of the stars of the hit movie, StreetDance 3D, and one of the most versatile streetdancers on the planet with skills across all styles of dance.

Watch Brooke, and special guest Marvel, perform a jaw-dropping routine, as they kicked off the Breathe the Beat tour in Worcester recently:

Breathe the Beat Roadshow takes place at Spiceal Street, Bullring, on Saturday 28 April between 12 and 6pm, and is FREE to attend – just turn up!