It has been a busy few months. Apologies, I haven't been able to update my blog in a while, but now that the sun came out, and exhibitions are well and truly launched, I am going to attempt an update today. A couple of months ago I went on a little jaunt down to a secret Mecca in the middle of nowhere to catch up with Anica Louw and hear about her Longford Dance Festival. Here is the feature I wrote on this happy and inspiring topic that was published in the Irish Times on April 13th:
The middle of nowhere in County
Longford is not the most obvious spot to stumble upon an international dance
Mecca. But that is exactly the
kind of strange fruit that has sprouted up on a former dairy farm just outside
Legan since the arrival of South African ballet dancer, actor, and
expeditionista Anica Louw in 1978.
Intending to take a short breather from a series of far-flung archaeological
expeditions, the intrepid Anica came to visit Longford farmer Philip Dawson who
she had met in South Africa while he was doing a stint there as a young
engineer. The rest is dance
history.
Soon, the diminutive South
African was teaching ballet to Longford locals. Philip converted one of his barns into a dance studio,
engineering a pulley system to fold old bus seats up into the barn ceiling, tucked
away until they were needed for end-of-term performances. Gradually he built more studios, a
summer house and kitchen, a dinky tree house, and dormitories for the dancers who
would eventually find their way to this Annaghmakerrig of dance – mostly
through word of mouth. The cattle
were sold in 2000, and a rambling forest of 150,000 broad leaf trees were
planted for artists to wander through while dreaming up new creations. Michael Keegan Dolan’s internationally
renowned Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre have created all but one of their shows in
this magic space.
You are hit by creative ions
floating around the farmhouse courtyard the minute you set foot in Shawbrook. You could run into anyone here, from London
opera composers and costume designers, to Royal Ballet dancers like Simon Rice
and Slovakian contemporary dancer Vladislav Soltys - who will both be judging the
Irish National Dance Awards, and giving masterclasses in the 2012 Longford
Dance Festival. Liam O’Maonlaoi is
a recent addition to the Shawbrook Pantheon too after creating “Rian” here last
year with Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre.
When I arrive on St.
Patrick’s weekend, I am greeted in the summer house by Anica and Faroese dancer
Kristina Sorenson Ougaard who is here on a residency mentoring Shawbrook Youth
Dance Company. Kristina and her Faroese
colleagues composer Jens Thomson and actor Kjartan Hansen are about to create a
show inspired by Faroese mythology called “A Voyage into the Faroes”, to
premiere in Anica’s “Longford Dance Festival” at the Backstage Theatre in four
weeks time.
They are regrouping after
their St. Patrick’s Day Flash Mob in Longford. The next Shawbrook Flash Mob, this time to Leonard Cohen’s
“Hallelujah”, sung live by Melanie Zink, will be unleashed on Longford Town
Square at 1pm on April 12th to launch the festival.
Anica, now in her 60’s, is
just back from a session on a Longford treadmill “on its steepest incline” wearing
a stuffed backpack, training for her next solo expedition. No less of a free
spirit than she ever was, her most recent expedition was to be to Lhasa, but
when she got as far as Kathmandu, access to Tibet was unexpectedly closed so
she settled for climbing in the Himalayas instead. Together with Chantal
McCormick of Fidget Feet aerial dance theatre company, who lives closeby in
what has turned into a most unlikely artist’s hamlet (Keegan Dolan and other
dancers are also neighbours), they brought a show called “Invoke” to the famous
Burning Man Festival in Nevada Desert in 2010. McCormick will also be giving a
workshop in the imminent festival.
Sorenson Ougaard tells me
she first came across Shawbrook when, “blown away” by Keegan Dolan’s “Giselle”
at the Barbican Theatre in London, she got in touch and followed the crumb-trail
to the place of Giselle’s creation.
A graduate of “The Place” school of dance in London, Kristina signed up
for Shawbrook’s Advanced “E” Course, with Keegan Dolan. This led to her current Shawbrook
residency and to the creation of her Faroese co-production which will be shown in
Torshvan, Faroe, one of the world’s smallest capitals after its Longford
premiere.
Anica has started, and
continues to nurture many careers in dance here, but her biggest success story is
that of local Marguerite Donlon, whose Donlon Dance Company in Saarbrucken,
Germany, is now one of the most renowned contemporary dance companies in
mainland Europe. In 1980, at the
age of 15, Donlon was a champion Irish dancer who loved to dance, sweeping the
boards at Feiseanna Ceol. Though late to start for a ballet
dancer, Louw, who had just arrived, took Donlon on, and soon Donlon’s
extraordinary Bournonville-style footwork catapulted her from performing for
Peter Schaufuss in the English National Ballet, to being a soloist in the Deutsche Oper Berlin. Donlon’s innate choreographic flair
brought her to Saarbrucken where she established her own Donlon Dance
Company. In 2001 Anica’s 2nd
Longford Dance Festival introduced Donlon’s unique mix of traditional Irish
footwork and ballet back home to Longford’s Backstage Theatre.
As well as “A Voyage into
the Faroes”, the Festival, whose remit is to nurture local contemporary dance
will also feature Louw’s own ballet “Pearly Beach”, named after a beach the
Festival Director and Founder grew up near on the South African Cape.
For more info see
www.shawbrook.org
