Rehearsal Director’s Update

Can you believe the first month of 2020 is already over? I must say, time flies here at Motionhouse, with every minute filled with excitement and energy. So let me share with you what the dancers and I have been up to since our last update!

Earlier this month, our stellar commission Starchitects landed in Bluestone, and we are just over the moon about how well the show has been received by the guests at Bluestone! It’s truly heart-warming to hear the feedback from children and families who have enjoyed Starchitects, and as you can see, our performers are having a blast too! (Alright, enough with the puns now!)

We are about to enter a busy performance period, so I’m happy to announce that we are welcoming six new performers to expand our team of talented dancers! The new dancers will be a part of a second cast for both WILD and BLOCK. Aaron, our Education Lead, and Becky, our Community Teacher, will be heading an almost completely new WILD cast along with four of the new dancers, while BLOCK will see a new male dancer as well as a new parkour artist. It will be interesting to see the slightly different angle he’ll bring to Lee, our current BLOCK parkour artist from NoFit State Circus.

There’s always something really exciting and really fresh in having new personalities join us! I’m looking forward to train the newcomers, introducing them to the company and its ethos, so they truly experience what it is to be a Motionhouse dancer.

Our Duets have also been performing out and about, with our new workshop offer for schools, Inspire & Move, combining a duet performance with a workshop directly linked to the duet’s themes. Many of the recent Inspire & Move workshops have been themed around our duet Gravity, in which our dancers Chris and Berta combine hand-to-hand with the Motionhouse dance style for a zero-gravity performance. I think these workshops are a really cool opportunity for participants to feel involved and getting to know what goes into making of a Motionhouse duet!

We are also very excited for the upcoming performances of Lost, first at Warwick District Council’s Spark 2020 (14th February), and the later at Move It (14th March)! Don’t forget to keep an eye on our Tour Dates for all the latest performance news!

These are really exciting times for me as Rehearsal Director, and I’m looking forward to creating the best, most positive rehearsal structure so everybody performs to their fullest and represents themselves in the best light. For me, positivity is key, as positivity breads positivity. If I’m able to create a really joyful and really positive vibe for this rehearsal period, then I believe the performances are going to be amazing and I’m really looking forward to that!