Sally McKay

13th March

Shobana Jeyasingh Dance at the Linbury Studio Theatre, Covent Garden, performed Classic Cut, a double bill of Configurations and new work Dev Kahan Hai/Where Is Dev? This is the first project of their three year 25th anniversary celebration programme.

Configurations was choreographed by Shobana Jeyasingh in 1988 to music commissioned from Michael Nyman, String Quartet No. 2. Played live on stage at the Linbury adding to the visual and acoustic feast.

Configurations 

Shobana Jeyasingh says of Configurations, “It is a dance work that has shifted and changed, reflecting my own work as a choreographer.”

Dev Kahan Hai//Where Is Dev?

The web site says Shobana Jeyasingh’s vision for the company “is rooted in a vision of a Britain that is culturally coherent in new and unexpected ways…We see connections where others only see differences and we seek to make these connections through choreographic practice.”

The evening is a wonderful, exhilarating fusion of classical Asian dance – Bharata Natyam and contemporary dance, very fast, very sharp, very now and to me feels very London.

In May I am looking forward to joining the company to draw the dancers during rehearsal, keep an eye on my blog I will post some of the drawings on as I go. I hope to use the drawings to inform a painting and etchings which I will show in my solo exhibition in September.

Open Studio: Thursday May 17th 5pm – 9pm. Saturday 19th May 11am – 6pm. Sunday 20th May 11am – 6pm. Studio 17, Unit 0, Second Floor Studios, Mellish Industrial Estate, Warspite Road, London SE18 5NR

Solo exhibition September 13th – 23rd, part of ‘On Sublimity and Synaesthesia‘ exhibiting in conjunction with freelance writer Dr Stephen Baycroft. No Format Gallery, Second Floor Studios, Mellish Industrial Estate, Warspite Road, London SE18 5NR

More details on the exhibitions will follow soon

Contact sallymckay@btinternet.co.uk for more information on exhibitions and sales

29th February

Richard Alston Dance Company performed 3 works at Sadler’s Wells 29th February and 1st March. Richard Alston Dance Company is part of The Place, also the home of a fabulous dance Theatre and London Contemporary Dance School.

I drew the Richard Alston Dance Company when they performed in the Saatchi Gallery last year.

Roughcut choreographed by Richard Alston, music by Steve Reich

Lie of The Land choreographed by Martin Lawrence, responding to Ned Rorem’s String Quartet No. 4

A Ceremony of Carols, choreography Richard Alston, Music Benjamin Britten, sung by Canterbury Cathedral Choir

Three dances all entirely different. New company dancer, James Pett, modelled for a life size sculpture commission I had early last year, wonderful to watch him dancing in Sadler’s Wells in the Richard Alston Company. Alston says of Roughcut “a dance about vitality” which is exactly how it feels to watch it. I felt very tired, almost didn’t get to the theatre, only down to my sensible lovely daughter telling me to go and that I would feel better to draw dance and watch. So right – by the end of Roughcut I was smiling and energized.

Even more so in Martin Lawrence’s work Lie of the Land, fabulous.

The final dance A Ceremony of Carols, accompanied by by Canterbury Cathedral Choristers with their angelic treble voices and Camilla Pay on the harp felt mystical and powerful.