Sally McKay

Candoco Dance Company celebrated 20 creative and inspiring years at Greenwich Dance Cabaret on 20th May.

“Candoco threw away the rule book and made audiences radically rethink who could and could not be a dancer, they have changed dance for ever” Brendan Keaney, Director of Greenwich Dance.

“With Candoco’s inclusive ethos, artistic success and international acclaim, it has revolutionised the dance world and inspired participants and audiences alike.”  Celeste Dandeker, Founder & Patron of Candoco.

Nigel Charnock compared the evening, (Choreographer of Cold Tongue – City To City Cabaret, Still – Candoco and founder member of DV8). The evening began with a film directed by Margaret Williams shot in 1994 of Candoco and was followed by Deaf Men Dancing performing Elvis! and Boys.

Deaf Men Dancing. Elvis!

Catherine Long danced Right Arm Solo followed by Vicky Malin and Dan Daw of Candoco dancing Imperfect Storm choreographed by Wendy Houston.

Candoco. Imperfect Storm 

The raffle followed. I had donated a drawing of Vicky and Darren rehearsing the Hofesh Shechter work The Perfect Human in 2008, one of a series of studies for painting Don’t Look Back.

Marc Brew won the drawing and was the next to perform

Marc Brew. Remember When.       Nigel Charnock singing to us 

You can see Marc Brew’s Nocturne at The Greenwich and Docklands Festival on 25th and 26th June.

Cando2 performed Lay Down Your Weary Tune. A finale on stage completed the evening with many who have danced with Candoco over the 20 years.

Happy Birthday Candoco!

The Place Prize runs every 2 years, at The Place, London. 16 works were commissioned for this prestigious choreographic competition, the last stage is of 4 works performed each night for 10 nights. £1000 is awarded each night by the audience voting for their favourite, the overall winner selected by a panel of judges wins £25,000.

The first dance of the evening, Begin to Begin, A Piece About Lose Ends by Eva Recacha reminded me of video artist Bill Viola’s work. My drawings were insubstantial which disappointed me as I was fascinated by the dance, and so not included here. Maybe because I was watching, not concentrating on drawing, thinking of Bill Viola, trying to remember which video the dance particularly links with. (I decided it was The Passions, any comments on this?).

Below are some of my drawings of the 3 other dances.

It Needs Horses   Ben Duke and Raquel Meseguer

Cameo   Riccardo Buscarini and Antonio De La Fe Guedes

Fidelity Project   Freddie Opoku-Addaie and Frauke Requardt

I first met and drew Frauke Requardt when she was dancing with The Cholmondeleys in 2004, I also drew her strong choreography of Pictures from an Exhibition, at Sadler’s Wells, most recently meeting Frauke again at the opening of the Chris Nash exhibition at the V&A. I drew Freddie Opoku-Addaie when Freddie and me worked on Lucy Neal‘s wonderful project Mary Neal  …  an undertold story. (see my drawings of this event).

Frauke and Freddie move fast creating a delicious sense of danger with the possibility that that at any moment their relationship could become an unhinged, out of control tangle of bodies and broken hearts. They rely on split-second decisions, trust and sensory memory.

It Needs Horses was the winner, congratulations to Ben Duke and Raquel Meseguer.