Percolator
Undergraduate Mixed Bill
About Percolator
Join us at The Place or on our online livestream for Percolator, an evening to showcase and celebrate performances in progress by our third year BA students. The idea of Percolator is to produce a new piece of work within a short rehearsal period - the students and artists have just three weeks together. The resulting work is striving to be spontaneous and fun. Quite literally, new ideas and new choreography brewing!
This year, the curated artists for the Percolator performance offer a diverse spectrum of dance practices. Through this show, audiences will experience the roots of Contemporary dance, Bharatanatyam, and Hip-hop. Expect an unconventional pairing of movement and music, a demystification of icons, and a provocation to surrender to the ‘wait’. When the three works guide us between distinct artistic containers, they prompt an acknowledgement to the richness that these dance forms offer. Through celebrating the diversity within dance lineages, this event cultivates valuable insights into potential culturally conscious futures.
About the pieces
Closure by Vicky "Skytilz" Mantey
“The movement could, almost, be the cause of the sound we hear” (Duerden, 2007:74).
Duerden, R.S. (2007) ‘Dancing in the Imagined Space of Music’, Dance Research, vol 25, no. 1, pp 73-83.
—
ABOUT SKYTILZ
Vicky is a dancer, choreographer and teacher specialising in Hip Hop and Street Dance forms. In a career spanning two decades as a freelance artist, she has worked on a range of projects across film, theatre and television. Examples include: choreography and movement direction for London 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony, Sochi 2014 Winter Paralympic Ceremony, Street Dance 3D and Trainspotting T2.
Vicky has previously worked as a performer, teacher and choreographer for the Olivier Award-winning dance company Boy Blue, working on productions such as Pied Piper and The Five and the Prophecy of Prana. She has also taught at LAMDA, University of East London and frequently teaches the youth company in ZooNation: The Kate Prince Company.
Idol Matter by Liam Francis
In Idol Matter, Liam Francis delves into the concepts of myths surrounding celebrities and notable figures. He explores the distance between oneself and these aspirational figures, coupled with the process of demystification. The legacy of these associations has the potential to take space within both the physicality and imagination of the dancers.
—
ABOUT LIAM
Liam Francis is an independent dance artist, choreographer and facilitator. His career began at ZooNation Dance Company where he worked extensively in the hip hop and commercial dance industry. He trained vocationally at London Studio Centre (INTOTO) and graduated with a First Class BA Hons degree in 2014. Liam spent seven years as a leading dancer with Rambert Dance Company, performing and creating roles in works by choreographers such as Mark Baldwin, Kim Brandstrup, Christopher Bruce, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Merce Cunningham, Ben Duke, Sharon Eyal, Andonis Foniadakis, Wayne McGregor, Marion Motin, Patricia Okenwa, Hofesh Shechter, Alexander Whitley, Wim Vandekeybus and Didy Veldman.
Liam’s choreographic work has been performed in London, Oxford, Rotterdam, Hannover, Rome and New York. He is also currently an MA student at Rambert School where his research explores the phenomenological concepts of Flow State and Place through choreography and movement.
In 2019, Liam founded the Artistic Gremlin Workshop. This was an expansion of his own personal practice that sought to address the unhelpful and often negative thoughts that would come up whilst creating work. The Artistic Gremlin Workshop now affords artists, of any level and from any field, a reflective rest stop where they can explore the intrusive critical voices that visit during their practice. The goal of this shared reflective practice is to build empathy in the creative community, and to assist the development of healthier relationships between artist and those unavoidable voices.
Genesis by Divya Kasturi
The fluid geometry and story-telling form of Bharatanatyam informs Divya’s ‘native’ language of thought-process and creative expressions. Her work ranges from classical to contemporary whilst working from the core principles, aesthetics and movement dynamics drawn, influenced and informed by Bharatanatyam infused with and by other Classical Indian Dance & Theatre forms, having worked with Complicité.
Genesis is an original exploration co-devised and co-weaved with BA3 students from LCDS. Tracing a narrative that begins with ‘birthing’, ending with a note of ‘self-discovery’, all weaved throughout concepts of ‘waiting’. Genesis is underpinned by both the everyday experience of waiting that we see and feel, around and within us, as well as the larger philosophical perspective of a ‘search’.
Influenced by Indian poet Arundhathi Subramaniam’s writings, Divya’s creative process enables the vigour of her movement practice to prepare the body and mind for a state of surrender. Many of these subtle truths are unspoken, but rather to be found through training and practice. This performance signifies the initial phase of this quest, providing dancers with an opportunity to continue developing these performance skills within their own artistic practice.
The live Flute denoting the vital ‘breath’ that fires and fuels everything, internally and externally, adds a bespoke dimension to the work in addition to the use of the voice of the performers.
From Hope, Struggle, Search, Expectation to Anticipation and Longing, Genesis gives a peek into a gamut of emotions.
—
ABOUT DIVYA
Divya Kasturi is an artist who defies easy description. A multifaceted Dance practitioner with more than three decades of performing experience, Divya is a virtuosic Performer, Choreographer and Teacher of Bharatanatyam. She constantly innovates with the form and the content through her allied skills in Kathak, Carnatic vocals, Western Contemporary Dance, British Physical Theatre, Indian Television crafts whilst blazing a trail with her innovative Interdisciplinary explorations with Virtual Reality, Hologram technology and other Digital forms.
Born, brought-up in Chennai(India), Divya Kasturi’s work has been seen all over the world including in New York, Sydney, Paris, and Mumbai. Her ‘Forgot Your Password’ is a first-of-its-kind endeavour in integrating Bharatanatyam and 3D Hologram Technology. Her one-woman solo Dance-theatre production ‘To Varnam…With Love’ and ‘Now Here’ involved a bespoke exciting visual design. Her most recent work embarks on incorporating Bharatanatyam into the world of Virtual Reality Headsets. This project is taking shape as a result of her Questlab residency with Studio Wayne McGregor.
To research, contextualise and curate the explorations happening in studio, we have dramaturge Dominic Mitchell working with Divya, Skytilz, Liam and the students in preparation for these performances.
About Dominic
Dominic Mitchell (MFA) is an award-winning choreographer, dramaturg, and dance educator with over a decade of expertise in the not-for-profit industry. He specialises in cultural arts, community dance, and liberatory practices.
Dominic is originally from the state of Michigan, USA, with his primary professional experience centred in the Kalamazoo and Detroit, Michigan areas. His training background encompasses diverse dance companies and communities, focusing on African diaspora practices and modern/contemporary dance.
He is certified in the Katherine Dunham Technique and has received training in Aesthetic Education from Education for the Arts. His passion encompasses both dance-making and community cultivation, using dance as a vehicle for ancestral connection and critical theory.
In addition, Dominic is the newly appointed Co-Artistic Director of Candoco.