Is This A Dance?
When you skip down the street or turn on the spot for no reason; when you stamp your feet in rage or throw your arms in the air in joy... Have you ever wondered ‘is this a dance’?
Eva and Lola of LAVAELO, explore this question by letting their bodies take the lead, and imagination run riot through playful games and endless questions. Expect energetic movements and abrupt pauses, whales, dinosaurs, turning planets and talking computers in absurd situations! with a bit of contemplation on the side.
This is a show for anyone who has ever found joy in mindlessly moving to music like nobody’s watching.
Cast and Creatives
Co-Choreographers: Eva Recacha and Lola Maury
Co-Writers: Alberto Ruiz Soler, Eva Recacha, Lola Maury, Michael Crowe.
Sound Artist: Alberto Ruiz Soler
Children Voices: Unai Ospina Recacha, Arin Ospina Recacha
Costume and Set Designer: Kate Lane
Lighting Designer: Ben Moon
Education Advisor and Exhibition Curator: Michael Crowe
Production Manager: Chris Burr
Is This a Dance? is commissioned and co-produced by The Place. Supported by The Egg, HS2 Camden and using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.
Biographies
Eva Recacha
I am Eva Recacha, an independent female choreographer who lives and works in London. My choreographic practice explores the ways of relating movement and text, creating a blend of poetic, humorous and nonsensical juxtopositions through the interplay of both mediums. I have been commissioned work for the stage by Sadler’s Wells, The Place, Festival Santa Susana, EDge, and LCDS, as well as site-specific work by DanceXchange, Bloomberg SPACE, Opera Estate Festival Veneto, and Fundació LaCaixa and Trayectos. I was a Place Prize Finalist in 2011 for Begin to Begin: A Piece about Dead Ends, and in 2013 for The Wishing Well, winning the public prize on three occasions. In 2014 I was a recipient of the Marion North Mentoring Award. I have been an associate artist at the Place and a Sadler’s Wells Summer University Artist. My work has appeared in Time Out’s Best of the Year and has been presented in UK and at festivals in Europe. My latest work, commissioned and presented by Sadler’s Wells in 2018, is Aftermath, a piece dealing with notions of female visibility, value, and power, and the shift in the experience of those after motherhood.
Lola Maury
I am a French London-based choreographer, making intimate and sensory experiences for audiences and participants. Professional recognition includes: Deustche Bank Award for Contemporary Dance (2008); The Place’s Hot House (2014) for exceptional early career choreographers mentored by Peggy Olislaegers and paired with producer Helen Goodman; Surf the Wave, Artist as Entrepreneur (2018); Artist in Residence at the National Centre for Dance in Lyon (FR) for the 2020-21 season. I have created and toured: Two To Tune (commissioned by The Place, 2014), selected for French national platform La Grande scene des PSO 2016; Figurines (2016) toured to Triratna Buddhist Centres as part of an audience development activity, engaging people interested in meditation; Brouhaha (commissioned by Theatre in the Mill, 2019) with support from The Place, Yorkshire Dance, Dance City, Dance4, DanceEast, Hull Truck and La Briqueterie (Paris). Since September 2020 I have been a PhD student at C-DaRE, Coventry University in partnership with DanceXchange (Birmingham). I am part of Le Croiseur’s directing committee, supporting emerging dance artists in Lyon. I lead the research program Cellule D’essai, funded by the Rhône-Alpes region.
Lavaelo
LAVAELO is a collaboration between dance artists Lola Maury and Eva Recacha. Together they create work for young audiences and their families, where young people are encouraged to ask questions about dance. LAVAELO’s work explores the essence of what dance is, with focus on movement features: speed, duration,rhythm, actions; looking at how these ingredients weave with one another and give rise to a multitude of exciting possibilities not driven by narrative. Their work tests their instinct that children will be particularly perceptive to this as an extension of how they learn through play. What is dance made out of? How do the ingredients fit into place and what happens when they do?