Dancing their way to success, as Swansea audiences enjoy free performances whatever the weather.
Last weekend, the people of Swansea were treated to a host of dance in unexpected places. Taliesin Dance Days (Saturday 10th and Sunday 11th July), a weekend of dance performances in non-theatre spaces, continues the city’s relationship with an international network of urban dance festivals, alongside cities such as Barcelona, Rio de Janeiro and Manchester.
Taliesin’s fifth Dance Days Festival was bigger and better than ever and drew in crowds of around 7000 people despite variable weather. Featuring over fifty performances in Castle Square, and in and around the National Waterfront Museum, Taliesin Dance Days encompassed a wider variety of dance styles than ever before, giving the people of Swansea an entire weekend of free dance performances.
Contemporary dance inspired by everything from the local dockside industry to the ipod, street dance from festival favourites, 2 Faced Dance Company and Bollywood girls (Wales’ Sarita Sood), were just some of the spectacles on offer. From African dance (Afrotawe) to quirky duets, on swinging bungees, there were plenty delightful performances for children and adults to enjoy. This year’s festival had a focus on Wales-based professionals alongside world class international acts plus more from across the UK and homegrown talent from Swansea’s community dance groups.
A quirky combination of comedy and choreography came from Spain’s Mar Gomez Dance Company, and the enigmatic Pallavi Saran Mathur thrilled with her performances of traditional Indian dance.
New to dance days this year was Dance in a Day. Eight local boys and young men will work with Being Frank choreographer David McKenna to create, rehearse and perform a dance piece for Dance Days audiences in just 2 days.
Dance Days is fast becoming the must-do on the Swansea calendar! Taliesin Arts Centre’s Sybil Crouch explains the motivation for the festival:
“Taliesin has developed an audience for dance over the past 14 years and we are always looking to do new things and develop the interest in dance in the city. Building on our commitment to showcase and celebrate contemporary dance, together with our commitment to international work & to develop audiences, we planned Dance Days. Thanks to a lot of hard work, this festival was a bigger success than ever, with emails now coming in from audiences and performers saying just how much they enjoyed the weekend. This year had greater involvement with our partners at the National Waterfront Museum, enabling us to host more companies throughout the building and grounds, from the BBC who screened performances live on the Big Screen, and from the City and County of Swansea who provided us with staging in Castle Square – helping to give performances there a really high profile. By taking dance out of a theatrical space, and by involving community dance groups as well as artistes of international renown we can create a real thirst for dance in Swansea. We’re now looking at how we can build on this year’s success for future festivals!”
Taliesin Dance Days is coordinated by Swansea University’s Taliesin Arts Centre, making Swansea part of a global network of dancing cities. For more information on cities that dance around the world visit www.cqd.info
Dance Days is a Taliesin Arts Centre production, with support from the National Waterfront Museum and the City & County of Swansea. Taliesin Arts Centre received an Arts Council of Wales Beacon Company Award 2008-10 and was recently selected to continue to receive revenue funding from ACW as part of its Investment Review.
