Alston Takes Cover is a unique project, co-commissioned by The Place and Dance Umbrella, and was seen in London’s Dance Umbrella Festival last year. The project gave selected choreographers the opportunity to create choreographic responses to Richard Alston’s classic Wildlife (1983).
Alston Takes Cover will be presented as part of the EDge touring repertoire for 2012, and in the above film, Richard Alston talks to Mary Evelyn, head of postgraduate studies at LCDS, about the process of making Wildlife and his thoughts on the Alston Takes Cover project.
Read Richard Alston's biography
Tony Adigun
Tony is the founder and Artistic Director of cutting edge hip-hop company Avant Garde Dance (AG). Tony has a razor-sharp eye for composition, musicality and form and has developed a distinct company vocabulary. Tony’s work has been performed at Sadlers Wells, Southbank Centre, The Barbican, Brighton Dome and Stratford Circus. Tony is currently a Work Place Artist at The Place and Associate Artist at East London Dance.
Rachel Lopez de la Nieta
As a dancer Rachel has worked with many of the UK’s leading choreographers, including Charles Linehan, Rosemary Lee, Russell Maliphant, Lloyd Newson and is a founder member of Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre. Her collective Dog Kennel Hill Project (with Henrietta Hale and Ben Ash) are associate artists at Dance4. Their current programme, commissioned by The Place Prize and sponsored by Bloomberg, will be showcased by the British Council at the Edinburgh Festival this summer.
Other credits include working with Peter Gill on Birtwistle double-bill, Max Vadukl for Yoji Yamamoto’s Coming soon, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment's Medea and commercial collaborations with NE-O. Rachel has also worked for many years with opera directors David Alden and David McVicar.
Matthias Sperling
Choreographer and dancer Matthias Sperling is an Associate Artist with Dance4 and winner of a Bonnie Bird New Choreography Award. His recent works have included commissions for Candoco Dance Company, Southbank Centre and Dance Umbrella, and have been presented at international festivals including Springdance (Netherlands), Nottdance, Les Reperages (France) and Royal Opera House Firsts.
Originally from Canada, Matthias has been based in the UK since 1997, where he has collaborated and performed with companies including Wayne McGregor|Random Dance, Matthew Bourne’s Adventures in Motion Pictures and Siobhan Davies Dance. He is currently working on a duet with Rachel Krische for Dance Umbrella and Thought Dance, an interactive installation using EEG brain scanning technology to explore the notion of thought as a physical movement.
Sasha Waltz
Sasha was born in Karlsruhe, Germany, she studied dance and choreography in Amsterdam and New York. In 1993 she co-founded her company, Sasha Waltz & Guests, with Jochen Sandig in Berlin. In 1996 she opened the critically acclaimed sophiensaele, a theatre she co-founded with Sandig. In 2000, Sasha was named one of the artistic directors of Berlin’s Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz where, amongst others she created the pieces Körper, S and noBody as well as the choreographic installation insideout. In 2005 Sasha Waltz & Guests once again became an independent company, with Jochen Sandig as artistic director. In January 2005 her first opera-choreography Dido & Aeneas had its world premiere at Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Berlin. In 2007 Sasha Waltz presented two music-theatre works: Medea with music by Pascal Dusapin and text by Heiner Müller had its World Première in Luxemburg in May as a feature of the European Culture Capital City 2007. In addition the Opéra de Paris in October 2007 presented the choreography by Sasha Waltz to Hector Berlioz’ dramatic symphony Roméo et Juliette. The music-based choreographic project Jagden und Formen (Zustand 2008), music by Wolfgang Rihm, developed together with the Ensemble Modern was premiered in Frankfurt am Main in the spring of 2008. In March 2009 Sasha Waltz & Guests presented the project Dialoge 09 – Neues Museum in the New Museum in Berlin, reconstructed by David Chipperfield. In 2009 Sasha Waltz received an artist’s grant for Villa Massimo im Rome. Dialoge 09 – MAXXI by Sasha Waltz inaugurated Rome’s new museum for contemporary art, built by Zaha Hadid, in November 2009. In 2010 her choreography Continu was premiered in Zurich, Switzerland, followed by her next choreographic opera Passion composed by Pascal Dusapin at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Paris. In May 2011 the opera Matsukaze by Japanese composer Toshio Hosokawa with choreography by Sasha Waltz premièred at the Oper La Monnaie in Brussels. In January 2012 the new choreographic concert gefaltet by Sasha Waltz and Mark Andre was presented as a world premiere in the context of the festival Mozartweek by Stiftung Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria. Sasha Waltz was awarded the Caroline-Neuber-Preis as well as the french cultural fraternity Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2010. Her latest honour had been the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 2011.
The Sasha Waltz work The Quartet has been restaged by Delphine Gaborit
James Wilton
James’ choreographic career began whilst a student at London Contemporary Dance School, when his works Drift and Threads were toured by the third year performance group LC3. Upon graduation James was commissioned to re-work Drift for Scottish Dance Theatre for touring throughout 2010/11. James has also created works for a number of vocational training institutions, universities and youth dance companies.
In 2010 James created The Shortest Day for Resolution! at The Place. The piece went on to be performed both nationally and internationally, winning Sadler’s Wells’ Global Dance Contest. The Shortest Day was performed at Sadler’s Wells in January 2011. James is part of South East Dance’s Creative and Business Development Programme, has been selected to join the Dance Lines programme at the Royal Opera House and Arts Council East’s Escalator Dance Programme. James has also been shortlisted for the New Adventures Choreography Award.
Tony Adigun
Rachel Lopez de la Nieta
Matthias Sperling
James Wilton