The Company and its repertory
Shunt Dance Company has a unique structure and set up of which we are very proud. All the members of the company work in dance education. All the dancers are at different stages of their teaching careers, some have been teaching for a number of years and others are taking their PGCE or have just completed their NQT year. They are all passionate about dance education and providing high quality teaching and learning for their students. Part of this for them is to continue practicing as performers, to work within a company experiencing the creative process and maintaining their technique and performance skills.
In exchange for their time, energy and commitment Shunt provides them with resources and training to feed into their teaching practice. As part of our weekly sessions we share warm ups that we have planned or used with students, share and discuss new schemes of work, specifications, and assessment strategies. The company are free to use and adapt all movement material generated and taught with these sessions with their students. In a subject where many dance teachers work alone and with school INSET budgets being cut it is a wonderful opportunity for new and innovative ideas to feed into ones teaching.
Being part of the company is beneficial to the company members, they have weekly training, professional sharing and maintain their passion for performance. This in turn filters down to benefit their schools and students. Students are able to experience up to date practice, and learn from teachers whose training is current.
Shunt Dance Company offers their students the opportunity to watch open rehearsals, learn our repertoire and we often perform in school performances. We are passionate about providing and enhancing high quality dance education.
Our repertoire
The company's first work 'What are you Looking at?', was a community based studio piece using five 6th form students from a local Hertfordshire school. The piece explored stereotypes of teenagers and young people and their reactions to media portrayals of their age group as well as using their own experiences and a stimulus.
Its' second work was an exploration into the Joan Miro surrealist painting 'The Birth of the World', and entitled 'From Blackberry Jam'. This piece involved research into the paintings creation, Miro’s methods, beliefs and ideas as well as analysis of the painting itself. The intention was to investigate whether the ideas, creation, methods and outcome of a static visual art could be emulated to create a dance work and to assess and compare the impact of both.
The third piece entitled 'Creative Nostalgia' was a site specific work, performed in a disused brewery in Grantham, Lincolnshire. This work explored the salient features of Russian constructivism in static art works from between 1914 and 1922. Continuing the research from the previous work the methodologies, ideals, ideas, creative processes and outcomes of various artists within this movement were used to create the dance work.
Our fourth piece entitled ‘ShapeShift’ was created for Resolution! 2009 and continued our research into Russian Constructivism. With ‘dagger straight lines’ the work focused on creating layered patterns interweaving shapes, making it a very sculptural work.
We are currently in the process of making our next work under the name Some Suggestions for Being Good. Whilst we are still following our creative practice - researching a visual art work or movement and transposing methods, ideologies and practices into the medium of dance, there has been a shift in our style. In earlier works we explored abstraction with a focus on form; however this latest work uses the painting (of the same title) by Charles Williams, a British artist working within the Stuckist movement today. As the process develops we are drawn to character and content more so than form – an interesting and exciting time, so watch this space.
