ONLINE PREMIERE

Friday 8th and Wednesday 13th May 2020 at 8pm

Due to the cancellation of the 2020 Edinburgh Festival Fringe we wont be able to share Rosie Kay’s Fantasia as part of the Summerhall programme. Instead, we are sharing the show with audiences online during the UK Covid-19 lockdown.

Join Rosie Kay, the performers and creative team who will be watching the show and standing by for a live post-show talk immediately after the performance.

Please consider making a donation to Rosie Kay Dance Company at https://donorbox.org/rosie-kay-homepage-2

Thank you and enjoy the show.

Thanks to all our Patrons and Fan Club membersRegistered Charity Number 1170998

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Producer James PrestonDancers Shanelle Clemenson, Harriet Ellis

& Carina HowardComposer Annie Mahtani

Costume Designer Louis Price

Lighting Designer Mike GunningTechnical Stage Manager

Chris HeighamCostumier Sasha Keir

Communications Manager Sally Wilson

Thank youRosie Kay Dance Company board: Frances Clarke (Chair), Sima Gonsai,

Stefan G Kay, Emily May, Shivaji Shiva, Stella Hall, Simon Hill.

Fiona Allan, Iain Mackay, Jenny Murphy, Chris Sudworth, Simon Preston.

Choreographer & Director Rosie Kay

Making Fantasia has been an utter joy. Returning to my love of dance and music, my starting point was the collaborative neuroscience research I had been part of with the ‘Watching Dance’ programme; with the research question- can dance increase our sense of empathy? Throughout my studies into neuroscience, pleasure, the brain, philosophy and mysticism, the backbone of the work has been the desire to use music and dance to move people, emotionally and intellectually.

Working alone, I danced to hundreds of pieces of powerful music, honing down my choices, surprised that Vivaldi played such an important role, and then handing over this playlist to composer Annie Mahtani who spent time expertly ordering the music and creating subtle transitions and new material from the scores. Listening to the music over a whole year has been mind-opening and delightful, but then taking these beautiful pieces into the studio has been challenging, demanding both meticulous preparation and on-the-spot inspiration. A fantasia is a composition that breaks all the rules, and

finding new ways to surprise and delight pushed our creative inventiveness.

Fantasia has three parts, Part 1 is dedicated to the sun, with ideas of baroque palaces of mirrors and golden ornamentation, dark myths and superstitions lurking behind the shiny veneer. Part Two is dedicated to the moon (who creeps into Part 1), the world of the emotions, the female spirit and death. Part 3 is dedicated to the Earth, its awe-inspiring beauty and to our new age of romanticism into materialism.

I’ve been very privileged to work with three incredible dancers, all individuals with their own approach to dance, to beauty and to performance. Their dedication, artistry, blood, sweat and laughter has been poured into this work, at once stylised and authentic.

Sit back, soak up the music and dance, and I do hope you enjoy the show.

Rosie Kay, September 2019

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Birmingham-based Rosie Kay’s new work Fantasia is just that – a colouful mix of fantasy, magic and surprise.

The choreographer, who is perhaps best known for her works 5 SOLDIERS and the Commonwealth Games Handover to Birmingham, is this time using dance to play with ideas, expectations and reality.

Set to music by classical composers including Beethoven, Bach and Vaughan Williams, Fantasia features three female dancers in a piece inspired by concepts of ideals and beauty.

“I had a sense that everything I was going to see, whether it’s dance or theatre or movies, was actually quite miserable and ugly and about how terrible everything is,” says Rosie.

“So I started thinking about beauty and I was reading philosophy and Nietzsche who talks about how beauty is so much more than we think it is now. The Ancient Greeks believed there was a strong relationship between beauty and truth but beauty now is seen as very shallow.

“Today beauty is just about superficial appearance but actually it’s about so much more than that. Beauty has become separated from all the other ideas associated with it. For example, beauty can be terrifying – if you think about nature it can be beautiful yet also awe-inspiring at the same time.

“There are three women dancers in the show and I play with the idea of them looking ‘pretty’ and presenting themselves but there’s a relationship between beauty and philosophy and melancholy.”

To explore these ideas, Rosie’s choreography sees the dancers performing together and breaking off for solos in a series of different scenes inspired by the idea of a classical fantasia.

“I used to play the piano a lot and I always loved Mozart’s Fantasia in D Minor - I was fascinated because the structure of it is really crazy!” Rosie explains. “I discovered that a fantasia is a piece of musical composition that breaks all the rules.

“I love fantasia’s that take you on flights of fantasy. The most famous is Disney’s Fantasia film but a fantasia generally is a chance to play and explore.

Also, the word is just magical – we’re not in a ‘fantasia’ world at the moment. If we stop in rehearsals to talk about the news of the day we have to stop and remind ourselves we really want to be looking at truth and beauty!”

Rosie was born in Scotland and trained at London Contemporary Dance School. And she has taken on some difficult subjects to explore through dance. Over the past decade Rosie has created and toured a trio of works all looking at the human body and how it is affected by external forces. In 2010 she created 5 SOLDIERS: The Body is the Frontline which examined war and the body, and which earlier this year was expanded into the larger production 10 SOLDIERS. In 2012 she choreographed There is Hope which looked at the body and religion, and last year she toured MK ULTRA which focused on the body and politics.

For Rosie, Fantasia is a breath of fresh air after tackling such weighty subjects.

“These have all been really big narrative pieces and, as a choreographer, after creating these works, I need to not make work about ‘stuff’,” she says. “I need to come back to my craft and why I’m a choreographer and not a director. It’s like a physical need in me to make a piece which is just about dance.

“That’s the start point for Fantasia - I really wanted to make really complex dance material.

A Fantasia for the 21st CenturyA Fantasia for the 21st CenturyBy Diane Parkes

And then it’s a question of ‘what is that about?’ which led me to Fantasia.”

That’s not to say that Fantasia isn’t also packed full of ideas. Rosie has been busy researching sources as diverse as philosophy, composition and art through to neuroscience and theories of modern beauty - then bringing them together into the work.

“We’ve been looking at John Berger’s book Ways of Seeing from the 1970s and how we bring our own perspectives when we look at art. For female dancers, who use their own bodies in their art form, this has been revelatory. We’ve also been talking about the Baroque artist Artemisia Gentileschi. She was a contemporary of Caravaggio and her work is just as beautiful as Caravaggio’s but from a female perspective.

“Her father was a painter who trained her to paint and his assistant raped her when she was a teenager. She took the man to court but she ended up getting tortured to see if she was telling the truth or not – despite the fact the crime was done to her!

“So in the piece we are finding moments where we can be a picture of beauty but we’re also looking at what’s really going on behind that picture. There is the Baroque beauty but there’s also anger and sentiment and pain and inner monsters - and then back to beauty again.”

Rosie has long been fascinated by the links between our minds and bodies and has worked with neuroscientists to test how people respond to dance emotionally.

“I was part of a big research project in 2009 which was trying to discover whether you have an empathetic connection with the dancer when you watch dance. I choreographed a piece which was then tested with detailed verbal feedback and also with brain scanners.

“The same three-minute dance was danced to Bach, just to breath and to more modern techno music. The research showed humans have a

strong reaction to dance to classical music, but we also have a strong reaction to the dance just with the breath – it seemed to fire up a part of the brain which was the body-to-body response.

“So when people say they respond to dance such as 5 SOLDIERS from the gut, they really do – it’s an empathetic response to what they are seeing.”

All of these ideas and the music of composers from Vivaldi to techno have helped Rosie create Fantasia. But although the context is rich, Rosie is clear that audiences will respond to the piece even if they know nothing beyond its name.

“The dance, the performance and the performers will speak for themselves,” she says. “You could just come in and watch the whole thing and it doesn’t matter whether any of this research is in your mind. A lot of it doesn’t matter for the audience – it’s for us, as creators and performers, so we know what we are playing with. The audience doesn’t need to know it - but they should feel it.

“There should be an emotional journey, it should have peaks and troughs and climaxes and quiet valleys. I want people to feel really emotional but also to laugh and find it funny but by the end of an hour it should be like they hear the world and look at the world anew.

“In some ways it’s quite a traditional piece of dance, it’s even got tutus, but it also breaks all the rules so it surprises us. I’ve gone off in my own direction – this piece gives me the liberty to challenge myself as much as possible.”

“It’s like a cornucopia of so much dancing – everyone will be filled to the brim. I don’t think I’ve ever made a piece with so much non-stop technical dancing and yet it’s in this beautiful baroque world – it’s a real Fantasia.”

SHANELLE CLEMENSONShanelle started her professional training at Wolverhampton University where she graduated and gained a BA Hons in Dance Practise and Performance in 2009. Since graduating, Shanelle has worked with companies such as Uchenna Dance, Protein Dance and Ace Dance and Music and in 2015 she earned a place with international dance company RichFam, founded by Rob Rich and based in Los Angeles (California).

Shanelle first worked with Rosie Kay in The Machine Show as part of the International Dance Festival Birmingham in 2016. Shanelle has since continued to work with the company participating in the first performance of MODERN WARRIOR and toured with MK ULTRA in 2017 and 2018. Shanelle was a dance leader for the Commonwealth Games Handover Ceremony in 2018 and was Rehearsal Director for 10 SOLDIERS.

THE CASTTHE CAST

CARINA HOWARDCarina trained at Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance where she graduated with a first class (Hons) degree. Following this, she completed a master’s at Northern School of Contemporary Dance with Distinction.

Carina joined Rosie Kay Dance Company in 2018, touring in their production of MK ULTRA. Carina is also a company dancer with Mark Bruce Company, having toured in their production of Macbeth in 2018 and rehearsing with the company for their next project. Other choreographers that Carina has worked with include Gemma Payne, Mark

Baldwin, Didi Veldman and Jenna Lee. In her spare time, Carina also enjoys working at Ascot Rehab as a Creative Movement Therapist for patients with Parkinson’s disease.

HARRIET ELLISHarriet Ellis trained at Bird College and graduated in 2016 with a BA (Hons) in Professional Dance and Musical Theatre receiving the ‘Best Contemporary Female’ Award. Harriet joined Rosie Kay Dance Company in 2017 and has performed in MK ULTRA (2017 & 2018), 5 SOLDIERS (2017 & 2019), MODERN WARRIOR and

10 SOLDIERS as well as working with Rosie on research and development for new work. Harriet was also a dance leader and performer for the Commonwealth Games Handover Ceremony 2018.

Additionally, she has also worked with Keneish Dance Company, performing in “High I’m” and Balbir Singh Dance Company, dancing in ‘The Creative Spirit of John Curry’ and ‘The Boy with the Rollerblades’. Harriet was also tipped by dance critic, Luke Jennings, as one of the ’18 for ’18 talents tipped for the top in 2018’ in The Observer.

Music Composed by Annie Mahtani including these featured tracks:

PART ONEVivaldi; Concerto No. 2 g-moll RV 578: I Adagio e

Spiccato

Purcell; Music For a While

Vivadi; Concerto for strings in G major, RV 151 “Alla Rustica”: II Adagio

Vivaldi; Cantate “Cessate, Omai Cessate”, RV 684:II Ah Ch’infelice Sempre

Kurtág; Glocken (Hommage À Strawinsky)

Beethoven; Sonata No. 14 “Moonlight” in C-Sharp Minor, Op.27, No. 2: I Adagio

Vivaldi; Concerto No. 2 g-moll RV 578: II Allegro

Bach; Partita # 6 In E Minor, BWV 830: IV Air Bach

PART TWOKurtág; Zorniger Choral

Bach; Missa in G Minor, BWV 235: II. Gloria

Bach; Concerto In D Minor, BWV 974: Adagio

Telemann, Suite In A Minor, TWV55: II. Les Plaisirs

Giovanni-Battista Agneletti, Gloria

Kurtág, Hommage À Kurtág Márta

PART THREE

Vaughan Williams; Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis

Vivaldi, Concerto Grosso in G Minor, RV 156: I. Adagio; III: Allegro

Bach, Partita # 6 In E Minor, BWV 830: VII Gigue

Download a free podcast exploring the music of Rosie Kay’s Fantasia at rosiekay.co.uk/fantasia

JAMES PRESTONPRODUCERJames trained in Drama and Theatre Arts (specialising in Directing) at Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh where he began his career as a theatre producer with shows at The Bush Theatre and The Traverse Theatre.

In 2006 he went to work at Dance Base, Scotland’s National Centre for Dance, where he met Rosie who was performing during the Fringe festival. During his seven years at Dance Base, James was involved in most areas of the organisation, leaving his post of Communications and Development Director in 2013. James went on to be National Project Manager for the Get Scotland Dancing initiative, a part of the Legacy and Culture 2014 programme as part of Glasgow’s 2014 Commonwealth Games.

James joined the board of Rosie Kay Dance Company in 2011 and has worked with Rosie since 2014 producing 5 SOLDIERS (2015 England & Wales, 2016 Scotland, 2017 national tour, 2019 international tour), Double Points: K & Motel, MK ULTRA (2017 & 2018), MODERN WARRIOR and 10 SOLDIERS.

LOUIS PRICECOSTUME DESIGNERLouis graduated from Central St Martin’s School of Art. Recent designs include: The Emperor (Young Vic/ TFNA New York), What Shadows (Birmingham Rep/Lyceum Edinburgh), Stravinsky: Tales (Philarmonia), MK ULTRA, 5 SOLDIERS, 10 SOLDIERS (RKDC) The Etienne Sisters (Theatre Royal Stratford), The Funfair (Home, Manchester), L’Enfant Et Les Sortileges (Philarmonia), Bright Phoenix (Liverpool Everyman), Orango (BBC Proms/ RFH/Helsinki Festival/ Baltic Sea Festival Stockholm), Unleashed (Barbican Theatre), Sluts of Possession (Edinburgh Fringe), There Is Hope, Amphytrion (Schauspielhaus Graz), The Rotters Club/To Sir With Love, (Birmingham Rep), The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (Liverpool Playhouse). For independent film company November Films, he has directed the documentary Beyond Biba – A Portrait of Barbara Hulanicki (SkyArts/ Sundance Channel). He is in post-production with the documentary Black Country (rough cut screened at Sheffield Doc Fest), and is developing A Very British Cult (BBC/November Films). Other film work includes: As Editor – Best (Sundance Film Festival) directed by William Oldroyd, and as director John Davies - I Call myself a Haunted House (Screened at Turner Contemporary, Margate).

THE CREATIVE TEAMTHE CREATIVE TEAM

ROSIE KAYDIRECTOR & CHOREOGRAPHER

Rosie Kay (BA Hons) FRSA, MCR St Cross College, Oxford, born in Scotland, danced from a very early age, then trained at London Contemporary Dance School, graduating in 1998, before a career as a dancer in Poland, France, Germany and the USA. Kay returned to the UK in 2003 and set up Rosie Kay Dance Company in Birmingham in 2004.

Kay’s works include the multi-award-winning work 5 SOLDIERS- The Body is the Frontline (2010- present) based on intense research with the British Army and screened live online by BBC Arts, touring the USA and Denmark 2019, UK and USA 2020, and the large-scale development of the work, 10 SOLDIERS (2019). Other works include MK ULTRA (2017/18) a work about conspiracy theory and pop made with BBC film-maker Adam Curtis, Motel (2016), a collaboration with visual artists Huntley Muir, Sluts of Possession (2013) created with rare archive material from the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, There is Hope (2012) exploring religion, Double Points: K (2008) a collaboration with Emio Greco| PC and Asylum (2005) based on research with asylum seekers. Kay recently choreographed the live BBC Commonwealth Games Handover Ceremony (2018), watched by over 1 billion people worldwide and has worked in film as the choreographer to the feature film Sunshine on Leith (2013). Outdoor works include Modern Warrior (2017), The Great Train Dance (2011) and Ballet on the Buses (2007) made with Birmingham Royal Ballet.

Kay was the first choreographer appointed Leverhulme Artist in Residence at the School of Anthropology, University of Oxford (2013). Awards for her work include Best Independent Company (2015) and nominated for Best Choreography for 5 SOLDIERS (2015), National Dance Awards and nominated for Best Independent Company 2012 and 2017, a Royal Society for Public Health Award for support to military communities, and the Bonnie Bird New Choreography Award. Kay has a five-year old son and lives in Birmingham with her film-maker husband.

ANNIE MAHTANICOMPOSERAnnie is an electroacoustic composer, sound artist and performer working and living in Birmingham. She studied with Jonty Harrison at master’s and doctoral level at the University of Birmingham, completing her PhD in 2008. Her output encompasses electronic music composition from acousmatic music to free improvisation. As a collaborator, Annie has worked extensively with dance and theatre, and on site-specific installations. Her music has been recognized and performed in concerts and festivals internationally. She has received a number of notable commissions including those from Birmingham Contemporary Music Group (Re-Sounding Yardley, 2018), Jazzlines & PRS Women in Music (Interleave, 2012), Birmingham Repertory Theatre (Baby Daddy, 2017), Birmingham Hippodrome (Minimum Monument, 2014) and Rosie Kay Dance Company (10 SOLDIERS, 2019; MK ULTRA, 2016; There Is Hope, 2012; 5 Soldiers, 2010). Annie is a Senior Lecturer in Music at the University of Birmingham. She is co-director of SOUNDkitchen, a Birmingham-based collective of curators, producers and performers of live electronic music and sound art. She has been a member of a number of boards and panels and is currently a committee member for the British ElectroAcoustic Network (BEAN), and Chair of the British Section of the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM). Annie’s music is published by Emprientes DIGITALes, Montreal.

MIKE GUNNINGLIGHTING DESIGNER

Opera includes: The Magic Flute, The Marriage of Figaro, The Pirates of Penzance, St John’s Passion, Ernani, Il trovatore (ENO); Il trovatore (ROH); Macbeth, Albert Herring, Lucio Silla, Y Tor (Buxton Festival); La traviata (Wiener Festwochen); Dido and Aeneas (Théâtre National de l’Opéra-Comique); Eugene Onegin, Don Giovanni (British Youth Opera, Peacock Theatre); Manon Lescaut, Fedora (Holland Park Opera).

Theatre includes: The Brothers Size (Young Vic/UK tour); The Emperor, Kafka’s Monkey (HOME Manchester/Theatre Royal Winchester/ Young Vic); Measure for Measure (RSC); Uncle Vanya, Inkheart, The Fun Fair, Romeo and Juliet (HOME Manchester); I Capture the Castle (Watford Palace Theatre); King Lear (Old Vic, as Associate Lighting Designer); Crime and Punishment (Moscow Musical Theatre); Rime of the Ancient Mariner (BAM); The Drowned Man (site specific for Punchdrunk/National Theatre); The Snow Queen (Rose Theatre Kingston); The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (Liverpool Everyman).

For Rosie Kay Dance Company: 5 SOLDIERS (2010 - 2019), MOTEL (2016) MK ULTRA (2017 & 2018) and 10 SOLDIERS (2019).

CHRIS HEIGHAMTECHNICAL STAGE MANAGER

Chris studied Music Technology at Leeds Metropolitan University. He returned to Bristol to try his hand at working in radio and tv edit suites before settling on live sound and technical theatre. Chris moved to London and after some questionable gigs, spent the next three years at the Southbank Centre. He recently spent two years in Vancouver as head carpenter in a presenting house on the east side of the city, but has since returned to make Bristol home again.

SASHA KEIRCOSTUMIER

Sasha began her career in student theatre in Edinburgh and then worked at Covent Garden for three years before setting up in her freelance capacity. Her early career was mainly in opera and dance, particularly contemporary dance working with Rambert, Siobhan Davies and many others.

A large part of her business is now musical theatre, but her first love is still dance. She is also a Steward of The Worshipful Company of Basketmakers in the City of London and a keen narrowboater with St Pancras Cruising Club.

Rosie Kay Dance Company (RKDC) creates brave new dance in Birmingham (UK) that tours to audiences at home and abroad. We thrill and move a diverse public with relevant, important, political and meaningful dance responding to contemporary society.

Recent works include MK ULTRA, exploring pop-culture conspiracy theory and 5 SOLDIERS and 10 SOLDIERS, two extraordinary portraits of army life exploring how the human body – with both fragility and incredible inner strength – remains on the frontline of war. 5 SOLDIERS and 10 SOLDIERS are presented in association with the British Army.

We engage participants from the hardest to reach parts of society and treat them as future professionals.

We believe that watching or participating in dance has the power to transform hearts and minds. RKDC has a reputation for making bold, original and exciting works that challenge perceptions and take on innovative subjects.

Highly physical, with astute performances and intense athleticism, we make works that excite audiences with a visceral experience they feel in their bodies and minds.

We aim to connect with our audience and are interested in building new audiences and attracting people who may have never seen first-rate contemporary dance before. We make a dynamic range of shows, always exploring in exciting ways what dance can be and how dance can be presented.

RKDC won ‘Best Independent Company’ at the 2015 Critics’ Circle National Dance Awards, is a National Portfolio Organisation of Arts Council England and Associate Company of Birmingham Hippodrome.

Rosie Kay was also choreographer to the 2018 Commonwealth Games Handover Ceremony broadcast to more than one billion people worldwide.

Brave new dance that thrills and

moves people

MK ULTRA 10 SOLDIERS

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10 SOLDIERS

“Rosie Kay’s vivid, enthralling, authentic look at life in the military is not to be missed.” SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER

★★★★★ THE INDEPENDENT

★★★★★ THE SCOTSMAN

★★★★★ THE OBSERVER

★★★★★ THE HERALD

WATCH FOR FREE AT 5soldiers.co.uk

THE

FUTURE-PROOFARTIST

Download a free series of podcasts and get closer to Rosie Kay as she talks with key figures involved in the creation of her works. Presented and produced by Simon Preston.

♦ Journalist/filmmaker Mars El-Brogy ♦ Artist/writer & former soldier Harry Parker ♦ BBC journalist & filmmaker Adam Curtis ♦ Electro-acoustic composer Annie Mahtani ♦ Dance dramaturg Ben Payne

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Making new art relies on your supportI really hope you have enjoyed experiencing my Fantasia tonight and that you left the theatre uplifted and inspired by the unique experience of watching live performance.

Each new work seen in a theatre is the result of years of field and academic research and development time in the studio. Fantasia has taken two years to create and wouldn’t have been possible without the support of funders, partners, my patrons and donors.

As a small registered charity we want to take our art to more people and we believe in the importance of touring accross the whole of the UK, not just to the big cities. I also want to keep creating new works of art that speak to audiences about the world today. Art plays a crucial role in helping us understand ourselves and each other and it continues to become ever more important in our troubled world.

I’d like to appeal to anyone who believes this too and ask you to donate to support my future work. This can be a one-off amount or a regular donation of any amount or maybe you would consider becoming one of my Patrons.

Thank you in advance for your support.

Support new art today atrosiekay.co.uk/support-rkdc

Sign up for e-mail updates and discover free digital video and audio content at

rosiekay.co.uk@rosiekaydanceco

Rosie Kay Dance Company Ltd. Registered in England no. 09877161 Registered Charity no. 1170998

Rosie Kay, Artistic Director