An Exhibition

12°North is a dance company, funded byArts Council England and specificallydesigned for North West dance graduates.The company is based at Edge HillUniversity and managed by KarenJaundrill-Scott, Debbie Milner, GilGraystone Wilson and Georgio de Carolis.A dance company with a distinctdifference, the aim is to provide emergingdance artists with a holistic experience ofperformance, creation, guidededucational work and business skills.Unique in its intentions, the companyprovides a two year, tailor-made, trainingopportunity for up to 12 graduates in thefour following strands: performance;choreography; teaching and learning; andbusiness and entrepreneurial skills.

High profile choreographers arecommissioned to work with the company,and during 2013-14 both Lea Andersonand James Wilton created pieces whichwere performed at the Lowry; the GrandTheatre, Blackpool; The Nuffield, Live atLICA; Brewery Arts Centre, Kendal; andthe University of York St John. Thecompany develops and strengthenspartnerships, supported by a steeringgroup comprising the regional danceagencies, dance organisations and HigherEducation Institutions, with the intentionof furthering opportunities for links and networks across the North West and beyond.

DancersLouise GibbonsDanielle GoodfellowEmma HayesHelen McCarronBen ManuelAndre MillerRachel ParkerLauren Tucker

Apprentice Dancer: Adam Roberts

12°North

An Exhibition

Renzekete Bee ZeeChoreographed by Lea Anderson

This dance is a visual translation of KurtSchwitters’s sound poem. The choreographyfollowed the structure of the form, theshape of the sounds, and responded to thetone of his voice. The sculptures worn bythe performers were replicas of one ofSchwitters’s own works, but here theywere rendered in silks and velvet.

Soundtrack: Ursonate (Einleitung und Erster teil:Rondo) by Kurt SchwittersPerformed by Kurt Schwitters

Lighting Design: Murray Smoker

Costume Design: Tim Spooner

Rehearsal Directors: Giorgio De Carolis, Debbie Milner

Lucid Choreographed by James Wilton with the dancers

Lucid was commissioned by Edge HillUniversity for 12°North. James workedwith the dancers over 10 days to createLucid which explores the mind and theinfinite complexity of the brain. The workchallenges its performers to make themost of their brains through highlydetailed and physical movement.

Assistant Choreographer: Sarah Taylor

Music: Gazpacho

Lighting Design: Murray Smoker

Costume Design: Susan Burton

Rehearsal Directors: Giorgio De Carolis, Debbie Milner

12°North

An Exhibition

ClassStudio 3, The Lowry, Salford Quays

Led by rehearsal directors Debbie Milnerand Georgio de Carolis, the class wasdesigned in preparation for an eveningperformance and focused uponstrengthening and the articulation ofmovement through travelling. This workcreated a sense of ensemble as dancersconsidered aspects such as balance,alignment, positioning and the bodyin space.

RehearsalQuays Theatre, The Lowry;The Grand Theatre, Blackpool

Following an initial warm up, spacing and technical runs take place, to helpdancers locate a set piece within a newphysical context, and to assist technicalstaff with the focusing and programmingof equipment. This is not performancebut it is an integral part of being aprofessional performer.

ImagesClass-Rehearsal-Performance: photography by Helen Newall

Photographs of performance,representing as they do, fractions of asecond in a longer live event, edit the flow of an ongoing timeline in liveperformance distilling a full length pieceinto fractured moments. These fragmentsare sometimes the only documentationwe have of a live event which is finished.Any subsequent viewer must thenconstrue what might have been danced inthe time spaces between each image. Inthis sense, photography can never trulydocument the live event since a viewerwill in all likelihood extrapolate out tomake a performance which did notactually happen. Looking at a long pastdance performance via photography istherefore like watching by lightning.

And performance photographs, ascommentators such as Auslander and Sontag have noted, become notrepresentative of the work, but works ofart in their own right. The photographerhas choreographed via the framing andcropping and editing process. Nevertheless,there is information in each image. Anddifferent agencies select images dependingon the function to which they put a chosenimage. A marketing image will be differentfrom the one selected by a dancer for aportfolio. These images will mean differentthings to each viewer. The accompanyingfilm details how the subjects of the imageperceive themselves in the photographs.For the viewer who has not seen the danceperformances they are glimpses, bylightning, of ephemeral performanceswhich may or may not offer a sense of whatthe original live performance was like.

12°North

An Exhibition

PerformanceQuays Theatre, The Lowry

The company toured various venuesproviding dancers with the opportunity toexperience differing performance settingsranging from middle scale modernvenues, to old theatres which are a grandspectacle in themselves. This is experienceof life on the road which is a large part ofa professional dancer’s career.

FilmDo you see what I see? Film by Karen Jaundrill-Scott

Can images support the emerging dancerto self-reflect? This documentary followssix artists as they respond to a series ofimages captured by Dr Helen Newallduring working processes and insignificant moments of contemplation.The ACE funded 12°North Companyexists to strengthen dance provision inthe North West, supported by a culture ofcollaborative working alongside regionalpartners, to maximise existing andemerging opportunities. Engagingnational choreographers and keypractitioners enhances employability byrecognising a hybrid diversity of dance(Hall, 2007), and advocating anentrepreneurial approach in preparationfor employment (Burns, 2007).

In Mapping Dance, Burns suggests thatan emphasis on self-management, careermanagement and market placement isessential for a successful career within thedance world. Project Director KarenJaundrill-Scott directs the film as thedancers self-reflect upon their technicaldevelopment and key skills which revealtheir current understanding, efficacy, beliefs and metacognition during theirfirst year of professional training. Karenexplores the notion of documentary as aresearch tool to measure the effectivenessof the project and the power ofstorytelling (Nicholls, 2002). Sheexplores the basic question of whose storythis is. Is it the filmmaker’s in empoweringrealisation and change within thesubjects? Or the subjects of change havingan embedded presence in the regionaldance ecology to inform both pedagogyand practice? Within the narrative, thedancers frame ideas of self-perception inrelation to a series of research questions,which measure artistic growth in relationto employability. As the dialogueprogresses, dancers acknowledge that thisis very much the beginning of theirpersonal journey and begin to view theimages through the eyes of potentialemployers by selecting photographswhich maximise their versatility andemployment potential.

This footage creates a window fordiscussion for practitioners in HigherEducation to consider the role ofuniversities in creating a learningenvironment which is consistent indeveloping arts professionals.

12°North

An Exhibition

BiographiesKaren Jaundrill-Scott

is the Director of External Affairs andEmployability in Performing Arts at EdgeHill University. Her research intoundergraduate employability and theemerging artist has developed her work inthis field nationally as part of many ArtsCouncil initiatives. She was leadconsultant in the ACE consultancyresearch Towards a Graduate Company(2009) written with Lisa Cullen(University of Salford) and presently theProject Director of 12°North. Karen hasexcelled in the area of Dance in Educationand Community Arts over a period ofthree decades, both in post as an advisoryteacher/arts practitioner, and as anadvocate for professional development inthe North West.

She began working as an Arts Officeracross the region before moving toMunich, Germany to become DanceDevelopment Officer at the Gasteig ArtsCentre, and also the Artistic Director ofDance Companie Huber. Karen returnedto undertake a consultancy as a sitespecific choreographer for Granada TV’sCelebration Arts Programme beforebecoming Artistic Director of Dance inEducation undertaking commissions forthe Everyman Theatre, Royal ExchangeTheatre, the Bolton Octagon and theDonmar Warehouse. At Edge HillUniversity Karen leads the Applied Dancestrand in a range of education andcommunity settings. She has a researchinterest in heritage and multigenerationalre-enactment. More recently Karen hasreceived funding from the HeritageLottery Fund to complete fivepublications with community events inlocal landmarks.

12°North

An Exhibition

BiographiesDr Helen Newall

is a Reader in Performing Arts at EdgeHill University, and a professionalplaywright, photographer and digitalvisual artist. As a playwright her workincludes: The Spring Stone, an operaperformed in Chester Cathedral;Alastair’s Cat, the Millennium Dome;Light of the World: New Mystery Plays,JC 2000 Millennium Project; new librettofor The Young Person’s Guide to theOrchestra, Carl Davis, The RoyalLiverpool Philharmonic Orchestra; AThousand and One Nights, The IcarusGame, The Glastonbury Tales, CheshireYouth Theatre; Big Nose, Beowulf,Frankenstein, The Chester GatewayTheatre; Remote Control, HTV-WestTelevision Workshop; Dumisani’s Drum,Action Transport Theatre Company; TheGreat Gromboolian Plain, HampshireCounty Youth Theatre; Anthem forDoomed Youth, Grimms’ Tales, Shoah,Another Sun, The Nuffield Theatre,Southampton.

Special thanks toDebbie Milner, Angharad Harrop,Sal Bower, Joan Steele and Roy Bayfield.

She is currently the Writer-in-Residencewith TiQ Theatre Company writing SweetSixteen; Silent Night; Home ForChristmas; James; Forgotten Fortress;and A Jacobean Christmas,commissioned by Hampton Court Palacefor the 400th anniversary of the KingJames Bible. She also makes digitalimagery, scenography and experimentalnarratives for projection andperformance, including: stills for 4DCreative (4dcreative.co.uk), Orpheus(2008), The Book of the Dead (2009) atEdge Hill University; A View from theHill, The Brindley Arts Centre, Runcorn(2009); Sounds & Visions (2010) shownin Munich; and performance projectionfor Glossolalia’s Illumination, TiQ’sChester production of A Christmas Carolin 2012; and The Snow Queen in 2013.Visual installation work includes, TheGhost of Someone Not Yet Drowned,(2011), The Victoria Baths, Manchester;The Secret Light Garden, Picton Castle,Pembrokeshire (2010 and 2011).

12°North

An Exhibition

Bibliography

Auslander, P. (2006) The Performativity of Performance Documentation, PAJ: A Journal on Performance and Art, Sep2006, Vol. 28 Issue 84, p1-10.

Burns, S. (2007) Mapping Dancehttps://www.heacademy.ac.uk/sites/default/files/Mapping-Dance.pdf

Hall , T. (2007) A Report to Government on Dance Education and Youth Dance in Englandby Tony Hall http://dera.ioe.ac.uk/7463/1/dcsf-00908-2007.pdf

Nicholls, B. (2002) Introduction to Documentary, Indiana University Press.

Sontag, S. (1978) On Photography, London: Allen Lane

12degreesnorth.org.uk