RESEO Dance – Como “Movers & Shakers”

11 January, 2016

Our inspirational autumn conference in Como brought many innovations and one such innovation was RESEO’s commitment to promote and support member’s ‘Dance’ activities, with the creation of a RESEO Dance Coordinator. Teaching artist and RESEO member Clare Guss-West, whom many of you know, will work to consolidate our dance members with a particular focus on continuous professional development and cross-training and sharing between our performing art forms. RESEO boasts twenty member major Opera Ballet companies and focus will be placed on developing links and sharing across the membership of the valuable Dance education activities that each specializes in.

Como conference marked also the coming together of ‘Dance’ delegates and interested members in a Movers and Shakers brainstorming session. Round the table were:  Clare Guss-West, Isabel Joly, and Camille Pernelet of RESEO, Eirinn Sanchez from One Dance UK and The Nureyev Foundation, Beatrice Hammar of NorrlandsOperan, Anna-Mareike Vohn from Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Anu Ruusmaa of the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre, Tuula Jukola-Nuorteva of Finnish National Opera & Ballet, Lea Maestro and Matthieu Rietzler of La Maison de la Danse – Lyon, Petros Stergiopoulos of Ellinogermaniki Agogi, Lin van Ellinckhuijsen and Mechteld van Gestel of Het Nationale Opera & Ballet, Amsterdam, Aleksandar Saša Ilić of Belgrade Dance Institute, Teodora Sujic Ille of Stepart Danse Magazine, Lucy Perry from Glyndebourne Opera and Phil Castang of Bristol Music Trust. Thank you all for being there and for the lively exchanges!

A round of the table enabled us to grasp an overview of member ‘dance’ activities and priorities: There was a general consensus on the idea of ‘melting’ of skills and cross-arts training, as Petros reminded us “Music as a performance art = Dance” for him! Some members and participants such as Het Nationale, Finnish National, Glyndebourne and Bristol Music Trust were involved in or interested in the transformative aspects and wellbeing benefits of participatory dance and believe that Creative Wellness is an area of growing significance and expertise in the arts and is a ‘thread’ that RESEO, together with the Nureyev Foundation should most definitely continue to develop.

There was a call for RESEO to maintain a pool of freelance ‘dance educators’ profiles with skills, languages and geographical locations as so many members were in the position of needing to outsource specialist skills; this led to a discussion on the need to continually enrich teaching and for non-specialist, cross-arts Continuous Professional Development training for educators and participants La Maison de la Dance and members Het Nationale Ballet and Deutsch Oper am Rhein came forward to volunteer to host RESEO Dance related CPD activities in the next years and  as a final highlight, Spring 2017 RESEO Conference will be hosted by Belgrade Dance Institute, so we’ll be featuring plenty of participatory opportunities to enrich teaching practice skills.

2016 – Fabulous news that the Rudolf Nureyev Foundation Medical Website will extend the Dance & Well Being ‘Dance is my Life’ workshop series for RESEO members for another full year! Thank you. Join with member colleagues: The Finnish National Ballet, The Royal Ballet, Ballet de l’Opéra national du Rhin, OperaOpéra de Rouen Normandie, Aleksandar Saša Ilić Belgrade Dance Institute, Anu Ruusmaa at The Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre.

Book your 2016 workshops now !