Making Connections is a monthly free drop in event for Swindon and Southwest creatives that offers a held space for arts professionals and community artists to be together. Each session will have a practical component (2-hour workshop led by a guest artist), which will be followed by a networking/informal meet facilitated by the Making Connections team. The Making Connections team are Adrienne Hart (Artistic Director, Neon Dance) and Sarah Ferris (Swindon based dance artist and teacher).
“Adrienne and I spoke about a desire for a space to improvise, be creative with others, to bring regional based creatives together for personal and professional development, to feel embedded within a community and to be inspired.”
Where: Swindon Dance
When: Fourth Friday of the month 1.30pm - 4.30pm from January to March 2025. See our Neon Dance Events page for more details.
Confirmed guest facilitators include: Theo Clinkard, Seke Chimutengwende and Marie-Louise Flexen.
In this session, Seke Chimutengwende will lead a 2-hour improvisation workshop focused on movement and text and this will be followed by a networking/informal meet facilitated by the Making Connections team.
“We will work alone, in pairs and as a group, practising moving and using our voices together. Through guided explorations games and scores, we will explore different ways of generating material and relating that material to others. We will develop the skills of listening, noticing and responding.
There will be the opportunity to watch each other in our explorations. Seke Chimutengwende brings all his experience and humour as a performer into this class. His teaching facilitates ease and confidence in performing and a joyful approach to improvising together.”
About Seke: Seke Chimutengwende is a choreographer and improviser working professionally in the UK and abroad for 20 years. His recent choreography, It begins in darkness explores haunting and colonial legacies and his new show, The Last Quartet, imagines a “last work” or “last attempt” at choreography inspired by T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets. Seke is also currently presenting Long Solos: 60 minute solo improvisation performances combining dance, poetry, stand-up, storytelling, philosophy and politics. As well as leading his own projects, Seke performs with Forced Entertainment having previously performed with companies such as DV8 Physical Theatre and Lost Dog. Seke has taught improvisation at LCDS, NSCD, The Rambert School, Trinity Laban, East 15 Acting School, P.A.R.T.S. and Independent Dance.
NB: we appreciate that it can be challenging to find a spare three hours each month and would therefore welcome anyone who can commit to the workshop but not the networking (or vice versa). It is our intention to work with and curate an offer for local creatives and we hope to grow and adapt this initiative with those who take part.
Please complete the form to register.
Be sure to let us know which Making Connections session/s you wish to attend.