Greetings from Los Angeles.

I ended the last voice note on my way to sweet spot sundaze, I believe, and what a sesh. Really well attended, which is not a measure of a good time but, as I think I’ve mentioned, tricky stuff surrounding attendance at the moment and sustainability of some of my offerings, and it was really affirming to have folks in the room and uh, specifically the folks that were in the space, like some were at the very first sessions back in 2021. Um, a couple of new people who, whose feedback was just spot on as far as my intentions for the thing, so it was really nice. I’m still in a little bit of a pickle about it because, like, I’ve got 3 people signed up for next Sunday, but as I spoke to the last lot about, I think there were 12 people there and 8 of them had signed out, signed up in the 2 day run-up. And we had a little chat about it. I just took advantage of having them there to ask, like, what would, is there anything that could make them sign up any sooner? Is there anything that stops them doing s? Just general feedback around the structure of it, which was really helpful. Someone just said ‘oh, I’ll just sign up sooner, I didn’t know’. Um to which I’m like ‘what do you mean? Like, duh’ but that’s me with my perspective of, uh, praying and hoping that people will show and that’s, you know, not their reality. So why would they think of that?

Interestingly, when you teach open choreo classes, you don’t know until you walk in the building, like who’s going to be there and there still are costs to bear but I don’t, or I do organise those because I get the date sorted and stuff, but it’s just, it’s different. I think being so ingrained in that open class context for like 15 years, I almost just don’t really consider it in the same way. Also, the debt is like half. Like the cost to cover is not the same. Um, and I also as a result of doing it for 15 years, I’m, and this isn’t, uh, an irrational or not humble way of thinking, but I don’t worry about having less than five people in my open classes. Um, as a thing. Oh, I’m not in the right lane at all. And now I’m in the right lane. Um, so yeah, that was affirming and informative and very grateful for the community’s honesty.

Uh, and then had a meeting with sweet Annie, Producer at ZooNation around the next, the plans for The Artists, which is the professional development programme, the paid version, uh, collaboration between iii and ZooNation. Which was great. I think I have done a bad thing. I think the bad thing that I’ve done is try to record this whilst... navigating my way through fucking Los Angeles. But I’m here now inni. Always believe in yourself lads, I was going the right way. Um, Yeah, which is really interesting. I mention it mostly just to say some words around, sorry for the indicator sound, Um, some things around professional development programmes. Um, the initial desire for The Artists was paying for their time so that they can actually invest in the thing, um, placing value on creativity and process, like in the moment. I don’t know how to turn on these windscreen wipers. Are you enjoying this journey? They’re probably automatic. My car is like 2012, 14, something like that. So none of this auto stuff is, no, that’s not true. Let me not do my car dirty like that. The windscreen wipers are automatic. Anyway, placing value on process. Not needing to have an outcome at the end so that you can focus on play because, um, when there is a sharing, which sometimes will have quite high stakes, and like people that you’d want to see your work at its best in the room. Uh, or paying audience sometimes, I think a sense of play and exploration can go in the.. out of the window uh, in favour of a polished piece. So The Artists initially sought to solve/investigate some of those things.

And the next, the add-on to that now is continued professional development. I think there are a lot of really, really good schemes that don’t keep up with the folks that they support necessarily in favour of helping more people, and I’m being a little bit uh, reductive in saying this. I think it’s more beneficial to the industry to.. That’s interesting. I think it’s better for the industry to support a few people lots than lots of people a little bit. That needs context for me to be able to stand by it fully. I think, in terms of makers getting them to a place where they can then get organisational, venue support, production support, that is where I mean that, rather than like, ‘here’s a studio for a week. Okay, bye.’ It’s like, that was a nice playtime, but I’m no closer to getting access to the things I’m going to need. The reason I was like, interesting when I said it, is that I’ve had a bit of a bugbear around Associates and Residents at places where I’m like, ‘so are they just there till they die?’ But why just them? Forever? Like, widen the pool or, like, have a bit of a changeover? And so it felt a bit contradictory for me to say a few people for longer than lots of people for short snippets of support.

I’m not an expert here guys. These are just my.. these just be mys opinions, you know? So yeah, we’re talking about what’s next. Um, I’m very, very keen to do a residential version of any of the things that I, uh, produce and facilitate. I think that we dig, we really dig into the shit and I think we’ll be able to do that and hold that more tightly if we’re not having to run off. Um, though I also see the benefits of slicing through the day with a bit of life and just other activity.

Um, and then I had an away day with Body Politic, the board that I’m a Trustee, on, for, of. A really productive, informative day that plays into a lot of things for me. So I had some contact with a board when I worked with ZooNation and a board.. I’m not sure of the company structure needed, or that, uh, means that a board is necessary. But a board exists to hold a company accountable to the things that they say they’re going to do, and that the money is going, where they say it will, and that it’s all going to be able to sustain itself etc etc. And also in some cases, and I think this is why I’m on this board, um, to, uh, help steer, advise on the, uh, trajectory of the company.

It was facilitated by Sri Sarker who.. she supports Far From The Norm, she works with EmJ, who runs Body Politic quite closely. She was Executive Director of ZooNation and that’s how I know her and she’s just... pardon my millennial vernacular.. the bomb dot com. So we were talking about like ourselves a little bit and what I found really, really cool, just some questions around like how we work. Like what we need to be our best selves at work. Things to watch out for when you’re working, with each of us, and I’ve just never really thought about those things, and I work on my own so much, like it’s just not really a consideration a lot of the time. So I really enjoyed that school of thought.

Um, and then we got into the company. Like what the company is doing, what EmJ wants to do with it. Here we are, I was very confused about where I was. Um, which was great, and I won’t go into any more detail about that because that’s EmJ and Body Politic’s business. Um, but I really enjoy showing up in these.. for myself and for whoever it is that I’m there for.. in these different contexts and having to think in different ways and offer.. shift perspective for myself, but also offer different perspectives to a room. And what I did find interesting in this is that this is my first time on a board and there’s lots of ways that boards work that I don’t know or understand, and I thought that that would have me on the back foot, but what I do have is knowledge of Body Politic as a company pretty much from its inception and just the wider landscape that it’s in, and it felt like that gave me... That actually gave me an advantage, not that it.. not to measure myself against the others, but just in terms of my experience on the day, I thought I was going to be on the back foot and it actually felt like I was firing on all cylinders because of what I do know as opposed to what I don’t, which was great.

Um, and then there’s just some stuff around leadership that I’m really interested in, so it was cool to witness someone leading a company and like what it takes to do so on like that level because iii, it’s not a registered company. I don’t even have a separate but no, I do have a separate bank account for it. But I, it doesn’t have a company structure, it’s just me doing shit. Just me doing the things. So interesting to see and to start to, which wasn’t too necessary.. No, well, I guess, like I’m speaking to people that don’t know me, so I kind of get to introduce me and my practice on whatever angle that I want and I’m increasingly interested in positioning myself as a leader and not just for my community, but for the industry and dance culture in this country and arguably beyond. And I think that I’ve had, I have really well-rounded experience as maker and producer, um, and curator, consultant vibes. Um, and I think I can measure that impact and I’ve never really thought about it because I’m just doing it, but now that I’m considering where I might want to be in some years’ time, and that’s just, that’s to have a job. I want a job. I want a salary. I want a desk. I want a chair. I want a time to start. I want a time to finish. And I want a team. So I have to consider how to communicate what I do and have done in order to get that job further down the line. So that was a really cool thing.

And now I’m in Los Angeles and I’m sat outside my mate’s house and I need to relieve her of the three week old child that she has so that she can nap. So I’m going to stop speaking. And I’ll be back soon to speak about my time here. I love this place so much for reasons that I’ll get into then.

Have wonderful days and I’ll speak to you soon.

This one slapped flying down them freeways. Driving in LA retains its novelty but boi, can you tell they just did a couple of laps round a car park before being let loose legally in perpetuity.

They are self led, though they are really led by us all. They are camera free, ‘cos somewhere’s gotta be. Music starts low and at a higher tempo, gets louder as the chatter dies down then we’re riding that consciously curated wave. It’s a time every time.

We take summer off because the sun be shinin’ and I, if not all of us, need to frolic in that (hopeful) heat. That said, autumn sessions are my favourite. The sun setting on us as the hours roll by is really something. The dates will drop here first.

1. a nug of pride witnessing my people take advantage of the access they have to their bodies.

2. goosebumps as someone goes from observing to taking the floor.
   

3. [ ] chose to spend her birthday here.

4. [ ] said she wasn’t a dancer. she was dancing.
   

5. it’s durational (non) performance, if it has to be labelled to be understood.
   

6. ends of rounds are one of my favourite things. or the space in between.
   

7. some of the best dancers come through and move alongside those that don’t consider themselves dancers at all. it’s a non-hierarchical thing.
   

8. the ambient tracks in and amongst are new. a palate cleanse I think works well.
   

9. some songs just do things, don’t they?1
   

10. if nothing else, and it is so so something, it’s a lovely listening party.

11. someone came for the last 30 minutes. got changed, had a little stretch and got right to it.

    ---

Hi team. So, the week was.. I was home. So, um, not too much physical activity to report, but the biggie is that we had the first draw for a sick lickle ting, which now that I’ve brought us up to date, tiiiny humble opinions has no trace of this.

A sick lickle ting is an initiative that I was inspired to start, following seeing a couple of microglass. Wow. This happened in the last voice notes. So in the first minute of my voice notes, um, now I believe, there’s going to be a glitch in my mouth space. Micro grants and, like, low entry funding initiatives, I suppose, low barrier to entry, should I say? One being Kelechi Okafor1 last summer, I think it was. She paid some money to a hair salon in South London so that kids could go and get their hair braided before they went back to school.

And then there was an arts initiative called Tiny Lungs and they had a micro grant of £150, I think. Can’t quite remember what the brief for it was because it was quite niche, but I just thought it was a really beautifully done, simply put way of offering money to the creative community.

And I considered, mostly after hearing Kelechi speak about the hair braiding sitch that I could recirculate some of the money that comes towards me from the events that I run.

It’s tricky. The word that came to mind was ethically, but that’s not correct. There’s nothing.. ethically, it couldn’t be more sound. There’s a frustration in that I’m a little fish and my events relative to similar and relative to my experience, if I may be so bold, are cheap. And therefore my profits.. They’re good enough for me.. more than.. like I, I do centre my finances to a degree, so I’m by no means, um, making a pittance from the things that I do, but I’m certainly not maximising profit, so to take a slice off what is already subsidised to give back feels unfortunate, given that there are people with more money and more resources that are hoarding them. And I’m not even, I’m not speaking to anyone anywhere near our scene. It’s not about our scene. It’s a bigger, um, minority picture of all of these people with all the money. A la food bank. It gives food bank energy. Like what wonderful initiatives they are and that we look after each other, and we should look after each other, which is part of why I’m doing it, to enforce and reinforce that idea because I do believe that to be true, but food banks shouldn’t need to exist. There’s not a world where there’s an empty crate at the, on the way out of a supermarket where people already struggling, are paying for their food and maybe buying a little extra to, um, give to other people when the fucking supermarkets make however many 10s or 100s of 1000000s of pounds and could easily just be giving food away to food banks. Even if it’s just surplus stock, like it’s, it is ridiculous. It’s ridiculous. But here we are. And we keep things moving in light of the moment. And the circumstances. So, all the events that I self-produce, 10% of the profits of those will go back to someone that attends them. That’s the clincher here, that you invest in yourself and your training, and your development, you invest in me, and what I’m offering, and what I’m doing, for the community, and in turn, there is a chance that that will come back to you financially, in addition to, um, the many other ways that you are served by being at the events that I run. A reason why it’s my self-produced events is because I have that data and I can reach you and there’s a small rebellion in that, I suppose, in that, a lot of the ways that, uh, I engage, not a lot of the ways, but if I teach at Playground, if I cover a class at The Manor, I am arguably bringing folks into that room that wouldn’t just be standing in that, uh, wouldn’t be in that room otherwise, but I can’t reach those people. And then The Manor and the Playground and the like can.. Um, and that, I’m not trying to data farm, more kind of.. That’s not where anyone’s value lies to me but I am aware that I’ve been in this city and doing this thing for 20 odd years and teaching over 10 and that my community is large and it’s only in the past maybe 4 years that I’ve been actively able to reach them. Well aware I could have started a mailing list sooner, but outside of newsletters and what have you, just in my engagement with them when they book events. So you book an event, you are entered. You book many events, you are entered as many times as you book. You have to attend, though. You do have to be in the room.

Um, you can donate also. I’ve never really done a crowdfunding type thing or opened it up in that way. Um, but I have now, and that is with the iii 10th anniversary celebrations in mind, more to come, uh, but the overheads will be more than any iii related thing I’ve done before. And welcoming the help. And 10% of whatever comes in there will go into the sick lickle ting. So, uh, Louise Maryam won, selected at random, uh, and my activity this quarter was pretty slow - it was the, um, we had a sweet spot and Jonathan Burrows’ workshops - but enough to buy a couple of books or attend a couple of classes, uh, for one person to do a food shop, I suppose. Um, and no obligation on how it’s spent or need to report how it’s spent. Um, I think that was part of what I liked about the Tiny Lung fund is the trust given to the recipient. And I am aware of the landscape so wherever you, wherever the recipient feels it needs to go, that’s where it goes. So that was a lovely thing to start the month.

And then a couple of days ago, I found myself at The Link Up Battle. I’d had it in my diary for a while. I just knew that I wanted to get to it, and so I did, and I’m really glad that I did. Go Shawn for um, running a successful event and go community for continuing to ride for each other. I’m aware that my boots are not on the battleground the way that they used to be. Geography being part of the reason for that, though I wasn’t exactly at every battle going when I lived in London. So, not trying to speak like I’m really about that life, but I try to stay aware of what’s going on. So if you’re like ‘Sirens? Where are you?’ Croydon, that’s where I am. You might not even be able to hear them, but I certainly can. They’re ringing around. I watched some really good dance. I was really pleased to see so many young people taking up space. I was really pleased to see so many OGs still taking up space. I was pleased to feel good energy, competitive spirit, some beefs going on at the minute. Um, which I don’t hate. Um certainly makes things a lot more exciting as a spectator. Um, And I.. Some things that have been missed again in me kind of culling some of the previous voice notes around the value we put on community events, and it goes without saying, it sounds cliche and a little um, like we’ve just found a catchy way to say it, but use it or lose it is so, so very true. I thought it might have been busier. Um, and I hope that Shawn was able to break even on the event. It was busy, I just assumed it would have been busier because it was quite a highly anticipated event. I hope he broke even and managed to pay himself for the time it would have taken to organise as well as the wider team,

and I consider that sweet spot sessions are a bit precarious at the moment and they will cease to be so, so soon, uh, if people don’t show me that they still want it to exist. And that comes with no expectation or… what’s the word, entitlement, there you go. I don’t think it’s something that needs to exist and you guys aren’t taking advantage. sweet spots were created for me and my mates to get used to being in rooms with each other again after COVID, and they were closed little things, and then I opened them up in 2021 I think, and just kept them up because they were great. So they’ve more than served their initial purpose. So I’m not precious about it in that way, but I just realised that uh, I’m not willing to put my hand in my pocket to help run it, and I also think it’s a slippery slope if I start pulling funds from the other things that may be profitable to make it work. I think I need all of my offerings to sustain themselves individually. Otherwise, you don’t have a clear picture of how the individual things are doing. I did have a thought last night that I don’t really physically engage with sweet spots the way that I used to. I think there’s bigger picture stuff of how my practice is shifting. I think there’s bigger picture stuff or smaller picture stuff of still being a curator and holder of the space and if I’m training.. Kind of the reason I don’t really participate when I host teachers because I’ve just got one eye on everyone being alright in a way that makes training quite unenjoyable. I don’t want to be half in it. It’s kind of selfless or selfish are the two.. two modes and especially in, um, freestyle, like self-led, freestyle space, I can’t really make the most of that, if I’m keeping an eye on the room and the sounds and stuff. I used to be able to, but it doesn’t feel, I don’t feel like I have access to it in the same way. All of that to say I’m aware that I’m engaging with it differently, which may mean that everyone else is engaging with it differently, so I can take responsibility for that aspect. But essentially, the room needs to be half full to break even and I don’t need it to make me money by any means. But now that I don’t live here, there’s more of a cost than there used to be, of me coming in for it. Um and yeah, it’s just not a cost that I’m willing to bear for a community offer. So, um, the studio that I hold it in, I’m waiting on an update on how they might be able to further support. But we’ll see. We’ll see. And I’m also... interested in what goes in sweet spots’ space if it was to end. I did make some quite big changes in my working life last year and it made room mentally for a lot. And sweet spot doesn’t take up a lot of my time, but there’s just that bit of real estate that nothing else gets because throughout the year, that’s something that’s happening. So, yeah, not precious about it remaining. Um, but I would, if, if we can, we will, and that’s a long way round to use it or lose it.

And then some stuff around the value of community events. And I’ve had to check myself in a couple of ways or just have a closer look at it. For instance, I went to see Body and Soul, the Crystal Pite and Kameron N. Saunders work on the English National Ballet, and I paid £55 for my seat, and I think they went up to double, if not more, and I was willing to pay that price. And on the same night was Dance Offline, The Manor’s event, and that was £25 for a standing ticket or £35 for a seated ticket, and I was struggling to make that makes sense. I think, there’s just stuff I can’t not know about community events or like a perspective that I can’t help but have on it that affected that, but it did get me to thinking. I did away with it at first because I thought English National Ballet don’t know me from a hole in the wall and I’ve just given them 55 quid and I’ve got loads of peers and students on the lineup, like why, for the Dance Offline, like, why would I not give them my peas? Like, why would I not give the community that money? And then I thought, wait, does the community get that money, though? It’s at the Indigo, at the O2, which is not going to be a cheap venue, and I have thought, what do the choreographers get? Like, what’s the support package here? Because I don’t want to assume that they’re not paid, but I imagine that they’re not. So what do they get? So I asked someone and it was a day. A day at The Manor, day’s rehearsal space at The Manor. And I thought, I, it turned out me and my friend didn’t have the minerals for, for the social around going to a dance event in the end, but I, didn’t really want to give my money to, um, the owner of The Manor to run their event in a fancy place when arguably it could be held in a less fancy place, like, I don’t know, your studio. Um, and then maybe you could, like, pay the people who are um, getting your tickets sold. I think we have a thing in this.. in our community. This is a little bit spicy, this is a bit smoky this bit. Um, I think we have a habit of stupid business models that don’t benefit the communities in which the companies and organisations claim to serve. And then you get new kids on the block coming in to start their competitive businesses and without asking any questions, it seems... they instill the same stupid business models. And I would say that this, um, showcase situation, the model that currently exists in this city doesn’t make any sense to me. Um, for anyone involved, and the main person that runs them here, and I.. it’s right that they exist. I’m not talking about the events being silly, but the argument has been for years that this person doesn’t make any money from the event and If that’s true, then the model’s even more stupid than I thought. Who does it.. who does it serve then? Um, but I, I wonder what the, what’s, it plays into this thing where our job and our career is our passion and that leaves us prone to exploitation. So you get offered a platform and you have an idea that you want to test or you have a piece that you’ve made with some mates in a studio and you’d love to get on a stage and you’d love to get good footage of it. So you say yes for those reasons, um, which are so valid, and I just wonder if the cost of doing that, time and money.. If it’s worth it/if it’s even considered when you say yes, like is anyone writing a, um, a budget to see how much it’s going to cost them to, to do it before they say yes. So you say yes and then you just figure it out and make it work. Don’t get me wrong. I did showcases so many times as a, um, more as a dancer than as a choreographer, did a couple as a choreographer, and, you know, you’re paying to be going up and down and in and out of the city and costumes and what have you, and you do it because you love it, but I think we’re in big 2026 and I, I think then we were, unbeknownst to us, kind of building the industry as it exists now and it’s so clearly a commodity and has money swirling around in it and I think we should have some. I think we/you deserve to get some of that money. Um yeah, so that’s.. that’s the bit of smoke there.

And then there’s this additional thing which I’ll look at in more detail very soon because I have a deadline, um, around these showcases essentially being scratch nights. And I wonder how we’d use them or view them or how they could maybe be more supportive for all involved if they were viewed as scratch nights and maybe the perception of gloss was taken off of them. Um, I wonder when folks are asked to do these shows these days, is there a brief? Is there, apart from time length, is there a brief or reassurance that, you know, it’s not about it being a complete piece of work? ‘We’d just like you to showcase whatever you’d like to.’ Is there anything that’s set up there? Is there anything around.. because I saw some promo links going around with codes for artists, like, did you get any kickback money wise if you were to sell tickets? Um, was there anything said around if we make this amount of money, then you guys will get …? Like we are kind of tied into the success of the evening in any way. I, I, yeah, I feel like there’s something interesting to look at in how we, um, view those events like them, and that’s the organisers as well as the participants, um, that might make them make a bit more sense and be a little more ethically sound, because I, I think they’re great in the art that comes out of them and they’re wonderful as platforms, but I don’t I don’t feel good about the barrier to entry, I suppose we circle back to.. um, yeah, because you’ve got to have some peas to do it. But you have to have peas to do everything these days. Yeah, food for thought maybe.

But uh, to circle back to The Link Up. It was sick. I love being where I began. I love being in the spaces that I fell in love with when I was small and just feeling at home in them, feeling galvanised by who I see in them, just the commitment to the culture I really, I really appreciate and really ride hard for.

That was the week. Speak to you soon.

So I’m bringing us bang up to date. Hi team.

Um yeah, this voice note will be a mixture of what I’ve been up to this year so far, I think, and some words on the process of the substicks.. wow, the Substack so far.

So I obviously set up that it would be weekly-ish and then I was never too concerned with trying to make it weekly necessarily, but I was trying to find a consistency in a routine with it for myself. And the initial excitement of confirming for myself what I wanted it to be, for the time being at least, definitely fell away and it became more about the producing of it, essentially. Like it takes me 20 minutes a week… or was because I haven’t been doing it, like 20 minutes a week to record the thing, like do the actual creative bit that I enjoy and that reaches you guys. And then the transcribing, linking resources, like the actual uploading bit, it’s not time consuming, but it’s not fun. It was at first because I was excited about just the whole thing but it gives chore, it gives chore. And it certainly has been the thing that falls to the bottom of my to-do list when I have other things to do, which is the majority of the time and actually, even if there’s nothing work related to do, I’d still sooner sit and watch something or read something than be doing it, is what I’ve found. Naturally. And I don’t want it to come from a place of force for a few reasons. Practically, and just very transparently, I’m not being, I’m not paid to do it, like my brain, as I’ve spoken about, does place things differently that don’t have money attached for better or for worse, and as much as this is hopefully increasingly creative for me, it has placed itself in another service that I’m providing. And I think that is because the percentage of creative versus practical/production that it needs is out of balance in terms of it reading in my mind and being as a wholly creative pursuit. The whole reason I set it up was, for writing, initially, and I’m not writing. I have been writing more personally, like brain dump journal stuff. And I do enjoy reflecting on my notes to pull out the resonant scraps and that won’t change, but anything long form has just not landed itself in my practice and I suppose I recognise that I need to put my hands on that if I want to make that a thing.

I thought that there’d be a more natural transition from journalling, taking notes at work or in creative spaces and writing for public consumption. Not happened. We’ll see. Um, and then there’s been a thing where it was really nice for a while, and again, I think it was the initial, like the honeymoon phase lumped into it, where I was really enjoying reflecting on what I’d recorded. And the further that’s got away from me. Again, it’s just given chore and it’s also just in my mind I’m like, ‘how much is anyone really interested in what I was doing 6 months ago.’ I’m so grateful for everyone that’s been listening and engaging with it so far and it remains a really beautiful thing for me that people choose it in terms of, in terms of subscribing, opening that email, pressing play. Tiny choices, perhaps, but it just reads so much differently than relying on an algorithm for things to reach people or just not really having any knowledge. Um, past a like that things have been engaged with. So I continue to love that and it does.. um that I am committed to the platform. It’s just, it’s been interesting to reflect on how it’s going for me so far.

How’s it going for you? Are we having a good time?

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Um, but yeah, with the past voice notes and like getting up to date, I just had a moment last night where I was like, ‘we don’t have to do that, babe.’ Like ‘we can’, and with today being Sunday I was like, ‘oh, this is perfect because that is when I do want to be recording these things’ and like, ‘let’s just scrap the 10 that haven’t been transcribed and like shared yet, like who the fuck cares? I don’t think anyone’s like itching to know what November held for me.’ Um, so I’m just going to put those in the bin. I might look at them for any things to pull out or any topics that still resonate or just those, you know, evergreen things that come up and that we talk about and should be discussing, but it starts now. I’m here, I’m back and you’ll receive this in a few days as opposed to in June. So that running joke can hopefully ground to a halt. Never to be heard again.

So with that in mind. The year so far has been like fascinating to me, honestly. I’m used to, for the, since COVID/since.. last time I’ll be mentioning this guy, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe existed, I’ve been somewhere in the country remounting it before Christmas. So I’ve always.. always is a nonsense.. so for the past few years, I’ve been busy for maybe 6 weeks in the lead up to Christmas and then either chosen or it’s just naturally been the way that I’ve had a slow start to the year. And had a slower wind down to Christmas, although it still felt really short. Um, and then the first week of January I was on a residency, at a place called Hawkwood, um, in Stroud, which was a beautiful start to the year, like so nice to have concentrated time. I did think it would be blue sky thinking, thinking of the year ahead, future plans, what do we want it to be and actually I spent it practically crossing things off the list, which is recording and I think I got a Substack out while I was there. Um, which was good.

I did dance and choreograph for what I went on to do that weekend, which was teach, um, in Latvia, which was a beautiful time, uh, with Rosa Thomford, Maikolo. I want to say Fekitoa, without looking up his surname. We hope I haven’t butchered. Love those two so much. Very brief time spent, but you, you just, you know when you know. And Jevan, who is one of my best friends and we just had a really beautiful time. Um, Henoch was also there, another maker from Netherlands, but I, that was literally a hi and bye.. Um, in terms of when he arrived and I left.

Um, and then I went straight into working at The Place with some 3rd Years on a piece that I was commissioned to make. And with some distance from it, and even when I was in it, I knew it was a really productive and fruitful time. Um, but it did have its tricky moments. I think the reality of, I’ll speak to this particular group, but from, um, like speaking to peers that are in institutions, it’s just really fascinating to me where three years of full time training gets you as someone that didn’t do it. And I was quite surprised at where the cohort were, if I’m brutally honest. They know this as well. I said this. Um, there was a level of spoon feeding that I didn’t think would need to be done. Like they’re beautiful young dancers and artists. I thought they might be a little more malleable to different styles and ways of making and that was tricky. We, what I think I’m most proud of, is creating a space where that can all be discussed and spoken about and not just them being hit over the head with them not being as good.. ‘as good as I thought they would be’ or not living up to my expectations. And I can voice that in a way that’s constructive, um, proposes a topic for discussion and then them to be honest with how their experience at the, at London Contemporary has been, how they’re finding working with me. And I think all of that fed into a better piece, to be honest, and which was brilliant. And I am really, again, really happy and proud of how it all went. I was shattered by the end of it. Um, I was there maybe 3 days a week for 6 weeks, I think it was, and that was lovely. Um, staying in King’s Cross, which I was really grateful for because that’s where I was working, but actually being in central London when I just don’t live that life anymore. I am very familiar with it and I can do it very easily. I do think it has an effect on my nervous system that it didn’t used to. Which I only realised at the end of the 6 weeks. It wasn’t like on the 3rd day, I’d be like, ‘get me out’, but at the end, it was like, ‘oof you.. It did get you a little bit.’

What also got me a little bit is I applied for Breakin’ Convention for the piece that I’d worked on at Choreodrome, didn’t get it. That’s fine. Well used to rejection at this point with trying to make a piece and just access funds to scale up the things that I’m doing. I was offered a feedback call and it was just, it was horrible. It was horrible. And that happened on the last day of my time with London Contemporary. Um, I voiced this to the people that know, and as long as that’s happened, um, with anything in my life, I don’t feel bad, like being honest about it. Um, it was a matter of taste, which curation is, but I don’t think feedback can be just that if there aren’t any tangible notes. Um, so there weren’t any tangible notes, but the main thing that was really tricky for me in the moment is that the decision had been made but I was being asked questions about the work and I found it really difficult to absorb what felt like quite harsh and unfiltered critique about the work whilst being expected to feel generous enough to help someone understand the work when they’d already made a decision about it. That might be really close minded of me. Um, and also the kind of gener- the um, generous offer that they thought was being given. Um, and maybe if I’d answered, there might have been some feedback to follow, but I, considering I, I did question what was happening, if that was the case and feedback was coming, I would hope they would have said and they.. they didn’t. So that really got my goat, if I’m honest, it felt quite, it felt unkind. Um, and yeah, it just.. it hurt. And again, that’s not me being rejected. And as my coach, um, said when I spoke to them about it, they put it really well and it wasn’t just this, but if you’re offered feedback, that’s information being given to you and actually, there was a little bit of that, but it was also be.. I was being asked to give information and I think that created a bit of a glitch in my inner matrix. And I know Jonzi, it’s Jonzi, personally, and I think that maybe is what led to the unfiltered way that he communicated, but I would have hoped, if we’re bringing knowing each other personally into the mix, that that would have had like an extra layer of care, and it didn’t feel that way. It felt quite unkind and um, he’s said things to me in years past that have stuck with me, which I think that I’ve mentioned and I’m just.. I think everyone with a position of power that’s dealing with artists and especially developing, emerging, aspiring ones.. in any case, because I was obviously upset by it, but the day after I was like, ‘the piece is going to slap. Don’t even.. don’t even worry.’ Um, but on less affirmed, rooted ears, that could have really packed a um, a lasting punch, Phife’s digging a hole in the cushion so that’s what you’re hearing there. So yeah, that was interesting. I was talking about it to mates, and then I realised that, like, I don’t need to be talking about it to mates. I need to be telling the people that offered me the call. So I did that and that was the best thing to do, I think.

Um, the agency’s been going, well, um, I had a debrief meeting for a project that I’ve spoken about that was a bit of a shit show, and that was a shit show as well. Yeah, I thought we were going in to talk about the whole project from beginning to end to spot where the oversights had been or where things hadn’t gone so well for all involved. Um, so that we could avoid it happening again because, you know, the hope was that we’d work together again. And it wasn’t, it wasn’t that. It was, um, a bit of a pity party for the client, understandably to a degree because it’s ongoing for them. Um, but yeah, I just, I voiced my opinion on a couple of things and it was met, like super emotionally, which just meant that we couldn’t actually have the conversation. Um, which I found to be like.. we.. the, it was me, two of my clients and the client.. and we were all just a little bit like, ‘um, okay.’ Like, so now we have to hold that instead of having the actual conversation that we’re here to have, and the actual conversation that we’re here to have is the wrongdoing done to, the peeps that I represent, but sure, we can do this instead. So that was a bit of a waste of time.

Um, and the main event. The main events are me getting tiiight made, and we have had some real positive movements in that regard, which I’ll speak to when they’re confirmed, but just pieces are falling into place in a way that’s really encouraging and that all kind.. they all seem to align with each other, which is really nice and, you know, fruits of labour and stuff because it hasn’t been easy and I’d say that that’s more a mental game than the practicalities of it.

Um, and personally, but still creatively, just I’ve been home more than usual, which I’ve loved. But I’m, I have felt a bit stagnant in the admin, production, trying to get the piece made, not being a creative pursuit at all. And like, I feel like I’m getting things done, ‘m ticking them off the list, but it just always feels like there’s something else to do/that the things that I am doing aren’t really doing anything. I could have just said stagnant and not tried to explain it further. Stagnant is like perfect. That’s how I felt. And I realised that I just.. I needed to move my body actually.

Um, I’ve been in residence in that spot in London. That’s coming to an end soon and I realised that I need somewhere to dance here in Margate on a regular basis, whether I need to make or not, just so I’m in flow. So I’ve done that. I did that really quickly, which is interesting because I’ve been here for two years and I have kind of known that I want that, but I, It felt like a necessity all of a sudden. And so I dealt with it and it was absolutely the right thing to do and I feel great for it. I generally feel really positive.

Um, did have some, not weeks, it wasn’t constant, but there was just this underlying feeling of a block or a stagnation or a bit of a lack of movement, progress that wasn’t my actual reality, it’s just the way that I felt and I don’t move from feeling or sit with feeling of that kind very often, so it lingering meant that it needed to be handled and it has been, which is great.

Um, so I won’t sign off by saying that was my week. That’s.. it’s been my, my year so far. Um, but yeah, the hope is that we’re here with some regular, more regularity, um, a bit more of a focus and just presence really.

I think what was lacking as well in this kind of retrospective was sitting with what’s present and I’m needing to do that and I’m always wanting to do that and now hopefully, I can be doing that, with and to you guys. Let’s see. Have a lovely week and I’ll be with you all again soon.

Highly recommending A Choreographer’s Handbook and pointing artists with street styles in their practice towards the second edition - word on said streets is there’s more for us in that version. Also, The Capsule and iii did a run of episodes together in 2021 and we had Jonathan and Kenrick H20 Sandy on to talk all things ideas. You can find it below the scraps for your listening pleasure.

Lastly, we are in discussions about doing more together, in real life and online, so these non-contextual nugs can be fleshed out in the not too distant future. Dates and any offers drop on my broadcast channel before anywhere else - you can join here.

OK, enough from me - enjoy.

1. Everybody that dances is already choreographing, no matter what they do.

2. Move to decide what’s happening, don’t stand still waiting to decide. The movement will tell you what’s happening.
   

3. ‘You can’t always hold onto something that matters.’

4. ‘If I give you an example, I might restrict you.’
   

5. You can’t choose what the audience sees.
   

6. Go deeply into the change, don’t worry about going deeply into the material.
   

7. ‘I could.. but I’m just not in the mood so you’ll have to imagine it.’1
   

8. Parallel practice - an alternative context that supplements and tests the edges of the work.
   

9. Limits as liberations.
   

10. Be wary of making theatre about theatre. // All theatre is about theatre.

It’s been a helluva start to the year, for us all I feel it’s fair to say. I hope to fill you in on all things Jan/Feb my end so, so soon.

TILL THEN.. It’s good to be back getting through ‘25 notes and listening to myself back on absolute crud last autumn, after the light and brights of sunny September. I write this from Space Clarence Mews with the sun and actual tangible heat on my face, not a moment too soon. I hope light is finding you all, in some way, wherever you are.

As ever, on each voicenote’s page, you’ll find a transcript and references/resources you can click through to.

Love - back with a special resonant scraps v v soon x

on clarifying support, a return to foundations and training cleanliness

on shows I saw, agent/artist dynamics and reaching my people directly

on the mandem doing big big bits and the aftermath of leading iii

on folks winging it at every level, an Assistant Choreographer’s workload and industry standards still smelling like the ‘10s

So a couple of topics that have come up. I’ve mentioned in voice notes past, about the context, context that I’ve been working in as agent, like a new thing in a new world, and there’s just been more and more, just like an avalanche of shit, basically, this whole time. And I, it’s... been... the roughest job in terms of caretaking, which is really difficult, even though it’s, I’ve never had to rock up on a set, and I’m not ever there on set, like lurking, but with talent being... at sea. Just quite a helpless situation. For me and them. I think, I think we’re doing a really good job of keeping in touch with each other and keeping updated and them feeling held, but the reality is it’s quite isolating. And that’s been really difficult. And I... The agents are always really small, perceived to be, really small cogs in quite a big creative machine. Like we, obviously, provide the talent to get the thing done. But once we’ve done that, we are largely left out of the loop. And when you’re trying to look after your talent, that’s really difficult. And I’ve been getting really pissed about it, actually. Because my client has been telling me really big changes in like nightly updates, but following big chats with one of the owners of the production company who I contracted with, where we agree quite big things to keep the thing moving forward and then they change and they don’t seem to think it’s important that they’re the one telling me, and I’m just finding it mad. Like, I don’t.. from an integrity standpoint and just general professionalism, but I can’t tell if I’m over egging that, but if I have a talk with you, and we say we need such and such and such and such to be in place for this thing to.. sorry, cat just appeared, Phife just had a moment. We need such and such and such and such to be in place for us to keep moving forward on this. You say yes, agreed. The next day, those things cease to exist, and not because it’s a bit slow getting them sorted, like they’re gone. They’re not going to be happening. And you don’t think that you should tell me so I can make a call with my client as to next steps, I just think it’s a bit mad. And I also think it’s a little bit shady and the colour of skull duggery to be catching my client in, like, a corridor and telling them things then. And in my head it’s going down like a shady drug deal, I know it’s not because the person is really nice, but we’re talking about business. And if you are telling someone something face to face, while they’re at sea and then asking if they’re happy to carry on, you are most likely going to get a person with their back metaphorically against the wall, feeling obliged to say yes to you. And in voicing that to the production company, they are making it seem like that is out of the question that my client would feel like that. And I just think that is so incredibly naive, and tunnel vision on. It’s just, I just don’t think it’s acceptable and just, I don’t know how many times I need to ask, for those things not to be happening and for them to be said to me. And again, for it to just continue to happen. I’m just like, the integrity on this is, um, not great. And I’ve worked with this company a few times now and it’s been good, but I think what we’ve witnessed here is this project has been too big for them to manage and we have been seeing a company like flapping to keep a thing afloat. And this tags onto something that I’ve spoken about at iii many times. And I believe this is okay. In terms of keeping people on side, I think this is okay at any scale with my experience of different scales. I understand them not wanting to tell their client, Billy Big Potatoes, that they are flapping. But if you want me and my client and all of your contractors to stay on side, if we all know you’re flapping, you may as well just say you’re flapping, and then we’ll all go, ‘oh, okay. So unfortunate, because we’re really kind of relying on you to not be, but you’re calling it, we’re speaking about it, and we can move on past it.’ But if you act like you’re not, and you’ve got it all together, but you’re crying on Zoom. What, like, how do how do we... How do we move? It’s... I’ve been on these zooms and been doing my best to, and genuinely feeling sympathetic to the plight of this company because I know it’s been difficult for months. But it’s business. And... I don’t... Like, your tears don’t change my duties. And my duties aren’t to dry your eyes, they’re to dry my client’s eyes and make sure that they are not wet again at the hands of you, like I don’t... Oh, man, it’s nuts. And then just speaking on like financial things that are happening between them and their client and I’m like, not my problem, like, just not my problem. Um, just extra titbits of information where you’re like, ‘Okay. Just, all right, and onto what we’re here to talk about.’ Um... Yeah, it’s been... It’s been a really mad one, and as I work on things of greater scale, I am continuously reminded at every level that peeps just be winging it. Peeps just be winging it. And if they can, I fucking can. And you fucking can, is the motto of that tale.

And then just some quite strange singularities about a cruise context around its kind of creative control, I suppose. Like, I’m representing a couple of people on this, and one is creatively directing a concept, like, quite a big one. And the production company and their client just keep engaging new people, like to join the team, like creative people, and not running it by the creative director of it, and that just feels a bit nuts to me, and then it’s, I don’t know if this is specific to this, um, this client, but they also, kind of at the last hour, bring in, like, a team of Avengers, like, Heads of Department to come in and whip everything into shape, as they would like it. And I, I wouldn’t feel great about that. And I don’t know who would feel great about that as a creative, but I don’t really understand it as a thing to not say at the top of a job is going to happen. Or just not have happen because I think it’s out of order, but if it’s going to happen, tell people that it will be in good time. And some extra communication around it not being because, like, hold it well. And I don’t think it’s been held.

Well, um, yeah, those are extra titbits, because I really did my big one at the beginning, I think. And then completely, separately... Hmm, is it completely separate? I’m just thinking of.. one of my clients is an associate choreographer, and they have essentially been left holding the entire thing, and... That’s not the role of an associate and if the context that we’re working in means that that happens from time to time, then it needs to be written into a contract, you know, like ‘this person agrees to step up to whatever whatever role, should … happen’, because the entitlement that they’re going to do that or that it’s their job to do that, I have to keep reminding everyone ‘if they want to come home, they can come home.’ Like, the infrastructure isn’t in place for them to do the role they’ve been employed to do. And if they’re willing to stay ‘lucky you’, but they don’t have to.

Ugh, this relates to um, a very recent thing, which isn’t going badly. Don’t get me wrong. It just smells like 2010 and I’m like ‘why are we still doing this?’ Um, 2 things at play here. Um, one, if you’re going to availability check talent for the next day, I do still expect to hear from you on whether that’s happening or not. But I told my clients, ‘I think it’s fair to say stand down for tomorrow’ at like 5:45pm. But even if I hear from you at maybe 11 pm, I won’t get it till the morning, but at least you’ve sent something my way and crossed the T and dotted the I, and I’m just like, ‘why would you availability check for the next day, if your end, you know full well, that you don’t intend to... hire, that you don’t intend to employ them?’ Just bad form, but not unheard of annoyingly. We’ll see. And then in that, like, this is coming from the Assistant Choreographer, these avail checks, and just generally the person that I’m dealing with. And I think that Assistant Choreographers can be, I’ve been this to somebody, where it entailed more admin, um, or admin as well as creative input and helping with the dance. And my thought is, if you need someone to be across admin/liaising with producers, don’t assume that someone that’s physically capable and choreographically good is going to be good at that and maybe just get a really good production assistant, admin person to do that because... One, it’s a lot. Assisting is a lot. Assisting is a lot. I did 2 world tours and a season of X Factor, Italian X Factor, and you are carrying a shit ton. I won’t go as far as to say more than the choreographer. But certainly equal. I think the extra load that the choreographer bears is almost like a cerebral, knowing that their name is on it, but in terms of workload, again, depending on who you’re assisting, it’s a lot. So from a well-being standpoint, take the admin off the load, if you’re expecting them to be across every single bit of material that you’re making, and to be the person generally more front facing with the cast. But also, it just represents you and your brand well if you’ve got someone who actually knows. Who’s got the time to reply promptly and like, has all the.. only job it is is to know all the answers as far as the production side of things go. I don’t know. And like this project is not small, which is part of the reason why I’m sure responses are slow and everything else, but again, it’s like, for how many decades are we going to use that as a reason to do things in janky ways. And that’s not a slight on the individuals. That’s a slight on the industry. Like when does the infrastructure come? Or like when are the standards raised? Um, yeah, I, I remain bamboozled by it.

And my, um, my priorities are looking after my people, as well as I can as opposed to fronting industry wide change. Tried in 2012. We did all right, but without the, without everyone behind you, it’s not happening, and we realised.. I realised as someone that didn’t actually work commercially that much that I cared more than some that worked all the time. And nah, you ain’t getting that level of investment out of me if you lot don’t care. So, I decided to zoom in to my world a little more, which is going really well. Not as well as me picking up this poo. Um, but it does, it does need tackling, and I dare say that it needs people at the level that I, it needs the people where I was in 2012, I think, to be the ones that care en masse, to really make change because it’s you guys, it takes years to push the change through annoyingly, but those years will also be the ones you guys come through as the top tier, the ones being booked. So long game, and, like I say, I tapped out because it just didn’t get the backing that it needed and we were working with Equity, and the red tape around that is one for another day. Janky, janky.

Oh, one more. Why not? Talking to a... Oof. No. I’m not doing it. Not doing it. Next time. Bye.

(first chorus line fo’eva)

It’s been a week. It’s been 2 weeks and some change since I last recorded one of these, and I am... literally... just at the end of quite a stretch of activity. Um, and even though in the wise words of Ian Beale, I’ve got nothing left, I’ve just pressed pause on listening to music and pressed record on doing this, interestingly, just came to me to do it, and I think that... that makes a lot of sense. Given that, I’m about to go home and close, shut up shop, essentially. I think a stranger just shouted hello to me, but obviously I’m otherwise engaged. Um...

Yeah, I think the best recap on my fortnight is now, while for want of a better phrase, the portal is still open.. which I’ll get into why I’ve put it that way. So I came into London the weekend before last. I could slow down walking. I also want to get to where I’m going to.. just to acknowledge the huff and puff in the background.

Yeah, I came into London the weekend before last.. it’s a Monday now.. um, specifically, well, because I started iii uh, last Monday, but there was a screening that my friend Nabil Alkinani was holding with a couple of his friends and colleagues around, um, turning their council estates in North West London into publishing houses. They’ve published two books out of their ends and there was a documentary made about it.. and that’s what I went to watch. Nabil is... one of the more, one of the most inspirational people I’ve ever come across in my life. And an artist that I worked with, a visual artist called Darryl Daley, posted about the book that Nabil had written, Privatise The Mandem like a few years ago and I started following his account, and when the opportunity arose for me to apply for the Material Archive at Siobhan Davies, which is essentially bringing old work back to life, but not in live performance form, I had an idea to reach out to Nabil.. to have a conversation as part of the exhibition. Um, because the, the work mum. edit. more. was around.. I’m dancing to my mum talking about the gentrification of Brixton, and he works very much in built environment, redevelopment, regeneration. He works for the kinds of companies that do that, with a view to learning how it works. And, you know, to have a job, because we all need one. But he puts the knowledge that he has those industries to just the best use. And we met on the day of the panel. And I haven’t seen him, could count on one hand, perhaps, the times I’ve seen him since, but we are in touch, we are in communion, should I say? And I am just such a fan of his work. his pursuit of good, and better, and his the value he places, and where he’s from. And I share that. I am a fan of it, but I can relate to it. And to see him and his friends and his community take over 2 screens at Vue Leicester Square, insane. Insane. That in and of itself was incredible. But then what the document, the documentary was incredible. And as I said to him earlier, some real kind of dreamlike stuff and how it was shot that made it a piece of art that sometimes documentaries don’t necessarily feel like in the retelling of a story. But then, as someone that’s writing more and looking towards publishing myself, just so incredibly inspiring.. to be in receipt of the how, and how it doesn’t need to be done so far removed from what.. from the resources that are around. Which speaks to a lot of areas of my creative life to be fair.

And then into iii which is always, man, if I could bottle each edition, just so that I could explain how greatly different they are from each other, but then to do some kind of flavour test to see what the similarities are, ‘cause there always are some. I mean, I’m the common denominator as well as the alum that revisit. But it, yeah, it was really beautiful. I think it’s a good thing that I, I’m recording this now because I’m still, I’m not in the week, but I’m in space holding mode, and I’ve been talking about it with people, because I’m really tired. Like, I’m really tired. I’m not drained ‘cause I’m so fulfilled and so happy with it. All, all of it. But me as facilitator of it, there’s a really interesting trick or element for me to be aware of in it not being physically taxing in the slightest for me. Very little dancing from me. And it’s not always mentally or emotionally taxing or intense for me either. I would say that it’s more so, the students are perhaps more challenged in that area than I am. Um, the challenge for me, is holding space for all of that to come up for the cohort. And holding space for, no matter how ‘chill’ or fluid it might be, still, like leading that and going with that. So I’m not like, ‘feel more, do more, give more’, but also, always creating the container for that intensity. As the wind blows. Hopefully not so loud I can’t be heard. My hat almost blew off my head. So we can assume that maybe the wind was that tough. Um, yeah, maintaining that space holding for a week. I’m just, I’m holding my arms out, like I’m creating a container, but I also need to kind of back away from the edges of that so that I can stay in the middle of what is occurring and in creating a space where everyone is free to have their own experience, the one that they need to have and not me driving us all towards a common goal.

It’s a lot. It doesn’t feel like it whilst doing it, but when I get to the tail end of it, I can feel really light and bright and into the Saturday, like, actually went out on the Friday night after finishing, which was fine, because there is that initial lightness around it, but as the past few days have gone by I, I’m tired. I’m tired. And I did cancel any plans that I had in the week because I realised that I needed to... Not even sit and consciously consider what the day had been, but just create space in my evenings so that those reflections could come if they came and then onwards into the thing. Um, and we did that. As a group. We did that really well. I’m really proud of everybody, some real useful stuff came up for folks in there, I think, which is always a delight. Sometimes it’s just a nice time for people. And sometimes it’s a really nice time plus they get quite big takeaways and that is a real gift to be a part of for people. Um, yeah, I guess, because my nose is against the glass of it. And with my, uh... capacity being minimal... My observations. My reflections of it are like my reflections and my experience, which is also, I think, a really good thing to put word to because I can, this isn’t a judgement on any of the community of the iii family at all. But I am very rarely asked whilst doing it.. um, how I am. Like, in passing in the way that, like, people do in greetings, but I remember being asked once and it being really, I feel like I got quite emotional.

In any case, word of mouth has built the thing. Um, so the community are talking about it so there’s experiences of students swirling around. I don’t think my experience is swirling around. It is really my greatest achievement, to be honest. I’m so proud of it and what it does for everybody. And as I said, on Friday when we were having a group chat about the reflections and highlights and... like my highlight is that all seeing eye bit. I’m really proud of myself for being able to do it because it’s big work from me. Not in on the day and in the moment, but we have the capacity to do that. I’ve done some big work, clearly, because it is, it’s quite the feat. And it sounds like I am really flexing, but maybe I am. So I’m really proud of myself for allowing it to evolve also because I think it was a bit more prescriptive, still very helpful. But yeah, it feels like it’s stretched and expanded in the ways that the community need it to, but also that I I need it to as well. Um, so I’m extremely happy about that.

And you are finding me having just taught a choreography class, which was also really beautiful. I brought a thing back from 2018 at the request of sweet Yasmin, one of my students. And the archives are just.. they’re golden. I love them. I love revisiting that version of myself. Um, I dropped into.. I taught a section and I had a real moment of, gosh, I remember teaching it. It just flowed out the way it flowed out, but I remember teaching it that exact way 9 years ago. It was just like, what is going on? 2016, if I didn’t say that. I can do maths. It was 9 years ago. Um, I like letting students that might have seen it, but maybe been younger, or just not in that class, just to have the opportunity to learn the things that they’ve liked in the past. There’s just so many benefits to bringing, bringing the old things back. And I really had a gorge time.

And then in between those 2 things sweet spot sundaze happened. Um, We did D’Angelo only, just the 3 albums back to back, in tribute to the great man himself, and it was really special. It was really nice for me because the music was just playing where normally I’m curating as it goes and as the room’s moving. There’s a theme emerging here. So that was nice for me. And then also, the majority of people were there, because it was a sweat box. I didn’t, um, I only announced it like a couple of weeks before that I was doing just D’Angelo, but for the few that... Yes. For the few that were there for D’Angelo, I think it’s really special to be in community with it, with the music, and with the knowledge of it and like what it means for each of us. So that was a really beautiful thing.

Um, agency stuff has been plodding along and I was staying on top of it all, though I did let a couple, a couple of things slip. No major ones, but just not so hot on getting invoices raised as I maybe would have been on a normal day. Um, But that’s okay. It’s okay. Some challenges still in cruise land for us all. Wild, Wild West out there in them streets, but learning more, looking after the people that need looking after and keeping it moving. Um, yeah, but not too much to.. no deep work in the agency of it all because how? And to be honest, it doesn’t, the reason that I’ve been able to do that for as long as I have been is because it isn’t deep work. It sits very neatly alongside everything else because it is top level, black and white, put things in there. There’s like order there that a creative life generally doesn’t..So, yeah, all things ticking on over there, ticking on, ticking over there. Um, I’m standing outside my parents’ house and I really am gonna go really am going to, really want to, am going to, go in, get my dog out and drive to my home. So those are really my things. Those are all the things.

I have not even spoken about the fact that I ‘launched’ the substack, but I will not be talking about that now because I will not. But I will, I’ll be back to do that bit, which is very, what do they call it, like meta, um, to talk about it on the thing that, I’m not sure I need to talk about it because the proof’s in the pud, it’s happening, it’s out. But a joy for it to be out. And actually it was quite, okay, I’m doing it now. Um, it had been on my to-do list for some time. And it was pissing me off, starting to piss me off that I hadn’t figured it out, figured out how I wanted to do it, and I made the decision one day, following Luke just asking me, like, ‘when are you, when are you doing it?’ By the way.. I might have spoken about this already. Anyway, I’m gonna keep it sweet, short and sweet. I just decided to sort out the message that subscribers get when they sign up. And then an hour later, I think I’d written and shared the things and posted on Insta that it was a happening thing and people started to subscribe and it was a really.. it’s exactly the way I would have wanted it to go. Maybe not the procrastination around it and just like telling myself I needed to figure out how to do it before doing it, but the ease that surrounded it, when it did happen, told me, a) that it was the right thing, right time, and b) that I’m supposed to be doing it. And I, I guess that’s all there is to say about, that’s, that, that, I’m signing off. I need to go get my dog and go home. Thank you for listening voice memo. This will probably reach the public in about 2 months time. And what a joy and time to be alive. Speak to you all soon.

So this week, I’m mostly speaking about things that I’ve seen.

I went to Chichester, where I worked on a show called Redlands last year to see sweet, sweet, Riley Woodford in a production of Lord of the Flies. Chichester is, firstly, one of the most beautiful theatres, like the layout of it is beautiful, but its demographic is I’m sure not uncommon in the context of the country, but it’s rare for me to be in a space that is so.. Mature, let’s say.. it’s so white, um, and you are hard pressed to find maybe more than like 5% of the crowd that aren’t entirely grey or white haired. So it’s really interesting to be in receipt of them as audience. That’s me as a choreographer. And to see how a organisation navigates such a particular audience who, what they like, but also, are going to go to that theatre to see whatever is on there, like that is their, um, culture base, I suppose. I know the Artistic Director of the theatre, Justin Audibert through... So we first worked together on a children’s show at the Unicorn Theatre. And then we did Redlands together. He directed Redlands. So, and I’ve, he was AD at Unicorn, so I’ve seen his transition from there to Chichester and as a result, seen the shift in programming at Chichester since he’s been there. And first and foremost, diversity of cast seems to have changed a lot. Since I’ve had eyes on the place anyway. And there does seem to be like a younger maker invited and maybe some risks. To be honest, even before working with Justin, I did notice that lots of shows went to Chichester in their tours. So it’s clearly had uh, like where it sits in touring cycles and um, bands of venues, I suppose, is up there as is, but I do think that he’s done a really beautiful job of um, taking some risks as to what’s on there, which I suppose you can get away with when, the audience.. You can trust that there’ll be one. But I suppose they, there’s a risk that they might be a bit entitled to be catered to. And from what I’ve seen, he’s just done a really brilliant job of managing that.

Lord of the Flies. I really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed it. I laughed a lot. I thought.. I loved the staging. I loved the lighting. Matt Daw lit it, who I’ve mentioned in previous podcasts. Um, I don’t see lots of plays and as well as wanting to support my friend, I did want.. I do want to see more because movement direction is of interest to me. Um, not the only reason, but one of. Um, and there is a trend, obviously, it is quite obvious, I think and I’m not sure if Jamie Lloyd is the person at the forefront of this, but for very sparse set. Very exposed set, like pulling away any backdrop so that you’re really seeing the innards of a theatre. And I like it. I mean, it’s certainly, well, I assume it’s a cheaper way to do things but I’m interested in what happens when the tide turns on, on that. It’s very clever. It can be done very cleverly and it was in this case. Some lovely kind of spectacles, for want of a better word, really great performances, and I’m just really proud and happy for Riley as someone that I know through dance, but no one wants to, oh, Phife nearly fell off the sofa there. Um, that I know wants to pursue acting more. And it’s quite surreal to be there a year after Redlands, frankly.

And then the next day, I went to a concert at Brixton Academy and I don’t think I’d been there.. No, it would have been post-pandemic. I think I last went there to like a Soulection event or like Kaytranada maybe. Went to see a band called Kokoroko, who, in my opinion, have the song of the summer wrapped up. Idea 5 (Call My Name), goodness.

Um, and you just cannot underestimate the power of experiencing live music with a room full of folks, man, like it’s so special. It is really interesting. Like demographics of concert goers I think are changing, is it just you know prices people out? Um, this is a jazz collective. Um, I mean, all I’m getting at by making these points is, it was a whiter crowd than I anticipated. A little stiff until we moved to the front, I thought, and I have this at concerts a lot where I’m convinced that there are people in the building that have.. just want to see something on a Thursday night. It’s not about them being a fan of the band. They’re just there, and there are people that have income like that, where that is something that they can do. like go them. I just, I forget that. I forget that not everyone at a concert is like a diehard fan or like avid listener of the act. Um, Yeah, go them. The band were amazing. Really, really special and really lovely to be at their hometown show, and I could tell how much it meant to them to be there, like Brixton Academy is such an iconic venue. Like, I don’t know if it’s my first show that, well, I feel like BBoy Champs might be the 1st thing I ever went to there in the early 2000s. But the 1st concert I remember is N*E*R*D1. And I think, I don’t know if they did more than one night, but I know it was a big one because the BRITs were happening around the same time and they had so many. I remember Naomi, Naomi Campbell coming out. I couldn’t tell you why. But yeah, there were lots of heavy hitters there. I also, I did, I fainted. Um, yeah, I smoked and I hadn’t eaten and it was just all too much for me. Like, I wasn’t, I was with Kenrick and my first dance teacher, Thanyia Moore. She’s now a brilliant standup comedian. I don’t, and maybe one other person, I can’t remember. But yeah, I, I fainted at the back and Kenrick had to fireman lift me out and then I was.. force fed is a bit strong, but I was kind of made to eat a cheeseburger and then we were back at it. Anyway. Kokoroko were amazing.

Um, outside of that, I have been just easing into a slightly less dense schedule. And dealing with the back end of things really, like my to-do list isn’t crazy, but I do need.. have things that I need to catch up on and have been. Um, on the agent side, cruise of it all remains, um, Phife just walked in with a knee pad. Great. Um, cruise continues to cruise. Learning more about the um, systems of it, but also just how to, as I think I said in my last note, just how to support a client in times of difficulty, when the difficulty doesn’t necessarily need you to do anything, doesn’t need you to practically step up, but it just needs you to be there. And I guess just stay on alert for when it might. And what I find... And again, I might be repeating myself a little bit, is that.. And this is me as creative. I know what it is to have close relationships, professional relationships with a creative team, sometimes even with producers, if they’re super hands-on and they’re around a lot. And that it can be a lot easier to have certain questions or conversations that an agent would normally have, like to have them there and then. It’s also managing that, like knowing that, not wanting to, you know, like, ‘no, don’t say anything, I’ll handle it’ because it may have a higher chance of success if the creative does it, but also just making sure the creative knows that that’s not their job. They don’t have to do that and they can hand it over. And what I find, I’m better at it now, just from such a long time of having to do it myself, because I didn’t have an agent, um, is when you’re in the moment as a creative, it can be really difficult to think ‘oh, I know I’ll tell my agent to deal with it.’ So it’s just, yeah, it’s been interesting getting into those kind of finicky bits on this job because it has been a little bit of a beast.

Um, and the other part is, where this podcast, where you’ll be hearing this. The Substack of it all. I’m just trying to keep up, keep the foot on the gas with Substack newsletter, subscription model investigating, and part of it is to find investigate revenue streams, yeah, sure, but it really, for Substack, it is mostly about writing and just having somewhere to speak when I want about the things that I want to speak about without them disappearing after 24 hours. Somewhere for these to live that isn’t Spotify, because I don’t like.. the main gripe I have with the way people sign up to everything that I do, apart from iii and sweet spots, is that I can’t reach them after that fact.. and Spotify, I know is the go to platform to listen to things, but I can’t reach the people that are listening directly and I really want to be able to shift that, which is why these voicenotes live here. Newsletters, like, I don’t know about you guys, but when I am going onto Instagram these days, I am not seeing... My, the people I follow. I’m not seeing their content. Like, I just feel like I may as well not follow anyone and just open the app for a jolly, which I think is Tikitocki is about and I don’t have that. Like, I’m getting really annoyed that I’m not seeing the things that I’m signing up to see. And then on the flip side of that, clearly my people aren’t either. It’s like, I need to be able to.. I can’t trust.. we could never trust the algorithms, but they just seemed a little bit more direct, but now that they’re not, it’s like, I need to be able to reach my people and tell the people that are interested in what I’m doing, what I’m doing. So I need to accelerate a newsletter, stat.

These things, I could get a little bit peeved with myself about the majority of these because I should have had them, should have had them, um, years ago, honestly. And I was just sat reading, um, a book about freelancing and I’m like, who, like, I could really do with the support to, 1. investigate these things, but I know this already. I just, I don’t think I know who, like, what this person is called. What am I looking for? I want.. I just need someone to help me build, help me with the systems. And once everything’s set up.. And I’m not a tech dunce. Like I know how to set up accounts and stuff. But I think if I can just expedite, like, which platform to use? A template, I’ll just be able to get crack on with these things. I think what’s holding me up is that, like the whats. And as I speak, it’s annoying me a little bit, to be honest, and I am going to get the support because I’m realising, it took me a while to realise, because I was just excited, that was finally going to do it, and I was like, I’ll do it. I’ll do it all myself. And as it takes a little longer than I would like. I’m like, you don’t want to do it yourself, you will happily delegate this to someone else. Um, so that’s what I’m going to do. I’m actually gonna get started on that today, hopefully.

So yeah, hopefully you’ll be listening to this before, I was going to say 2026, but considering this is number 14, it will probably be 2026 when you hear this. And yeah, even getting my head around this rollout, I don’t know if you can hear me scratch my head. Apologies, if so. Um yeah, I was talking to a friend about these and like if it’s better that they are some months removed because I’m talking very specifically about a thing and people in some cases or if they need to be bang up to date because when have I ever worried about um, that. This is not your concern. And it would be really interesting for you to hear this in spring 2026, but this is what this is for. It’s partly for me to muse, but also for you to just have the reality of what all this is about. So that’s what this week last week was about. And this week continues to be about. I don’t actually think I’ll be recapping the week that I’m in because I’ve not physically been anywhere and I think I’ve covered just a bit of a rollover from last week. So I’m glad that I spoke on those things, but I’ll be back. I’ll be back when there’s more things to say, there’s always more things to say.

What is going on? I am stationary again. I think this is a win for everybody.

Last week started with the second sharing of my new work. It was a closed sharing in comparison to the one before, which The Place had put on and was a mixture of my peers and people whose opinions I value and tastes I trust, and organisers, sorry, organisations and venues that I might want to partner with and whose support I might want. We shared half an hour this time and I made a point of indulging in contextualising the work a little more. I shared a video from super early post- lockdown sessions of myself and Jevan and then took us into sweet spot sundaze which had sprung out of those sessions and shared a recap of that and then on into iii and a video where we’d kind of used improv instead of the choreographic tools in the week1, which to be honest, is becoming less of a thing in iii.

And for me, it feels like.. Yeah, a sidebar, I mean, this whole podcast is one big sidebar, but I think my choreographic process is changing and I think I’m more into witnessing that for me than getting it down on paper to share, which would speak to why that aspect of iii is forever shifting or just not feeling like a priority for me. Anyway, I focused on telling that story on that evening and in deciding to do that and pulling the footage together and figuring out kind of the timeline of it all and which parts felt most important to touch on..

I did have everyone for two hours, but you don’t want to just take two hours because you’ve got it because you risk saying unimportant things, losing attention and interest and such. But in figuring all that out and thinking it through, it was like, oh, I am pitching. This is a pitch. So I pitched and I think I did really well.

I think because the work is built upon sweet spot sundaze and iii and those I can speak with chest on the value and importance of those two things to me, to artists and to the community, I think that helps me speak about the work with chest, which could be difficult because it is new and in development and is so open to shifting. Like what I think it is really might not be what it ends up being in the long run, which I’m up for. Yeah, I enjoyed it.

I was so tired after it. Like, I can’t even tell you how exhausted I was and how that really took me by surprise. I’ve put it down to holding the work since I had my first Choreodrome week in July and then had a month and then had the second week and then like a week or so and then sharing, then another week and then the sharing that just happened. And although I had ‘dropped it’ in between out of necessity because I have other things to do, I didn’t entirely, I don’t think. And I think that kind of prolonged holding of it and thinking about it somewhere, I felt it when it was time to really release it.

Another thing on dropping it in between.. I think I’ve said this in another episode, but I’m so well wired to this make the version of the thing that you’re given the resources to make that it just is. And I’m not sure if I spoke about this. I’ve definitely spoken about it to people, but the producers that I’m working with had said, like, it would be great.. It was by no means like dictated, but it was said that it would be great if I came out of Choreodrome with a draft, like a full draft of the work. And I was like, if that happens, fine, but I do not want anyone to be under any illusions that this works takes £2500 to make. I don’t want to set the tone, that for that amount of money, you’re going to get a 50 minute piece out of me. Obviously, it’s highly improvised, so it is more probable and I did make maybe a third. I do have a draft of maybe 35, 40 minutes, but by the by, like I’m not prioritising that. And also, Choreodrome is a development programme. If I had nothing at the end of it, I think that was okay. Like that was going to be okay. So, yeah, definitely did not prioritise having a full show at the end of 10 days of which I had two days with dancers, like, are we having a laugh.

Anyway. Eclipse season. I struggle to ask for help. I’m getting so much better. I’m feeling the necessity of it as I want to scale up my businesses and different strands of my practice and just very clear of what I am not capable of doing, so needing to call in that support. Also very clear on things that I don’t want to get any better at doing and calling in support for that and delegating those things. But there are things that I can do and don’t mind doing and that sort of stuff goes in a strange basket where I will just do it and then afterwards will be like I could have done with not doing those things and I did have a bit of that on the day.. I wasn’t holding so much that I felt that I couldn’t do the bits that I was there to do but it was only after.. this is so silly and this is not a judgement on sweet lovely production support but I had to keep on switching the lights on and off between me talking and the videos showing. And of course I’m just going to run to the door and turn off the lights. But in hindsight, I really would have loved someone else just turning off the light. It’s okay to me that I didn’t think about that before the day started. I would perhaps argue that I think what would have helped and which we didn’t really do was have a kind of pre-pitch meet. Touched base in like the slightest way, but I think as I move forward with producer support and like learn what that even is, I think, and I will voice this to them that like I could really do with the lead being taken as opposed to me and not be proactive and do it, but even in the conversation of what might need to be done, I could do with that coming from like the top down. And I guess I am still like top of the food chain because it’s my work, but I would actually like to feel like I’m not for once and I did feel that on that day and it was only after where I was like, ah, that would have been nice. And like a silly thing, like someone just walking in while we were still rehearsing and me having to ask to not let anyone else in and that feeling to me like something that should have just like not happened in the first place. Teeny tiny gripes, but I’m allowed to have teeny tiny gripes because I’m an artist and I’m sensitive about my shit. So that happened.

Then I was very tired, but I went straight, not straight, like the next day, I went back into Clarence Mews in Hackney where I’m in residence. I know I’ve spoken about that before, speaking about it again. Kissing my dog, sorry. I had such a good time. So I’ve kind of prioritised or I had prioritised outside of studio time, writing while I’m there. I wasn’t in the mood. I’d also prioritised output. That’s been my thing for the year, just focusing a little bit more on my creative output and if not coming out of the year with work, at least setting pace for that to happen and making room in my life and career for that to come through. I’d played around, had some dancers very graciously give me some time. Last time I was there, taught them a thing and aspired to come back around to it and film a thing. And I just don’t care. I just don’t care about it. And I think that it was actually enough to have dancers in the space and just play around with a thing. I’m not.. Part of me had written about even if you go cold on the idea, just keep pushing through to get it done. And I’m like, now.. I get it. I do understand why that is a noble pursuit, but not for me. Like, if I don’t care about it, just move on. Just keep it pushing. Just go where the energy is. So I didn’t revisit that and I did clock how useful that that was.

And again, as I think I may have mentioned before, I think if I zoom out to my creative life, I can see how doing that helped to illuminate where else in my career I’m getting things done outside of like, stick with that idea that feels stale now, just to show that you can get things done. Like girl, I’m getting things done. Shut up.

So let that one go. All that to say, I went into the studio the evening that I got there and I started moving the way that I normally would, which is just like get in my body and float around and just do what feels nice and move to the music that I’ve been listening to recently. And I was just not feeling it. I don’t even think I finished one round before I was like, this is not what we need to do today. What I want to do is move and sweat and be in my body, but in a somewhat mindless way. And of course, it takes mindfulness to apply what you might be being taught but I think there’s a surrender in like ‘just tell me what to do just let me enter the space and just tell me which parts of my body need to go where’ and I played around with.. I wanted to do one of Diana Matos’ tutorials for ages.

So I went there and was having a look and like could have and then I was like, you get Mayoral’s, you get Dylan’s platform for free, go on there, see what’s going on there. Then I saw a couple of pieces of his that I really wanted to learn and then was about to do that. I was like, no, I don’t need to learn sequences right now. I don’t, yeah, I don’t, I didn’t feel like I had the mental capacity for even that. So I ended up doing a weight exchange drill of Frankie J’s and I had such a good time. Like, I think because it was like nine o’clock at night, I wasn’t at prime info processing.. I wasn’t at prime processing space? In prime info processing space, but I had such a good time very slowly learning a thing, speeding it up, learning variations of that thing.

And I think because at Choreodrome, I’ve been in the presence of dancers, specialising in styles, and I witness, you know, I witness that online a whole bunch, but I’m not like trying to become a specialist in a style by any means, but I think I’d been in such close proximity, it was just really nice to connect with a style that evening in really basic back to foundations ways. and then I did a popping drill, like 15 minute popping drill that I, yeah, I just had a really good time. I could feel and then I thought, right, whenever I’m back in space, I’ll do these because I’m so keen to liven up these bricks that I’ve got attached to my legs that I need to train that. That is not just going to come. I’m not going to feel light on my feet just by deciding that I want to do house one day. It’s not going to happen. So it was a really lovely thing to revisit and then to finish off the practising and come back round to listening to music that I love and just moving the way that I’d like and having accessed that through the styles was just a really cool thing to have happen at the end of all of that. And not what I thought would be my go-to being back in a studio on my own art after it all.

And then the rest of my time there was mostly spent figuring out Substack. So not creatively writing at all, just like right how does this platform work, where I’m going to want my writing to live, which was ultimately very productive and I enjoyed. Need to follow the scent on that because then I came back around to it once I got home I was like I can’t be bothered um and then there’s the toss up of if I wait until I’ve kind of cracked the code on how Substack works to share anything on there, it will be a really long time before I share anything on there. And no one is really looking at me right now. I can figure it out as I go along, just share the things. So I’m going to do that before the week is out, hopefully.

Yeah, and that was last week. I have monthly coaching sessions with the lady that runs the space and we had a really good one around what a sharing might look like for me there, what would be helpful for me and I am leaning less towards sharing work and more towards sharing ideas with people that might be able to help me execute them. Yeah, and even saying that, I’m like, yeah, that is what we’re going to do. So that will continue. I’ll hopefully go back later in the year and just keep plugging away at the things. But that was the week.

It felt chunky in ways. Oh, I also took class. I took Toby’s class at Playground. That had been a while. And while it took me out of the writing room, I thought it was still a really beneficial way to spend my London time because three hour round trip for a 90 minute class just is not happening. I love Toby’s class, so I had a really nice time. It’s always, I can’t help but zoom out from my experience as student, just like view the room.. and everyone seemed to be having a really good time. He made a really good point and I’m glad that someone who kind of promotes freedom in their movement and in their combos to still dictate, you know, where we should all be looking the same way. And I yeah, I did watch a a few people and wonder, like, do you know that you don’t look anything like him on that bit? Like, is that a choice or are you not able? And I do have some thoughts around how just in class do we do that like I am getting.. not getting better because I’ve always been able to do it, but being sure to be specific with my corrections and not to the room but to the the person that I’ve seen do the thing that isn’t correct. And I need to stay and want to stay on that.

Because I don’t think that cleanliness should be that thing that you don’t get trained on or expected to have skills in until you’re on a job. It used to be that you weren’t really used.. You didn’t, you weren’t trained to work on camera until you were on camera and like, you know, red dots and all that shit. Similarly with heels, there weren’t really heels classes so you weren’t really trained, you didn’t know how to dance in heels until you were booked on a job and then it was like ‘bring your heels’ and it’s like, ah, okay. Thankfully we were all dancing in kind of like Dr. Marten’s heels so there wasn’t really much of an issue with weight placement, etc. But cleanliness shouldn’t.. looking like the person next to you shouldn’t be a thing that you only train when you’re on a job. I think we are in like slightly dire spots if that’s becoming true, but it kind of feels like it is. Like I speak to peers of mine that work commercially as choreographers and it is often a thing of like, ‘my God, just so messy’ or.. ‘just so messy.’ It’s like, that’s just not a thing that we’re being taught anymore. So I do want to do my bit without discarding the individuality piece of my practice because I think it’s really important, but I think it is a bit less important now than when I started teaching or really got a grasp on teaching, when individuality and self-expression wasn’t so much a thing. It’s the thing now. So it’s like, right, where can we bring back some ability to dance in unison without having to go to a jazz class. Also so valid to go to a jazz class. I also watched.. This is my longest one, isn’t it? Wow, maybe it’s the stationary thing.

I also went to watch Bacchae at the National, which my sweet friend Ukweli Roach is one of the leads in and Fi Silverthorn’s in, Tash Gooden is in, a few other faces that we’ll know from the community and Kate Prince choreographed. And I watched Jamie Lloyd’s Romeo and Juliet and saw the writer in that as an actor. I didn’t know he wrote. But he’s rewritten Bacchae, which is a Greek tragedy that I wasn’t aware of. I think it’s Greek. Yes. Yes. 145 no interval. I laughed a lot. I did laugh a lot, but it took a while to get the tone of it. It was very ‘fam’ coded, a few too many fams for me I’ve got to say. I got it like I got it. I get where we are. I get what you’re doing. You don’t need to throw fam at the end of the sentences for me to understand understand that we’re in.. you’ve done it. But a delivery as well as like writing choice, I feel. And the dance was as I would have expected the dance to be from Kate, which is a compliment to their identity as a choreographer, I suppose. Yeah, I don’t really have to much to say about the dance. It was the dance. Ukweli was great. Very funny and I know he lapped up that role. One playing a god and two, just being camp as a row of pink tents. Um yeah, great. I just love seeing his work. And without standing at stage door with a programme, like I think I really do up fandom quite well because I do try to see him in everything. I just.. I’ve known him for a really long time obviously worked with him on Vice and as Luke and I bang on about just had some of the best times of my life with that piece and those people but just the journey from training as an actor into everything that he’s done and, you know, I work in theatre and don’t see as much as I could. So any opportunity to see great work, I will. And he was great in it. He didn’t know that me and my friend were going to be there, so that’s not always fun and I think they were, I think it was the third preview so a bit unkind but again, just taking advantage of being in London, really. So yeah, that was the week.

I feel like I end quite abruptly, but when I’m done, I’m done. Okay. Hope you’re all so well when you hear this months after it was recorded. Good day.

I’m sat in a hotel lobby and was wondering how the staff were dealing with the horrific tunes then this came along. I’m now hearing a lo-fi mix of A Long Walk with odd piano and wind instrument placements so it was brief relief but we’ll take it.

business as usual over here, as I continue clearing the deck so I can share my weeks in closer to real time. this batch is a little lighter on the smoke than the last, she was a sunny September and no-one was grinding my gears.

oh! oh! I had my first email in response to the last batch, be still my beating heart! so here for the discourse, do get at me with your thoughts if you feel so inclined. email, comment, subscriber chat, DMs, come at me!

as ever, on each voicenote’s page, you’ll find a transcript and references/resources you can click through to.

till next time x

on teaching in the Netherlands, iii starting in the Netherlands and loving the Netherlands

on reframing a body of work, camera free class and week two of Choreodrome

on We Should’ve Never Walked On The Moon and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe at Sadler’s Wells

on sharing new work, blurry boundaries in creative teams and keeping your agent in the loop

Hello. Did I do a millennial pause? Who’s to know?

I hope everyone’s well. Different setup today. I’m sitting down. I’m generally on the move, which is really my prime voice note recording time but potentially not the most enjoyable listen for you guys. Although, and here I am sounding out my process, right from the top, it’s a voice note and we all know that those are often recorded on the go. So everyone knows what they’re in for, essentially, but I thought I’d try an alternative just to see how it feels for me, mostly. Sorry. Because I think it will almost certainly, does that sentence start even make sense? I think that almost certainly, yeah. It will be better for you guys listening.

So the week in question was mostly about my sharing. It wasn’t my sharing. I was one of four works being shared, but the sharing of my work at Making Progress, which is tied to Choreodrome at The Place. So four of us were given the opportunity to share 10 minutes of what we’d been up to for 100 people, a mixture of public who just curious and wanted to see, and as The Place called them delegates, so international touring partners of The Place and general venues and organisations that might be interested in new work and artists. I had a great day. I thoroughly enjoyed. We had an option of whether to introduce the work ourselves, have it be introduced by Temi Ajose, who I believe is an Associate Artist at The Place. And or sorry, just let the work speak and have there be no introduction. And I, quelle surprise.. quelle surprise.. decided to introduce the work myself. And I really, and that happened again this week, which I’ll talk about in the next episode, but I’m having to talk about my work more and more publicly too, and like in real life, not written on the internet and having to keep it short in this wow.. in this instance was really interesting to me because what’s the most important for an audience to know or a potential partner to know and the work is personal in terms of it being my practice and ethos wrapped up in it, but it’s not autobiographical, it’s not like a tricky topic. So there is a level of detachment or lack of preciousness around it, but everything that I.. there are so there is real richness wrapped up in the work and so I think it’s all really important. So having to just find maybe three touch points to mention was quite tricky. I think I did well. I realised that however formal I try to make a presentation, I will always fall back on humour/just making it informal and chatty and that’s.. it’s just a cool find. And I think, thankfully, that I have the balance between being able to do that and kind of drop a chat down a level so that it feels safe and accessible and comfortable, but whilst retaining a seriousness, which just lends itself to me being a really unserious, serious person.

The work is built in a studio and not just rehearsed in a studio, but everything that it comes from is built from studio settings and session settings and the way that the room was set up was like a theatre, basically. It was the studios one and two downstairs as one big studio and half of that had that full-on kind of theatre seating in it. And they’d blacked out the room and we could have a lighting state so it’s as close to a theatre set up as I’ve been with the work so far and again, really interesting mostly in how that would shift things for the performers.. namely, Chaldon Williams, Lee Putman, Luana Manuka and Saskia Horton.. because there’s lights, there’s a stage, like just all the conventions that we know theatre to have are suddenly there and what does that do? And these are, you know, confident, proficient performers, but how to soften the line between performance and any expectation and wanting to deliver on any of those versus holding onto ‘I as performer can do whatever the heck I want and maybe what I want to do in that moment is impress’ and letting that be okay whilst making sure it’s known that that’s not the rule, and that’s not the task at hand so it was all kind of part of the experiment still. Thankfully, it was just 10 minutes and we were more than confident with the first three tracks of the show so compositionally, everyone was fine and you know, they all smashed it and the music slapped so really, really successful evening.

 And then onto a feedback session, which Temi facilitated. So the audience was split into four to each kind of focus on one of us artists. And then there was a ‘what worked’ section, a ‘tips and tricks’, so just anything that people might think that I could add or ponder on, any books, kind of podcast, people I should look up, which was a really, really cool thing. And there was another element. There was a second in between that that I can’t oh, like ‘what resonated’, I think, or what they thought the work might have meant, I think, was the thing there. And again because I’m not too attached or like I can separate myself from it, I was open to receiving that right after the show because as Temi and I had discussed, feedback can just be a doozy. Like you just can’t, you can’t be sure that an audience member is sensitive to not just dumping on you what they think the show should be and like not getting that that might not be the time to say it or that I might not want to know that. Or, you know, it’s like you can’t expect everyone to know your boundaries around that. And so the prompts given in this session and the speed of it was really helpful for all involved as well because, you know, when a show is done, people kind of just want to go so it was really generous of everyone to hang around and give their feedback. I appreciated it a lot. Yeah, so that was the main event.

And then I think I’d like to just sound off a little bit on some agency stuff that’s happening with one of my clients and it’s got me thinking about what leaves us susceptible to taking on more than the role is. And then I thought about as performers, that’s really rare in comparison to when you are a choreographer and when you are performing generally any online comms is restricted to the logistics surrounding the gig but all the creative happenings are in rehearsal and you’d be very explicitly set a task where it would then bleed over into being creative or being asked to make up a few eights and that in that explicit ask, you are then kind of given the power.. tricky in the moment to be like ‘no, not if you’re not paying me and crediting me’ but the line is clear there, I think.

In the case of choreographers, it also happens in the room, but it’s a softer, blurrier thing where, in my experience with Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, I was really lucky because the director was so in everyone’s things that his direction ended at the beginning of the production number and it started again at the end of the production number so my job was to choreograph and that was it.. until it was time to remount the show and then I was being asked to reblock his remount his blocking and I was like ‘no, like, I don’t know that I don’t know that, I don’t have where the show goes at the forefront of my brain so you can pay me to know it and you can credit me as Assistant/Associate Director if you want me to do that.’ Like I just, it moves, that show moves in a pretty choreographic and musical way, but I didn’t make that blocking so am I putting it back on its feet as Choreographer like a peered Head of Department? No, I am not. But that can happen in the creation. Wow, creation of a show where around your numbers, there’s just a ‘oh and how do you think you should go into it?’ And like, and ‘where do you think we go when the number ends?’ And it’s like, ‘am I co-directing this with you?’ That hasn’t, that’s only happened to me once where, and I’m not, I’m more interested in directing now so I might be more likely to like, ‘do you want to enter a conversation where we are making this show together?’ which some directors would push back on because they’re like, ‘yeah, we are making it together.’ And it’s like ‘yeah, we are, but I’m choreographing it.’ Like, that’s dance. What are we talking about? And um I think it can kind of get away from us until it’s done and it’s sometimes only when you’re watching the show back and you’re seeing your print on it that you’re, you can notice, ‘oh, if we pulled my work out of this.. not just dance numbers, but just my input here, this show doesn’t exist’ and that can be quite a bit of pill to swallow if you are ‘just’ credited as a Choreographer or a Movement Director.

Anyhow, in this case, we’re dealing with someone that’s creative directing and as we discussed in a catch up, my client is project managing as well and just in charge of so much more than they should be, but time is of the essence, things have got to be done, and in the hands of capable people, you just, you’re on the treadmill and you just get to it and you just get it done because what is the alternative? But as we were talking about, it’s just, it’s not good enough. And now, you know, we’re just discussing, like, right, are we just grinning our teeth, gritting our teeth and bearing it? Or how are we kickstarting the conversation about handing some of this back to the producers, which.. production in terms of event management and event production, unless you are creative producers, which then just puts a bit of creative input in there, it’s logistics. And the whole point of there being producers is to offset those logistics so a creative can be creative. Oversee all the different departments, sure, but the nuts and bolts of how those things are happening, I don’t think my client should be across and they are, which tells me that the production company are dropping some balls. And then to be anecdotal one more time, it reminds me very much of when I was the agent for all the dancers on the Everybody’s Talking About Jamie film and I was naive to this because it’s the first time that I’d represented talent on a film, perhaps, definitely of that magnitude, because I was looking after more than 100 dancers and I was collating measurements, addresses, chaperones, licensing forms and things of that nature. And there was a, because I was assisting with a pop artist1 at the time as Choreographer, I was teaching quite a lot internationally that summer, quite a lot for me, not in the grand scheme of a lot and I.. that was burnout time. I was so, so stressed and it was only when I had to tell my line manager at ZooNation what I was actually doing that I looked at that list and was like, wait a minute. I don’t think.. This is production. Like there needed to be a dance producer.

By rights, an agent connects clients, connects the client being the person who needs the service to the performer or the creative that provides that service. We sort out the contract and the deal and then more often than not, remove ourselves and the creative happens between the two. That was not the case on this gig. Or, sure, I’m asking everyone for their measurements and their addresses and do they want to stay? Do they want to go home at the end of each day? Do they want somewhere to stay? All of this stuff? I can ask the question, sure, and reach out to all the people. Really, there should have been a producer cc’d into that, they’re receiving all of the information and they’re collating it and they’re moving it all forward, but I did all of that and I had a dance casting credit on the film, I think, because we did the auditions, but I didn’t have a producer credit and I dare say that I should have and I dare say that my client should have a project management credit. They’re not going to care about that. And if there’s no money to go with it then I don’t think I care about it either, but definitely learning.

Last point. I as agent, I’m not there so I only know what my client tells me and it’s really easy as creative to not fill your agent in because you’re on job and you’re just getting it done. Dripfeeding info when there isn’t a problem probably isn’t going to happen unless you are just in a constant back and forth with your agent, but at least collating your end so that as little things start to happen, so you can let your agent know all the info when a problem does occur is vital because if I don’t have all the intel, when it’s time for me to step in and actually call something out or start a conversation about something that might be going a bit off, I don’t have all the intel I can’t do that as comprehensively as I’d want to. And I think in dance circles, agents get a bad rap rightfully because lots of them are trash. But you have to give them the tools that they need to help you. And if you give them all those tools and then they’re still rubbish, then you’ve got all the answers that you need, but you can’t expect them to know everything that’s happening on the job. especially when there’s a chance that your version of events is not the producer’s version. And I think that’s where agents can be a bit garbage where they will generally.. I have experience with this, where they will take the producer’s side. It’s like, you’re not there so the fact that you’re hearing mine and theirs and without knowing which is true are just siding with them when I’m the one that pays you is a little bit.. is a little bit wild to me. A little bit wild.

I’m going off now and I had made my points. So, yeah, not too chunky a week physically, but it was a biggie and it continued to be big in the week that followed. But now, as I’m sure you can hear in my voice, I am winding down. Yeah, that was the week. I’ll be back. Have a good one and speak soon.

Lads, I’m not gonna lie. Like having to re-record that episode has really thrown me off so hopefully this is the one that gets me back onto track. There’s also a thing I’m realising where if I’m having admin weeks.. I don’t know. I’m conflicted about doing this weekly just to do it weekly. I can always find something to yap about, but I’m increasingly aware of the amount of noise on the internet and I want to be adding to that consciously and not just because I must keep to this weekly schedule. We’ll see.. so clearly in the beginning phases. I mean, you’re joining me as I walk my dog. So we’ll see.

So I am skipping a week at home, which did have a funding application in the mix of it. Not too much to say on that, except I am finding increasing ease around that, and I think when I was trying with ACE for iii, it was high pressure to me just because it was so deserving. I’m sure you’ll feel that way. I mean, that’s not true. I think some people putting funding apps just to like, have a go. All that to say. The work that I’m keeping an eye out for.. applications for, like it’s a really strong and ever more distilling distilled idea, and I think that makes it easier, is making it easier to throw caution to the wind. And I think the thing about funding applications for me is how time consuming they can be and like the language that is expected, as I’ve spoken about before in my withering takedown of ACE. But yeah, I’ve put in a couple this week too, shan’t start getting too tangled in the time frame, but, yeah, I’m feeling right about that, which is good.

Anyway, the week in question, I came into London to see La Horde and.. I really try to get a little French on that when I pronounce it.. and Rambert’s show We Should Have 1 Walked On The Moon. Geni Lou very kindly gave me access to a dress run and preview. Insane that they had full access to the Queen Elizabeth Hall and Royal Festival Hall at South Bank, like not just curated a few spaces, like had the place, like mad. I will say I ran out of steam after about an hour and a half. I was supposed to go with someone and that didn’t happen and I was coming in for the show, but it was also to see the human being. And without that, it was like, I care, I don’t care enough about this to be getting back to Margate at two in the morning. So kept it short so I can’t say I saw everything. I saw like a rave type piece when I first walked in. I saw a couple of short films in the basement of Royal Festival Hall where the free like cypher space training space is. Then I wandered over to Queen Elizabeth and saw something in the foyer. That was probably the biggest dance number that I saw and then I saw was what seemed to just be a Zoom call. Manufactured or not, I couldn’t quite tell because I didn’t stay for all of it, but enjoyed like, you know, the extraction of process, I suppose.

And then my favourite thing was in the auditorium of Royal Festival Hall, you sat on the stage and watched a film on a screen that had been put up amongst the seats. And then a duet happened in front of that. That was my favourite use of space.

I think for makers and those that I’ve spoken to, it’s really hard to watch and be amongst something like that and not be like, what would I do with this? I don’t have the answer to that but what a fucking privilege and how insane really to be given for three, four nights and beyond to kind of get it up on its feet I’m sure, takeover of those institutions. Insane.

I wasn’t, I noticed after the fact that it included kind of Rambert and La Horde company dancers and students and community, whatever that means. I took it to mean like mass like volunteer, like maybe not professionals, but I don’t know how they defined that. But I didn’t find the quality, the first thing I watched for sure, the quality of the dance, I was a bit confused. Like I didn’t think it was very good. I’m allowed to have my opinion on that and that was my opinion on that. It’s not all to my taste and I knew what I was in for with that.. But I could appreciate the rest as like, good, even though I didn’t like it particularly.

What I struggled with was the map and yes, choose your adventure and choose your own adventure and just wander around and see what you see but you’re aware that you’re at something that’s only on for three nights and there are some quite big pieces that only happen twice and trying to time your journey around with that and I didn’t think the map was particularly clear. So I struggled and that did affect my experience, made it kind of more chore than I would have liked and was kind of the thing that took me out. I just, I was like, yeah, I don’t think I have the energy for this, actually. But yeah, it happened and is a logistical feat. I’m not going to take that away from them. And yeah, I’m glad I got to see it.

I also got to see Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe before it left Sadler’s Wells to note it, but mostly just to see my work on that stage. And it was really beautiful and I thought I’d judge the state of the show more harshly because it was Sadler’s, but actually, um well, that’s a separate thought too. It was really in decent shape. I went to say really good, but let’s not let’s not get above our stations here. It was in decent shape and I did get a little emotional at a point, but it is a point where I always get emotional because Barnaby Race the composer really did a thing in one of the songs and it gets me every time, which is mad because I’ve seen that show so many times.

I find noting a show difficult in the like picking battles of what to relay because when I know the pressure that the touring team are under with that show just getting it up everywhere without like my pernicketies and it’s interesting because I’m entitled to these pernicketies like it’s my work and some things aren’t in the shape that they need to be but some of the smaller notes, I’m like, without me being the person to relay them and see that they’re in, be able to have a cleaning call, see that it’s been fixed, then watch that night, then maybe watch the next night as would happen in the initial building of a show generally.. without that ability, just like passing this on to a DC2 as well, not even to a Resident and DC’s.. love them and they are doing a stellar job, I didn’t choose them and they were bestowed upon me, which is, I could honestly talk for like two hours about the journey of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and how my team or lack thereof has come about.

But yeah, I find that really interesting because I watch it, I see it, I write it down, and then it comes to relay and I’m like, there is no point in doing this. A me problem perhaps, but a systemic problem almost probably more.

So that happened and then on Sunday, I’d taken the summer off with sweet spot sundaze sessions. Generally quieter turnout and there are a couple of instances last summer where I had to shift dates because one must frolic and see the music artists that I love so I just kind of decided to not do it and we were back and it was lovely. It’s really good timing for me as well at the minute with the work that I’ve been doing at Choreodrome, it’s born out of sweet spot sessions and the sessions with my mates that predated those and to return to it and like the core and feeling of the thing was really, really special for me. And yeah, just to hold space for peeps to come and do what they want. And yeah, it’s not something I take lightly, however lightly the endeavour actually is. Yeah, really beautiful to return.

I’ll leave it there and I’ll return. I’ll return with more things next week.

Hello hey hi.

So the week in question I taught at Playground. I think I might have skipped a month in my desire to teach monthly classes but for the most part, I have stuck with it which I’m really proud of myself for. It’s so interesting to me and I don’t think I’ve spoken about this on here yet that I, as many people did and still do uphold and maintain a weekly class, like I could never now. Or I could, but it would not be revolving around making new things every two weeks. Like, I just don’t naturally come up with stuff that frequently anymore. But I.. because I don’t have to. Like, I obviously got into a flow out of necessity in the years before COVID. All that to say. Loving the monthly, the monthly situation. And I’m making new things enough to be satisfied. I think I might be coming to the end of that being true because I’m just not dancing very much at the moment. Just, uh for.. like naturally and for fun, it’s not really happening. There’s a lot going on in life and work and that does play a part but to counter that is a.. or to aid that truth is a notion that I’ve had for a couple of years now of really wanting to honour and promote my archive of work. In starting to develop a longer piece and having to speak about my practice to people that might not know it, it seems really.. I think I am underselling my body of work to say ‘I’ve taught weekly classes for however many years’ when actually the pieces that were made and taught have gotten me work. Is gotten even a word? Like, I thought of it and considered that before it came out of my mouth, but I couldn’t find a replacement, but just to say, I don’t know that gotten’s a word. Anyway, that’ve gotten me work outside of that context and kind of sharpened my skills with making, but also for my community, like some of those pieces, like mean things to people and they mean a shit ton to me and they are.. I call them microworks because like eight counts of eight, a minute or so, but like, they count and on the conveyor belt of teaching weekly and coming up with a new thing.. re teaching wasn’t really as much of a thing when I was in the flow of it either, I don’t feel like. Just on the conveyor belt of constantly coming up with new things, didn’t really notice or take stock of them, of the things that I was making, and I’m definitely wanting to pull some of those back into the present and to do that and them feel good. It’s not like I’m bringing a.. dusting off a relic that doesn’t feel good to me or feel particularly relevant to my practice, like the fact that they still feel really good in my body, arguably better than when they were made, and them still feel relevant to my practice is a really lovely thing.

All that to say, I didn’t teach anything from my archive. That day, I retaught a lovely thing and I went camera free. I’m making a conscious effort to make sure some of my offerings are consciously camera free. I think the reasons are fairly obvious. I think we need them. I think some spaces are camera free, but I’m not sure they’re promoted as such, and I think that makes a difference. Like, I know when I first did it, there were a couple of people in class that said, like that’s why they came. And I think we learn differently. I think we may learn differently. I don’t think I teach any differently, but I think the space just feels different knowing that it’s a ‘if you’re there, you’re there’ situation. And yeah, I’m keen to keep that going. It’s not a judgement on spaces with cameras in at all. I get the benefits, I get the necessity to a degree. But I think for learning and enjoyment and safety, it’s important that they’re not all that, and also in the context of Playground.. again, I might not be the only one, but I don’t see others promoted as such and I think it is very content heavy and we get to see the output from that space a lot and I want people to be able to dip their toe into being in that space, which I think happens with my class anyway, like people that might not have been there before coming and taking my class, but if they get to kind of suss it out without being on show, then that’s a plus.

So it was a lovely time.. And then I went straight into Choreodrome.

Worth saying I’d just come back from Holland, as mentioned in my last voice note, and part of me was like ‘why are you inserting a class on your only day before going into Choreodrome?’, but the fact is I don’t live in this city anymore and a mortgage must be paid and in trying to keep up a monthly class, it just made sense to do. In going into Choreodrome week two, I think I might have mentioned this with, I definitely wrote it and thought it.. I don’t know if I said it when speaking about week one, but when I don’t have dancers in a space, when it’s just me, myself and I, 10 till 6, boy, do I struggle to focus.

I think it’s a result of having other plates to spin. I think it being a physical endeavour, which is interesting because I think.. I listened back to my other voice notes not that long ago and spoke about, like lighting and costume being the kind of elements that I know less about and wanting to spend more time on. I’m not too sure that I did that. I think there’s a comfort in I know what I want them to be. And when I get the moolala to do that, I will. And that kind of adds on to.. I shared, I shared a funny meme in my stories the other day it’s like a mop with one string on it and it’s like ‘doing what you can with the resources that you’ve been given.’ And as I said to the dancers I had in the space, like, it’s a double edged sword, like I’m so thankful I think this way because there’s a sustainability element and an honesty in, like, ‘this is what you get for this amount.’ But the commission for Choreodrome doesn’t stretch very far and there’s something in me that’s engrained to acknowledge the pounds.

I’m in Croydon. I’m in Croydon. That’s the noise..

My brain kind of seeps out as much as a thing is offering. It’s directly connected and as such that it felt like a bit of a light touch on it, which felt really comfortable. I wasn’t like at war and wanting to do more, but ‘you can’t, because you’re not being given more money.’ So it was fine. It’s just an interesting thing for me to clock. We got through a lot of the work of the piece. The overriding thing that I thought about is that I think the work is good and any kind of hmms around the process and not anything to do with the work and if I had to have it any way, I’m glad it’s that way around. Yeah, I.. I’m really pleased with how the fortnight went. I think the output is great. I think the takeaways have been light. I didn’t come away like ‘oof, I need to process all of that’, which is amazing and I’m yeah, I’m really excited about it. I believe in it. I think it’s worthy of eyes, funds, time space, all the things that it needs to grow. I’m aware that I’m diving into a thing of like a stretched out timeline. Potentially repeating myself here but I did see something recently about needing to be okay with sounding like a broken record.. and that kind of meaning that you stand on, like, principles of certain kinds, and this is one, that I/we are used to having ideas.. wanting.. and kicking into gear and making the version that you can with the resources that you have in that moment and if there is to be a scaling up, I need to release that.. and accept that it will take more time. If I’m calling in support, that takes time and building relationships with people to support financially and otherwise, and then I’ve spoken with other artists further along in the timeline of all this and more experienced with this than me of just a thing of you write your application, speaking specifically about people that are in NPOs, so National Portfolio Organisations, they’ll be regularly funded in a cycle of four years and you need to deliver what you write in that application and if you write something for year four, then when four years passes, maybe more than that by the time the money comes through and the thing’s accepted, you need to stay excited about that thing, that you’re, that big project that you’re going to need to deliver in year four. And that is my.. It’s not a worry. It’s just something that I’m aware of, I’m going to still need to do this potentially in 2027. And that is brand new but it does give some ease to it for me, which I am enjoying..

Yeah, so that was that week. I’ll be back to talk about the week that followed.

Okay, transparency alert - just went to listen back to the episode I’m about to re-record and it’s just silence. Like, I had a feeling that it wasn’t vibes ‘cause I was walking from Whitechapel to Playground. I even stopped when I heard the call to prayer and just let that ring out in the voice note, which was a really beautiful moment, actually.. and it was while I was speaking about one of my friends who is Muslim, so it was a really beautiful moment, but clearly one that I was just supposed to tell you about and not have you experience because the whole thing was in silence. So, I’m two weeks removed from the week I’m about to speak about.1 I didn’t need to do any of that, by the way, obviously, but it’s me, and we’re here now.

So, um I was in Holland that week. There was an IBE episode that I recorded separately and really strange because that episode is out in the world before I’ve even really launched tiiiny humble opinions as a thing, but you know me. Lofi, low key. Bar.

Okay, so, I was in Holland, um... Sheer coincidence. Well, no, happy accident, following IBE that I could stay in a very lovely houseboat for not very much money at all.. So I did that and it was only after making that plan that I came into the knowledge that Summer Dance Forever was that week, which was great. I can’t say I took advantage of much of it because the battles were sold out and I’d come from being in Ireland and then IBE with a day in London inbetween and then going onto Choreodrome.

I’d kind of fixed Amsterdam as not particularly dancey and I just couldn’t quite get my head into itinerary building energy, so I didn’t. So I didn’t get to take advantage of much that was going on, but I did get to a bit of House Dance Forever. I am putting up a brolly ‘cause I am in London and it seems to be raining on and off every 10 minutes at the moment which is nice. Yeah, I got to go to House Dance Forever. I was there for about an hour and nothing had started and I needed to leave to go and frolic on a boat. And then I managed to get back for the final, which was great. I love Paradiso as a venue. I’ve seen many a gig there. I think, like, Jordan Ra.. Wait, is that in my dreams? No. Jordan Rakei was in Melkweg.. butchery, again. Dutch butchery. No, Sam Gellaitry, Miguel. Oh, my God.. Uh, I can’t remember what else, but Miguel at Paradiso, that Carrie-Anne took me for my birthday. And also, Will West and I have performed there! Shay ran a few nights, like club showcase nights, and Will and I got to perform. I don’t even know how that came about ‘cause I hadn’t assisted him yet. Shay and Will, maybe Good Times? Don’t think so.

Anyway. Lovely to be in that venue. You know when you just see something on screen for so long and then suddenly to be in it was just a lovely thing. I felt a step removed from it because I hadn’t been there all day.

And I think.. IBE to Summer Dance, similarly to Dylan’s camp into Ripple. It’s really interesting at this big old age that I’m now seeing... I mean, also these events weren’t necessarily, not all of them were around when I was training hard, but I think my pilgrimage was LA. I didn’t really do the European training thing, but it’s really cool to see how the dots connect and how easily you can hop from one thing to another and build yourself a really comprehensive, creative summer. So that was a nice thing to... It’s just been a nice thing to witness over the past couple of months.

I was lucky enough to teach. I taught a choreo class at Collab Industry. I’d been there because I went to Shay’s programme last summer with Will. It was lovely. One of my friends and I think one other had taken my class before, and it’s a really beautiful thing. I don’t take it for granted. I don’t take it for granted that people take a punt on you, especially in those studios where it’s, like, I’m not faculty. I mean, it seems the way now that studios are largely leaving lots of space open for pop ups..

Yeah, bigger conversation, I think, because I’ve had people, well, I had someone in my Playground class recently asked me about going to college. And I said, you know, I didn’t, so can definitely vouch for not going that route, but you do need to be quite disciplined with building your own training schedule. That’s really hard now because.. I mean, The Manor’s sorting that out, and I can’t say I’m really across what’s at Base these days - that’s a me problem - but it was a lot easier to build your own schedule because all the studios had faculties. And that’s a little trickier now.

All the way back to Amsterdam. Yeah, it meant a lot that people came through. And it’s just really interesting that there are so many things about our industry that are so particular, but to be new to people all the time, I don’t know, I’m like.... ‘is a dentist new to people all the time?’ Just, like trying to compare to other careers. Anyway, I’m new to people all the time. And that someone in my generation and generations beyond me, although I guess there aren’t too many beyond me that are boots on the ground teaching and stuff so maybe it’s a digital discovery or being spoken about by other people, but to be around for a hot little minute, to say the least, and still be brand new to folks, is like such a privilege.. and not just to be new in being discovered, but also to pique this generation’s interest and them want to like see what’s up is super super cool. And it was really nice. It was a really light class, and I got to ride from the city centre down to Collab Industry in a cargo bike. What a gift. Thank you Stephen Aspinall the Great, the man, the myth, the ledge.

And then the next day, I got to share some iii goodness with some good peeps, thanks to Senna Amarnis and her Portal. Similar to a Deep Dive series, I suppose. She hosts people. And again, two.. Hanneke was there, who’s done iii in London. And then three people that took at Collab took the Portal sesh too. But everyone else was new, and yeah, a blessing, a real special thing for me to take iii to Amsterdam. It was born there actually, in idea. I didn’t get to do it there but when I was trialling living there, in 2016, I had the idea for iii. And then it was early ‘17 that I did the pilot, so a real full circle thing for me to get to deliver it there, and hopefully the first of many.. would love to build up from the three hours to at least a weekend, but onwards.

I just have such an affinity with Amsterdam specifically, but increasingly Holland in general. I know it’s not without its issues, for those living there, particularly if you are a minority but same same at the moment, it seems. I was saying to a friend today, like, that city has seen the best and the worst of me.. or just me and my best and worst states, not me being a menace to society. Me having been menaced, shall we say. And that’s the same as like wherever I touch in the world repeatedly that they’ve seen however many different versions of me but there’s just something about that city that, um, I don’t know, it just speaks a little differently to me and to be there, just be.. I just love going to places where you feel.. there’s familiar things. Like I step out of that station and I know exactly where I am, know my way around, can hop on a bike and not feel like I’m going to be mowed down by a tram. Yeah, it’s a.. Yeah, again, I’m not taking anything for granted at the minute clearly. And to throw dance at that, dance wasn’t like a massive part of why I’d go. It was close. That’s what it had going for it. And I suppose, relative to me in my life, I was in my stoner phase. So it was wins all round for me. But, yeah, I’m feeling ever more.. I kind of had a few years off from it and I’m feeling ever more drawn and just have more reasons to return to it and that is a really beautiful thing.

And that ventured away from dance so much but when you spend so long doing it, and it kind of weaving itself into your life, as much as I’m really good at separating, I’m equally as good at having it feel kind of integrated and just a part of my everyday.

So there you have it. That was my rundown that didn’t.. I was just about to do that thing that I do where I say the same thing, three different ways.

Yeah. See you next week, friends.

1. What is your practice beyond your dance, beyond the studio? How do we build out a method? What else is there to say, how else can you say it? Is there anything that matters beyond the shapes you make? Are your community in the loop?

2. If we speak, a shared truth. A descent from the heavens of ‘but what if it doesn’t..?’ Conversations around ‘do it anyway.’ ‘Does it have to be this route if it feels this mighty?’ ‘Is it as mighty as you’re making it?’

3. Live differently for different modes of being. Inside out. Take the time to do that and feel the change.

4. Say what you want to say. Outdoor voices.

5. There is a bigger picture, but this is where we start.

6. Heighten and ground.

7. I have my preferences and opinions and things I think the current generation could do better at, but my goodness do I love dance and this community.

8. I connected with folks in real ways. I didn’t overextend, everything I gave felt comfortable to give, but was received as generous. So gently positive and in keeping with how we move.

9. Reclamation of time will do so much.

10. What’s the pipeline from idea to a realised, external thing? Is it enough to have the idea? Could I hold on a little longer, tempt it to be a little less fleeting? Well, yes.

    a recap from my class at Take Flight Easter Intensive, April ‘25.

    Thoughts, feels, questions? Talk to me. More importantly, thanks for being here.

I haven’t been recording these lately - a hiatus was needed so I could figure out how (I wanted) to share them! It does feel right though, given the time of the year, to be reflecting on those months and all they held, in anticipation of sharing happenings in closer to real time in 2026.

as ever, on each voicenote’s page, you’ll find a transcript and references/resources you can click through to. are these useful for anyone? you know me, Lo-fi Linda, I will cut the extras if they aren’t helpful.

however the notes find you, i’m keen to hear what resonates, where you may beg to differ and any questions - I’m all ears.

005 - on choreographing for screen, skeleton crews and just starting

tiiiny humble opinions.

005

a transcript, with clickables…

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6 months ago · Shannelle ‘Tali’ Fergus

006 - on residential dance camps, an archive and stressed students

tiiiny humble opinions.

006

a transcript, with clickables…

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6 months ago · 1 like · Shannelle ‘Tali’ Fergus

007 - on Arts Council England and other topics, but mostly ACE

tiiiny humble opinions.

007

a transcript, with clickables…

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5 months ago · Shannelle ‘Tali’ Fergus

008 - on The Notorious IBE and Crashfest

tiiiny humble opinions.

008

a transcript, with clickables…

Listen now

5 months ago · Shannelle ‘Tali’ Fergus

.. and in case you miss it on 008’s page, now you know.

A slightly different situation this week and a little special weekend edition, I guess, of tiiiny humble opinions as I focus on The Notorious IBE and Crashfest. I’m actually still here, but in a quiet moment and while it’s all still fresh, I may as well speak on it.

I am in Heerlen, which I think is a town that always sleeps is the vibe that I’m getting from the Dutch homies, except for a weekend of the year when street culture descends upon the town and yeah, it’s really inspiring in terms of like activating and bringing energy to quieter areas and as opposed to just the go-to in the big cities and the town seemed really receptive to it. It doesn’t take over it. It spreads out over like a strip, as we’d say it, and then like kind of either end of said strip kind of spills out a bit, but I’m sat just down a side road like I can see the activity, but it feels really peaceful still, which is nice for one that needs moments to regulate before second winds and Saturdays.

But Luke and I got in yesterday and then Billy Big Potatoes wanted to enter battles, like straight away. I don’t know how, but I don’t battle so different gravy. So we flew into Amsterdam and then we had like a two-hour ish, two and a half hour train journey to Heerlen and then straight. I know I am butchering the pronunciation, but I’m really, I’m not Dutch, so we’re here. And we are here, right here. We got here at like two in the afternoon, dropped bags, changed quickly and then headed straight out.

It’s a concept called 3Da Hard Way, I believe. Hope I’m right. Hip Hop, House, and Breaking, isolated battles in each style, which then end up with 3-on-3 with one dancer of each style. So we were in the prelims for that in one of the venues. It was like inside and super intimate, not super intimate like too tight, ample space, but nice to be inside, nice to be able to sit on the balcony in somewhat peaceful ways.

He’s calling me and interrupting me, which is nice. He’ll have to deal with the edit of this, so it’s fine.1 Love you.

Yes, we were in the prelims for that. And honestly, like, I don’t get to loads of battles at home, but I was just reminded.. I think I might have spoken about this on The Capsule before, but I used to go before I started dancing or like right at the beginning, I would go to BBoy Champs and I would go to Breaking battles and obviously I was at Jump Off a lot. But there was an event called Sprite Urban Games and this has that energy for me. It was way more contained. It was just on Clapham Common, but just kind of an all- encapsulating situation. Like the programme is packed.

I associated IBE with breaking, which is correct, I believe, but there’s.. We missed Friday, but there was Popping happening then Locking. There was Waacking here yesterday. There’s been Hustle workshops and talks about Hustle and ‘partner dance in a solo world’, I think was the tagline. Like I said, Hip Hop, House in 3Da Hard way. Like there’s so much going on. There’s talks. I feel like I was doing like a chronological rundown of our activity and I’ve kind of siphoned off into a general scenario, but the programming is amazing. I feel like every kind of artist would enjoy being here and I don’t.. like I haven’t entered anything and I’m still thoroughly enjoying. I will say I’m a little bit tired now, but it ends tonight. So, you know, sleep tomorrow. After the prelim, there was also the 3Da Hard Way Let It Happen prelim that Luke entered. In between that there’s like really good food going on. There’s loads of like merch stalls and vintage stalls and stuff, which is cool. And I think because it’s all contained on the strip, that’s obviously like a narrow setup. So you’re just inclined to bump into people and also in the being between the food trucks, you’re sitting communally, which is really lovely. You can come away from that, but just it’s.. I’m really inspired by it and being around battle culture is just always really, really beautiful. Like, I obviously don’t specialise in a style, but to see people so committed to one.. and that’s not to say that the people I’m watching don’t do more than, but just so obviously committed to mastering and playing within the confines of a foundation. It’s just a really beautiful thing to see.

As CEO of The Ruggeds fan club, It was only right that we made an appearance at their panel talk about their 20 year anniversary. I didn’t get there for the beginning where I intended to quiz people on The Ruggeds related trivia to gain entry but I was late. Hopefully they don’t demote me. Anyway, we walked in and Jonzi D was saying really, really beautiful things that I echo about them as examples of ways to be as well as creative examples of how to do things and be good breakers and make good shows, et cetera, et cetera. And that has been, it’s echoed every time I’m around them. And like, honestly, it seems like gas and it’s like a running joke and I am also CEO of keeping that joke alive. But I just, I said what I said and now I’ll continue to say it with chest. They’re just the coldest, quite frankly.

Cut to the after party where Perdu Dans Le Sauce, again, French accent, butchery, but I’m not French. I’m no more French than I am Dutch okay guys.. and Shinshan and Lee being a part of that, so just another area of greatness really. I hadn’t seen Lee play before and that was a lovely thing. Kids raving.. apparently kids take whistles into raves now. So that was nice. There’s a drink here called Lavish guys. Shout out Aisja and Niek, I didn’t know it was like a can, like a tall can, which are normally lame at home in terms of like any kind of buzz. But I just wasn’t really sure and like dived into it and then cut to it being quite strong and, you know, being a bit sleep deprived and, you know, fun. So the whistling was okay. It was fine.. Yeah, it was... We had a time. We did have a pit stop back at the hotel, which is kind of operating on like a shuttle type situation, which pros and cons, because today, for example, Luke and I said if we were walking distance from the hotel, we probably would have had a little pit stop, maybe closed our eyes for a little bit, but we’re keeping up momentum, which is cool.

Cut to today, Crashfest.

I’m just leaning on the table, just shaking my head because fucking epic event. It takes a village. I know it’s not just Tawfiq, but I believe it to be his concept and it’s an incredible concept. I don’t think.. I won’t go into what that is because I imagine Luke has set that up with his take on it all. As I said to him when we came out, it’s just a really well thought out, complete world surrounding the concept, everything from the music that’s playing before everything starts, the way Tawfiq comes out and the energy that he enters the space with, the fact that there are belts for the winners, the music that’s played during the battle just ramps it up like a trillion percent. It really was a beautiful thing to witness.

Luckily, sat really close to the action. I was sat behind some of the participants, which made it quite difficult to see. So I think you’re kind of.. you’re choosing whether you want to be amongst it or you can totally have sat up in the auditorium and witnessed it from above. I think for my first time being there, I’m really glad that I chose the version that that I did. Some real mean feats. And, like, there’s someone in our scene. I don’t know how active they are now, but they used to dash themselves about and that was kind of their thing. And like, I never really, I didn’t enjoy watching it because I, I kind of winced before he’d even throw himself in the air. This isn’t shade on him choosing to do that. And it’s not even a taste about liking it or not actually. It’s just more the emotion it would evoke from me. But there’s something about this lot where, like that.. and I don’t know if this differs from the person that I’m talking about, but they’re testing their limits, but they’re trying to land the things. And there’s like an anticipation around it and like a real excitement about it. Like you literally feel like you’re at a heavy metal or a rock concert, honestly, and like, I used to fuck with that music heavy when I was younger and never actually saw it live. So that was nice. That was an added element that I enjoyed. But there.. it wasn’t a jeopardy scenario. You were just gassed to be witnessing these people like fucking go for it.. Yeah, I’m such a fan.

Like, just, I feel really grateful for these opportunities that The Capsule are getting. I know it’s, I’m like a hanger on as much as I contribute and have for a few years. Luke definitely does the bulk of the work. But to be invited to these spaces to simply witness them and speak on it is such a blessing and an honour and 20 years in, like there’s something kind of full circle-ish about all of this for me because these are the spaces that I was in and was a fan of like when I was younger and started and I haven’t, I never really dived in as a participant in terms of battling but just to have remained close enough to it, to feel really at home in it, and still as interested in it all as when I was a teenager was just a really, really beautiful thing.

And I think to turn it round to me as my life kind of scales up and is shifting into like new realms and kind of disciplines that I haven’t.. I’ve thought about for a long time, but I haven’t necessarily explored before.. to return to these spaces and kind of drop all of those things, but still be in receipt of so much inspiration and sense of community and really beautiful energy and safety, but also kind of risk taking. And that’s from the participants in all of the events, but equally the people that are organising them.

Like this stuff doesn’t come without its risks and it doesn’t come without its possible failures, you know. And everything’s been done so well. I’m sure for each element, each organiser or producer of a thing, there’s things that they might improve, but yeah, if any of you get this far into this quite strange concept where I just record myself speaking as if I was to a mate and expecting you all to hear it.. you absolutely smashed it. Thank you all for your hospitality and your kindness. It emanates through all of it. And yeah, I’ll be here sooner than the Saturday afternoon next year for sure.. Yeah. Brilliant.

I was gonna do a really, really cheesy segue ‘and throwing it back to Luke’, and I’ve done it now, so I may as well go. Yeah, love. Bye.

Just knocking on the table like an absolute amateur. Yeah, bye.