Author Archives: Rebecca JS Nice

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About Rebecca JS Nice

Rebecca worked as a dance teacher, lecturer and choreographer for eight years specialising in tap and jazz. She has a background in Art History and is currently training further in medieval history and contemporary choreography with a particular interest in live art. At the early stage of her dance writing career, Rebecca reviews and analyses theatre and dance performance and is working on a papers for publication.

Stopgap Dance: Bill and Bobby

Greenwich + Docklands 2015: Fair Play

Rebecca Nice enjoys a day out at the Greenwich Fair 2015

Greenwich Fair – records of which date back to the eighteenth century, with famous past visitors including Voltaire – remains a highlight of London’s summer scene, both for those who seek live outdoor performance, and those who revel in a fun family day out. In recent years, the Fair has been a vibrant part of the annual Greenwich and Docklands International Festival, which also embraces the Dancing City programme; and evening spectaculars by companies such as La Compagnie Oposito, presenting the UK premiere of Kori Kori, and Periplum’s 451, reviewed here.

 

Collectif Malunés Sens Dessus Dessous

Collectif Malunés: Sens Dessus Dessous

Arriving at Greenwich to find hundreds of people utterly absorbed in a circus trapeze act revolving around a caravan installed in the Cutty Sark Gardens sets the tone for the day to come. The audience spans the entire paved area below Collectif Malunés’ trapeze, whose performers swing high up to the heights of the ship in their piece Sens Dessus Dessous. Amongst the frivolity of a fair with food, drink and sun in abundance, high quality outdoors arts – theatre, dance and circus – remain at its core. Greenwich Fair is always well organised with plenty of volunteers to hand, with clearly marked performance areas with signage for each show, and 2015 is no different. With the majority of the programming scheduled around the Cutty Sark and the Royal Naval College Gardens, it is gloriously easy to wander from one show to the next and discuss the latest viewing with friends over a cocktail by the river. So, mojitos in hand, we find Gandini Juggling Company and marvel at Belgian circus company Collectif Malunés’ tricks and turns in the air, looking down to a sea of faces, while Gandini’s six performers unpack their skull, feathered mohican-style baseball helmet, and juggling balls, ready for 8 Songs.

 

Gandini 8 Songs photo Alice  Allart

Gandini Juggling: 8 Songs. Photo Alice Allart

A rabble of six rock-star jugglers strut, thrust and sing to eight classic rock music tracks whilst nimbly controlling the spinning, flying, arching and rolling balls. Audience and performers alike enjoy revelling in the catchy tunes (which includes tracks by Bowie, Bob Dylan, the Beach Boys, The Velvet Underground, and the Rolling Stones). 8 Songs easily pulls in the crowds, who are then mesmerised by the magnetism of the juggling and more and more people arrive to bop along. 8 Songs, one of a number of Without Walls commissions for 2015 presented at Greenwich and Docklands Festival, is delivered by a team of performers that doesn’t include company co-founders Sean Gandini and Kati Yla-Hokkala – offering the chance for talented younger company members to shine. The delicate art of juggling is juxtaposed with the sexy stance of a typical rock performer in studs and leathers, holding a juggling ball in his crutch, giving a stylistic complexity that parallels the detailed musicality driving the juggling scores. As each ball peaks in momentum in the air, it does so on a beat of the music, as with every catch and release. This creates a composition where the balls quite literally dance to complex guitar solos or popular melodies. Duets where balls circle in front and behind both performers placed on a chest, or swopped from hand to hand, are laced with sex and attitude. The Beach Boys’ Good Vibrations showcases six-ball crescendos that create fountain-like plumes above the performer’s heads. Chris Patfield masters a spinning basketball, then proceeds to spin two further balls on top. He commands his objects in a way that is indicative of Gandini Company as a whole – like mini planets that orbit the performers controlled by an invisible force. Spellbound by the kaleidoscope of yellow balls, ever flying ever catching, it is only on the odd drop that the audience is reminded of how skilful and risky the juggling sequences are, and it is the art of the throw and the catch and not a magnetic force that keeps these objects in orbit. Building to a climactic finish, Gandini’s jugglers freestyle in a silent disco, eventually leaving their balls, and clothes, strewn across the stage.

 

Artizani Bees! The Colony

Artizani: Bees! The Colony

On being released back into the Greenwich crowds, meandering about the Royal Naval grounds – this time armed with strawberry daiquiris – there is time to purchase festival flowers for the hair and check out the menagerie of installations on the lawn. Artizani’s Bees! The Colony lets you peer into a series of hives with their own sound effects and miniature bee scenarios, from racing bees to witty cinema scenes. This would be a great starting point for a more extensive immersive theatre piece – but with such a full programme of performances, easy-going features that allow you to appreciate them at your leisure are a welcome break between shows. A wandering Reliquary – a bejewelled casket containing who-knows-what – is trundled past by Avanti Display, but there is frustratingly not enough time to chase it before settling down for a good suntan and the next show on my schedule. This mystery walkabout piece and the Artizani installation are both part of the Without Walls programme for 2015, and touring to many of the country’s major outdoor arts festivals – Hat Fair will be another opportunity to discover the secrets within!

 

Stopgap Dance Bill and Bobby

Stopgap Dance: Bill and Bobby

Louder than Words by Cathy Waller Company features a central sound artist, Christopher Preece whose hodgepodge of instruments, some appearing to have a home-made quality, are highly technical and fascinating. Contemporary dancers Yukiko Masui and Gareth Mole perform a grounded and physical set of phrases in continuous circular motion about their body, and wider about the musician. Their dynamics are aggressive, their gesture and floor pattern expansive, but their relationship with each other ambiguous. As they circle their sound artist, they draw attention to his trance-like minimal chords but the choreography focuses heavily on the steady beat without picking up the nuances and rhythms emanating across the Cutty Sark gardens. Highly skilful in both dance and music, a disconnect between the dancers and the central figure pulls focus more heavily towards the talented musician who steals the show.

A picnic lunch is eaten before a giant pendulum – Travelling Light Circus’s Pendula Fantastica, an oversized Newton’s Cradle that feels especially suited for Greenwich, the home of time and space. The pendulum hypnotically swings through an array of patterns, the giant silver balls in constant momentum in the sparkling sunshine. Lunch over, we join the crowds grouping by the ship for some bounce and jollity.

Bill & Bobby, by integrated dance company Stopgap, is a cheerful duet to a series of musical theatre soundtracks. Playing drunken fools, Amy Butler and David Toole bounce in and out of a bath, share limbs and hide body parts whilst ironically turning Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers’ lyrics  ‘No one could teach you to dance in a millions years’ literally on the head. Butler’s dance vocabulary is well executed with a tottering top heavy stance, and facial expression ranging through drunkenly sickie to flirtatiously cheeky. Her relationship with Toole is both silly and endearing, his strength and dexterity in travelling on his arms and his embodying dynamic is rhythmic and masterful. A tap-dancing section with no visible feet has potential for an intricate choreography with the hands in order to more fully interpret the tune set by the tapping soundtrack. Both of these characters relish in the overblown enactment of Fred and Ginger lyrics – a snappy and chirpy piece that brings laughs and a light-hearted nature to the programme delivery, now in full swing in the sweltering heat.

 

BRONKS Walk Walk

BRONKS: Walk Walk

Presented by leading Flemish children’s theatre company BRONKS, Walk Walk is located a fifteen minute walk away in Greenwich Park – well worth hunting down for a funny, absorbing and captivating family show that is sophisticated in its approach, with much for an adult to enjoy. Waiting in the well-kept park for the arrival of the ‘hiking guide’, a startled audience jump as a beeping car pulls in behind them in the middle of the lawn. From out of it disembarks Rebecca, a bundle of nerves and excitement, with a running commentary of her thoughts and events that led her to be late for her tour. Immediately the scene is set for a series of surprises, and it is hard not to empathise with Rebecca, who keeps us emotionally involved with her plight throughout.

Guided through the forest, we are treated to an air hostess style introduction, and a race to name the trees, alongside passionate warnings of the dangers that the wood holds. The physical embodiment of character informs the demonstrations of forest animals and hazards. The re-enactment of the Red Fox and the position of its body and the height of its spray is a particular highlight, full of innuendo. Taking place in a nature reserve, the nature under discussion has little relation to the existing site, which sums up the nonsensical themes of this work in a world where the grown-ups fully commit to searching the floor for a make-believe insect with a magnifying glass! (We did it for Rebecca, she has an exam the next day with the Grand National Guild of True Hiking). Two more performers reveal themselves as the unsuspecting tour guide and her faithful audience tour the forest. One performs a monologue from high up in the trees, another appears and disappears as several characters who interrupt Rebecca during her important task. Her character’s tenacity, passion and expression that allows the audience to follow the transformation of her thoughts that occur as the narrative unfolds make Walk Walk thoroughly engaging – the skilful mispronunciation of words, the failed activities, the physical demonstrations and the series of mini tableaus and sketches within a grand narrative entertain and hold the audience’s attention. Walk Walk brims over with surprises, humour, spectacle and a new immersive reading of the Greenwich Park site – the perfect way to end the day at the Fair.

 

Travelling Light Circus Pendula Fantastica

Travelling Light Circus: Pendula Fantastica

 

Greenwich Fair took place on Sat 27 June and Sun 28 June 2015 at Old Royal Naval College, Cutty Sark Gardens & Greenwich Park, London.

For more on Greenwich + Docklands International Festival 2015 see the website

 

Company Chameleon: Hands Down

Company Chameleon - Hands Down - Photo R NiceThe success of Hands Down lies in its simplicity. The title, to be easily the best with not too much effort, effectively describes the visage of this duet, performed by Company Chameleon’s Artistic Director Anthony Missen with Riccardo Meneghini. Creating an effortless style using contemporary dance, Company Chameleon’s complexities lie in the subtlety of their dynamics and efforts, underpinned by incredible strength, control, and agility.

Squeezed between a restaurant and a glass office block, Riccardo Meneghini emerges from the crowd, carefully balancing Anthony Missen on his shoulders, who appears to be transfixed, his eyes alive, his body motionless but strong. The reflections in the surfaces behind extend the performance area into a green, watery world where the dancers seem to float.

Hands Down plays out a bond between two men. Their relationship is communicated and develops through the eye contact between the two dancers, which also demonstrates the difference between looking and seeing. There is always a connection and response between the two, something noticed or acknowledged. Their presence, rather than being projected outwards, draws the audience inwards, towards the nuances of their movements and expression, navigating viewers through their interactions.

The friendship between Missen and Meneghini works through affection, support, and good natured competition verging on frustration as the phrases move between tender contact work and gentle lifts to powerful games of chase, staccato isolations, and puppet-like manipulations.  Each aspect of their relationship is given equal space within the performance, balancing competition with support. The dance as a whole however is imbued with an overarching sense of delicacy that is never entirely soft or sharp but somewhere in between, somewhere indefinable. Their dynamic and constant spiralling floor pattern is almost trancelike as audience members find themselves swaying to their rhythm, glued to the connection between the pair.

Refreshingly, there is no stereotyping or exaggerated agenda in this piece, rather an expression of rapport between two people lived in that moment. One is never dominant, there is always a response in varying forms from a look, a run, a catch or a fall; reciprocal, not identical. Masculinity is conveyed as it exists by the emphasis on honesty over prescriptive ideas, allowing the individuality of Missen and Meneghini to emerge.

Manchester-based Company Chameleon’s work is often mesmerising. Their 2013 double bill Pictures We Make, was also imbued with the same transfixing style. Whether performing in formal settings such as the Linbury Studio Theatre of the Royal Opera house (where Pictures We Make toured), or beneath a towering glass office block in Dancing City, their intensity captivates. They have a sparkle in their eyes and a subtle way of being both restrained and free, robust and tentative. This presence is hard to define in words and is made tangible only in the physical performance, which is what gives Company Chameleon its identity and sophistication.

Joan Catala, Le Pelat | GIDF 2014

You Are My Sunshine – GIDF 2014

 

Greenwich+Docklands International Festival (GDIF), founded in 1996, is now a well-established date on the UK outdoor arts calendar – the former Greenwich Festival developed, over the past eighteen years, into the cross-river cross-artform GDIF by artistic director Bradley Hemmings. The festival comprises numerous elements: the main programme presentation of large-scale national and international outdoor arts work; the Greenwich Fair, a family-friendly weekend of smaller-scale outdoor theatre, circus, dance, installations and sideshows; and Dancing City, which animates Canary Wharf with dance and aerial circus work that captures the creative imaginations of London’s city workers during their lunch breaks, culminating in a Saturday full of dance works in what becomes a strange ghost town of empty offices at the weekend.

The main programme showed the festival’s usual extraordinary range of large-scale work from across the globe, including: the UK’s Metro-Boulot-Dodo with Safe House, a Without Walls commission; Voalá, an op-art aerial choreography extravaganza by Spanish–Argentinean company Muaré; French company Rara Woulib’s Deblozay, a promenade dance-of-the-dead exploration of Haitian culture; and the much-lauded War Correspondents, Helen Chadwick Song Theatre’s tribute to journalist on the frontline, in which testimonies, music and physicality fuse into a powerful, multi-disciplined song cycle performance.

Light the Fuse, Full Stop | GIDF 2014

Light the Fuse, Full Stop | GIDF 2014

This year’s Greenwich Fair (20-22 June) saw a weekend bursting with sun, sand and artists soaring high into the sky. The main throng of events took place between the Cutty Sark Gardens and The Royal Naval College. This saved spectators the tedious trek along the foot tunnel beneath the river to Island Gardens, necessary in previous years, the downside being that at times overlapping pieces jarred with one another as they were sited so close to each other. An extensive programme included work by UK outdoor arts perennials Periplum, Wet Picnic, Acrojou, Nutkhut, Ramshakilicious, and Mimbre. The variety and sheer volume of work presented does mean that it is impossible to see everything. The relaxed nature of street performance that is free to audience gives you the flexibility to pick and choose between family fun and games, static street theatre pieces, contemporary dance, and installation pieces, wandering about from one to the other until something or somebody captivates you. Here’s what caught my attention:

Light The Fuse installed a bus stop installation directly beneath the Cutty Sark ship for Full Stop. The performers embark on a whistle-stop tour through countless characters that arrive at the bus stop for a short while and then disappear on their journeys. Comedy, dance and countless costume changes bring lots of laughs from the audience however the rushing rhythm of the piece feels rushed in its making also. A more thoughtful movement vocabulary and subtle characterisation would help it live up to the expectations set by the clever bus stop installation, so at home in the cityscape.

(i)land by Marc Brew Company slows the pace right down as audiences sit back away from the crowds in the Cutty Sark Gardens listening to the ebb and flow of the sea by the river. Marc Brew recreates the beach at Greenwich, hiding in a sand dune swept up around a mast. This is a piece for dreamers. It immediately transports you away from London to a mysterious other world where the audience can contemplate the fate of the three performers twisting, turning and playing in the sand. Performing in the blazing heat of the sun on the bright yellow sand, expression and characterisation are sometimes lost and exquisite pointing and measuring motifs appear only fleetingly. Maximising the potential of movement motifs, object play and characterisation would highlight the choreography which at times blends into a blur of figures twisting and rolling in their sandy bed. The piece, however beautiful, is at risk of falling foul of its dreamy, enticing but almost melancholic nature, particularly when performing in the unforgiving nature of the bright summer sun. Increasing the pace and dynamic of the faster movement sections to adjust for the performance site and weather would keep this piece on par with standards set in previous showings.

Hurycan ,Te Odiero | GIDF 2014

Hurycan ,Te Odiero | GIDF 2014

Te Odiero, by Spanish dance-circus company HURyCAN, is a short and snappy duet that draws out a lover’s tiff into a love/hate relationship verging on the grotesque. Quirky and comical, the male dancer’s subtle facial expressions captivate the audience before he embarks on a distorted tango with his partner. Head banging, hair pulling, biting and attacks of kisses are effortlessly fused with rapid and sensual footwork and lifts, making for an unusual and fast-paced piece. The second half saw a stronger focus on the duet’s acrobalance repertoire, the humour and dance vocabulary becoming somewhat subjugated to the needs of the circus lifts and balances. However, the tension between the pair’s silliness as a couple and the risks of the lifts, somersaults and contact work performed on the stone floor makes for a strong and captivating performance.

Moxie Brawl, Sit Back |GDIF 2014

Moxie Brawl, Sit Back |GDIF 2014

Moxie Brawl, like Marc Brew Company, is key to GDIF’s commitment to integrated performance and is equally a key player in the line-up of dance at Greenwich this year. In Sit Back, a quartet of 1940s-styled glamorous women in clippy uniforms take the audience on a journey with a trolleybus service that travels the road of their personal highs and lows, whilst paralleling the wider context of the War. Well-known tunes filled the area surrounding The Royal Naval College with WWII spirits; ‘You Are My Sunshine’ went down perfectly on such a sweltering hot day. Energy levels did not dip once as the dancers bounded in, clicking their ‘head counters’, handing out tickets, and giving out verbal instructions. Counting audience members in on their journey with a meandering, spiralling 40s elegance, the movement vocabulary incorporated signs and gestures from their role on the bus service in a constantly travelling sequence forming and dissolving tableaux around the narrative of the piece. Receiving letters, rationed food and news from the radio, Moxie Brawl successfully spun an evocative journey through the War using speech, object play and voice over well integrated into a contemporary dance vocabulary that was a pleasure to watch.

La Pelat by Joan Català (featured image, above) combines dance, circus skills, and poetic physical performance. Català balances a large wooden pole on one shoulder, moving rapidly beneath it as it circles and hovers precariously over the crowd’s heads. The piece begins as a beautiful and tentative exploration of the object, and then opens up to incorporate audience members into the play, building up to a climax using humour and repetition, culminating in one show-stopper trick as Català climbs to the top of the pole balancing high above the sea of people.

GIDF’s annual nine-day celebration of ‘extraordinary outdoor events that transform people’s lives’ has grown and grown year-on-year, and in 2014 more than 80,000 people attended the outdoor shows across both sides of the river. It is undoubtedly set to soar to even greater heights in 2015 and beyond.

Greenwich+Docklands International Festival ran 20–28 June 2014.  See www.festival.org

Rebecca JS Nice attended Greenwich Fair on 22 June 2014. 

Additional reporting by Dorothy Max Prior.

 

Rites of War - Photo: Mark Morreau

Gravity & Levity: Rites of War

Rites of War - Photo: Mark MorreauAerial company Gravity & Levity present a show tackling current political events around the war with Afghanistan by drawing parallels with World War I. The emphasis on narrative and characterisation ritualises key moments in the lives of two soldiers: Private George Ellison and John Smith, who died in the First World War and the war in Afghanistan respectively. A montage in form, structure and medium, Rites of War weaves narratives, time and movement styles into complex scenes made possible by the versatility of Jonathan Campbell’s sophisticated aerial rigging and design. Artistic Director Lindsey Butcher’s aerial work forms a relationship between the stage area and a vertical stage behind. Floating between one and the other, performers act out a distorted narrative between the live of soldiers in 1914 and 2014.

The piece is carefully structured to convey an overarching theme of dislocation and disorientation. Creating chaos out of order, one soldier’s scenes are played out in reverse. The pluralities of each scene on stage are visualised at the same time by digital scenes and figures appearing on the back wall and aerial performers inhabiting its vertical world. Characters also emerge, framed by a rectangular slit within it, that acts as a window into the everyday lives of the families. The insertion of documentary films with commentary from BBC Afghanistan correspondent David Loyn, and the date and title of each scene, prevented a busy and complex piece from becoming mayhem for the viewer. Constant stimulation and changing view-points provide the audience with plenty to unpick at any one time with feasts of emotive visual tableaus; successfully creating a world where multiple scenes and times can co-exist.

Striking and provocative moments are frequent but fleeting. For example Private George Ellison’s contorted posture wearing white undergarments conjures images reminiscent of Christ, pietas and the martyrdom of Jacques Louis David’s French revolutionary painting The Death of Joseph Bara. Power struggles and vulnerabilities are heightened by juxtaposing open and vulnerable characters with disguised and ominous ones; John Smith, carried and manipulated through an obstacle course of three figures in black with faces and eyes covered. Two dark, anonymous silhouettes, eyes and bodies disguised by Burkas, dance a bouncy ritual of every day chores or a dance of something more sinister.

Two aerial duets are performed side by side, transforming the wives of each soldier into their angels of death. In a dance of two halves, of two times, of two universes, the enormity of the events before the viewer is juxtaposed with the humanity of the soldiers. These duets really wanted to be magical and at moments they were. However their delicacy was undermined by an overly emotive soundtrack, frilly white costumes and an abundance of aerial vocabulary verging on spectacle that broke the captivating spell that had been cast. The recurrent theme of heroism in the everyday might have better been suggested by seeing the angels simply dressed as the soldiers’ wives to imbue these duets with more subtlety and vulnerability.

Darshan Singh Bhuller’s choreography draws on vocabulary from ballet, contemporary, breakdancing and characterisation from everyday movements and soldiers’ manoeuvres, making a strange mix of physical theatre and technical dance form. There are moments where this becomes clunky, the elevated leaps and jumping sequences lacked the grounded, weighted style of a soldier’s physicality. With an abundance of scenes, animations, films, and narratives, space for the choreography to be absorbed also often felt lacking.

The work as a whole is strong, thoughtful and technically sophisticated, however it is at risk of falling into the trap of many multi-disciplinary pieces: communicating the same thing in several different ways at the same time, over stimulating and undermining its message. Marking the centenary of the beginning of the First World War and the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, the show valiantly remembers and memorialises English soldiers, but as a result plays the topic a little safe.

CAC Spring Performances Photo-Paweł Jaskulski

Chelsea Art Collective: Spring Performances

CAC Spring Performances Photo-Paweł JaskulskiHosting two evenings of six to eight interdisciplinary performances, Donald Hutera and Lilia Pegado put together a series of works over the two dates. They were held in a humble church hall in Chelsea with local residents from the Chelsea Association of Tenants joining an audience of writers, dance makers, and friends. These Spring Performances were the first from the initiative Chelsea Arts Collective, formed by curator and journalist Donald Hutera and visual artist Lilia Pegado, a Chelsea resident. Similar to Hutera’s GOLive event held in September 2014 in Kentish Town, each night was thrown together in a low key and daringly informal format. With several familiar faces from GOLive (including the charismatic Sarah Kent and Yong Min Cho) billed alongside some fresh and bizarre acts, you were guaranteed to find a gem among the stones.

Performer/choreographer Vanio Papadelli, making conversations with her lost mother, took the stones in her hand both metaphorically and physically and was certainly one of those gems. The Air Changes the Colour of Things Here, on 29 March, drew on memory, autobiography, and fiction. Papadelli spoke throughout, the depth of her voice commanding yet tentative, dominating yet vulnerable. Her voice and movements meshed into something somewhat brutal and ugly. Her fidgeting body curled up on a fur rug closely surrounded by her audience, sitting on the floor, set up the intimacy of the coming conversation. Grieving stones were placed in viewers’ hands, as Papadelli asked, questioned, and pleaded, creating a dialogue with her mother through the audience. Just as the moonlight appeared outside the three arched windows, the lighting dimmed to reveal a Madonna-like figure, framed like an altarpiece by the architecture of the hall. A video projected onto her body as she sat on the windowsill of the central tall arched window seemed to resolve the emotional trauma of her journey.

The second evening saw the audience move their chairs into the round to view dance duo immigrants and animals (Jamila Johnson-Small and Mira Kautto), dressed in boldly coloured boiler suits, with the sides of their heads shaved and a row of mini hair buns down the top of the head in a Mohican style. This cool and indifferent pair did not deny their femininity but questioned the ways it might be received via masculine dress and attitude. Laura Laura, a companion piece to the minimal William William, performed at GOLive last autumn, also worked as a standalone piece. The movement style was casual but precise, bouncy but not flippant with tones of hip-hop, raving and ‘dad-dancing’ that made Laura Laura the ultimate cool and unique piece of the night. Mirroring the movements of their own naked figures faintly projected from the waist down on the wall, encouraged the audience to question what, who and how they were observing.  Formalising what could be provocative positions into two repetitive dialogues performed side by side facing their naked counterparts.  The performers (Johnson-Small and Kautto) almost detached themselves from their gender in this section and were confronted with it head on.

These two formal pieces sat well within the mixed billing that included works in progress, musicians, ballet dancing comedians, butoh and inclusive community works. There is a strong interdisciplinary element that weaves throughout Hutera’s line-ups, in particular the incorporation of pieces using speech and autobiography. In Spring Performances, there was no backstage and no fourth wall, the production was unapologetic about its lights, cameras and tripods: this made for evenings that incorporated their own limitations –  the workings became part of the work.  Unforgiving settings like this sort the wheat from the chaff, but in most cases here even the chaff held their own through the charisma and charm of their performers and the daring intuition of Hutera’s and Pegado’s overall programming choices.

 

 

Chelsea Arts Collective (CAC) is a new, grassroots initiative masterminded by the painter (and Sutton Estate resident) Lilia Pegado and veteran arts journalist Donald Hutera (The Times, etc). Operating under the auspices of CATS, and with initial funding from City Living, Local Life, CAC aims to provide residents of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea –  and others – with opportunities for stimulating creative expression and exchange. CAC’s next shows are May 30 and 31 with exhibitions in the daytime and performances from 7.30pm, including work by Sarah Kent, Avatara Ayuso and Marguerite Galizia/Dan Watson.