Transition - Dance and Heritage

transition was a two-day conference investigating heritage through dance.
It was held in partnership with sampad and the National Museum of Liverpool
on 7th and 8th March 2008 at the World Museum Liverpool, William Brown Street, Liverpool L3 8EN .

Bisakha Sarker, Artistic Director of Chaturangan, presented a full programme of events with thought provoking lectures and challenging debates. Taking dance as its focal point this two day conference explored and examined what heritage means in today's society.

A different tune or the same old song?

Following in the tradition of highly successful and innovative national conferences on the issues facing contemporary dance, Chaturangan arranged a seminar. This is entitled "A Different Tune or the Same old Song?", a national seminar on cultural diversity and the use of new technology in children’s dance theatre. It was held in The Box, FACT, Wood St., Liverpool L1 4DQ on Monday 15 June from 10am – 4pm

Waiting

"This is a Chaturangan initiative in response to Liverpool Culture Company's “Story of Waiting” strand in their “Creative Health” programme.

The “Story of Waiting” programme is a partnership between Liverpool Culture Company, Liverpool Primary Care NHS Trust, Mersey Care NHS Trust and other Health Partners. It is being delivered by Chaturangan, The Comedy Trust and FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology). As a part of this project Chaturangan is taking multicultural participatory activities including dance music ,visual arts and storytelling to various health settings where people experience different types of stress from waiting . So far the company has taken this work to Royal Liverpool Hospital, Woodlands Hospice in Fazakerley hospital, Creative Alternative ,Southport and children’s Hospice Claire House. As part of this project, the company has also produced a film suitable for screening in‘Waiting Areas’, places in healthcare settings where people are required to wait for services. The film from the project ‘PRECIOUS ‘ made by Gina Czarnecki was installed in two sites in the Royal Liverpool Hospital .

Diverse Dance

Chaturangan and Encourage North West (previously known as Dark Horse Venture) supported by St Mary’s Millennium Centre provided divers dance (Indian, Chinese and Black dance) and story sessions. Taster sessions were provided at the Millennium Centre, local care homes and for the local Stroke Support Group and other organisations.

The dance sessions was devised for the older people in the community.

Precious Seminar

This was a seminar to view the film Precious which has been showing in areas of the Royal Liverpool Hospital and Broadgreen University NHS Hospitals, and is now installed in the waiting area of the newly opened Biomedical Research Centre. There will be discussion about what we learn about arts and health from this piece of work and its journey as part of Waiting.

The morning was chaired by Clive Parkinson, Director of Arts in Health, Manchester Metropolitan University.

Jersey Inter-Cultural dialogues.

Following the success of their previous tour of Jersey, Bisakha Sarker and Kali Dass were invited by Yasmin Taybout to deliver another week-long education project. The work concentrated on teacher training so that local teachers were enabled to continue the work to promote cultural diversity. This programme involved over 100 teachers from 22 primary schools.

Each of the training sessions included an introduction to the basics of Indian dance and storyletting for education, familiarisation with the worksheets and a practical session. In the practical sessions the teachers observed us working with the children, and received some hands-on training.

Different tune

A stunning new dance theatre piece for young children

This co-production with Fuse: New Theatre for Young People draws dance styles from across the world, highlighting cultural diversity and identity.

A Different Tune tells the story of a group of animal friends and their adventures. Sometimes they playfully dance together, sometimes they fall out and then make up. Throughout this journey they are gaining confidence and learning to care for each other. 'A Different Tune' will imaginatively and innovatively relate through a dance, drama and music fusion the story of how one animal – ostracised by other animals – discovers his own new way of dancing and through that finds self esteem and acceptance without having to compromise his own identity. The story comes alive through live dance and music within mesmerising surroundings created by the use of Isadora interactive video software