On Wednesday 9 February, whilst the national football team were boring the Dutch into a torpor, The West Yorkshire Playhouse hosted the premiere of “Eng-er-land”, KMA’s collaboration with Phoenix Dance Theatre.

Eng-er-land is Darshan Singh Bhuller’s (Phoenix’s Artistic Director) latest work. KMA worked closely with Darshan to integrate technology, theatricality and raw physicality. You can read more about it here (2MB PDF).

Eng-er-land is accompanied in a triple bill by Robert Cohan’s Forest, which Phoenix have been granted the rare privilege of staging. Cohan is a major figure in modern dance – he co-founded The Place and London Contemporary Dance Theatre and is a former dancer with Martha Graham. This revival of Forest ties-in with his 80th birthday celebrations. The programme is completed by the UK debut of the otherworldly See Blue Through by Didy Veldman.

All three pieces now head to Sadler’s Wells before touring nationally.

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“digital media specialists KMA work wonders” The Times

“Dance of the Future” Yorkshire Evening Post

“Eng-er-land… scores with ingenious visuals” The Sunday Times

“Phoenix at its best… A priceless gift all round” Yorkshire Post

“Phoenix Dance Theatre puts computer imagery alongside British modern dance roots … **** ” The Independent

Our collaboration with ‘digital writer’ Tim Wright to build a collaborative web based storytelling tool is nearing the end of its pilot phase.

The project funded by Creative Partnerships has run successful trial projects with schools in Teesside and Nottinghamshire. The software allows teachers to work with professional writers to deliver the English Curriculum in an innovative and creative way. It uses mixed media and a truly interactive episodic structure to leave children ‘hanging off cliffs’ between lessons.

Further trials, in partnership with the National Association of Writers in Education (NAWE), are being planned before the project is rolled out nationwide…

After some very fruitful experimental workshops with the University of Leeds’ School of Performance and Cultural Industries we’ve been invited to be one of the founding partners of a new academic research group, examining design for the 21st century – specifically the relationships between design and performance.

It’s all heady and exciting stuff, if not a little daunting. There’ll be a website and more info soon…

As part of the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival – and in collaboration with theatre company Full Body & The Voice – we have designed a visually reactive sound sculpture which can be seen at Huddersfield Art Gallery until the end of the year. The piece, Three Dimensions, uses three linked circular screens set into a large and noisy pyramid. It seeks to explore familiar local landscapes through sounds, maps and images interpreted through the emerging minds of local primary school children.

Three Dimensions runs constantly in cycles lasting around ten minutes and is different every time. This constantly shifting experiment attempts to capture the immediacy of the children’s engagement with their environments.