theatre
SEASONS IN OUR WORLD, BIRMINGHAM ROYAL BALLET
"These pieces will be superb in drawing people towards ballet. They convey simple and effective stories with plenty of emotion."
STAGE TALK MAGAZINE
★★★★★
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SEASONS IN OUR WORLD “explores the relationship between the cycle of the seasons and individual human lives and communities.” The inspiration for Bintley was a poem by David Laing and a new score was commissioned from Cevanne Horrocks-Hopayian.... Seasons has a breathless pace as each of the choreographers looks to cram in all their ideas, as well as be part of the bigger arc, in what amounts to a little over 10 minutes each. The pace is reflected in the cracking world music score, flecked with Jazz and Armenian folk music, that delivers stillness one moment and romping abandon at others.
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DANCE TABS
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Photo © Andrew Ross: Samara Downs and Yasuo Atsuji dance in Seasons in Our World, choreography Lachlan Monaghan.
Cevanne set up pinchpunch with singer Ziazan, artist Martha Orbach and director Seta White to share new work on the first of the month.
She identified an opportunity to reimagine opera for a new audience, one that loves epic storytelling. By collaborating with artists from an early stage, Cevanne wants to change the way that opera is created. She hopes to devise the audio-visual world from the start, rather than the music-text only, to create a stylised language which is fluent across art-forms.
In just four months, pinchpunch fundraised and created half an hour of opera from scratch for two sold-out nights at the Grimeborn Festival 2018 at the Arcola Theatre, London. Cevanne's first aria was premièred by Ziazan to BBC Radio 3’s drive-time audience on In Tune (shared above, with permission). If you want to subscribe as a patron to pinchpuch, check out the kickstarter page.
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Since establishing pinchpunch, Cevanne has written for a new opera company Hera, with a libretto by playwright Sabrina Mahfouz, and for the Birmingham Royal Ballet, which is set to tour again in 2020. She has also written for the Royal Opera House R&D programme with librettist Jessica Walker, testing new material for a gameshow based on the historic witch hunts.
'Seasons in our World' commissioned by Birmingham Royal Ballet.
Choreography by Laura Day,
Kit Holder, Lachlan Monagan.
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Supported by David & Mary Laing.