GOLDEN

25 October & 1 November 2006 with Annie Pui Ling Lok, 10 November 2006 with Jenevieve Chang, 4 – 5pm, Beaconsfield, London

Performers and choreographers Annie Pui Ling Lok and Jenevieve Chang were invited to improvise along the theme of a ‘ballroom lesson’ on several occasions, and audiences invited to watch or participate. Taking cues from a range of teaching materials, the object of these improvised ‘lessons’ were strictly DIY: do-it-yourself ballroom. These invitations resulted in an initial hour-long non-stop improvisation by Annie Pui Ling Lok, later followed by an open ‘lesson’ in which both ‘instructor’ and ‘pupil’ attempted to decipher and translate steps from paper to floor. Jenevieve Chang invited in turn a fellow performer, Amadeo Rosenheim, to partner her in an improvisation that played on the gendered dynamic between dancers, teacher and student, and the notion of amateurism.

DIY Ballroom, with Annie Pui Ling Lok, 25 October 2006

DIY Ballroom, with Annie Pui Ling Lok, 1 November 2006

DIY Ballroom, with Jenevieve Chang & Amadeo Rosenhiem, 
10 November 2006

Ballroom Lesson was part of Golden (Lessons), a research residency at Beaconsfield, London, punctuated by a series of live events and performance interventions. Golden (Lessons) takes up and explores motifs of ballroom and song as vehicles of nostalgia, aspiration and cultivation, continuing an ongoing series of works exploring nostalgia, aspiration and diaspora, under the rubric Golden.

Acknowledgements

Lessons is a Beaconsfield commission, made possible with funding from the AHRC and Middlesex University, and the support of Resonance 104.4fm. Thanks also to L.C. Lok, Annie Pui Ling Lok, Mat Davidson, Ben Cummins, and Jenevieve Chang, for their generous contributions.

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