International Dance Festival Birmingham 2016 has put a callout for proposals of work to be performed in ‘Outdoor Places or Unusual Spaces’ (OPUS) for the 2016 edition of the festival.

To see full details go to the full brief on the DanceXchange site: http://www.dancexchange.org.uk/about/commissions-auditions

IDFB is inviting professionals to submit a great idea and concept for a new festival commission for IDFB 2016, with a particular focus on dance or cross-artform projects that take place in outdoor places and unusual spaces. We welcome ideas from any UK or International Artist. The IDFB team will work alongside the successful professional artist/company to produce and realise the OPUS Idea in a collaborative way. The Artist will be paid a fee as collaborator (please include this in your submitted budget), and the project will be creatively produced by IDFB. We welcome proposals that come with a company of performers. Alternatively, performers can be recruited for the project, collaboratively through a fair and equal process. Collaborators or partners should be researched and named within the proposal where relevant, but please note that all artistic personnel will be mutually agreed by the Artist and the Creative Producer.

Deadline for proposals to be submitted: 29 April 2015, 10am

If you have any questions about your proposal, please contact Hannah Sharpe on 0121 689 1093 or email hannah.sharpe@dancexchange.org.uk

UK B-Boy Championships coming to Birmingham – from West Midlands Dance:

We’ve been itching to announce that the UK B-Boy Championships – which sees the world’s finest b-boys and b-girls gather for battles in various individual and crew categories – will be hosted in Birmingham in 2013, at the O2 Academy on 21 and 22 September, having been held in London since its inception in 1996.

As well as relocating, this year’s Championships will also see the Great Britain National Crew Championships being held the day before the main event, which is traditionally held on a Sunday.

The move is down to a partnership between the UK B-Boy Championships and DanceXchange, and the Championships will be held in Birmingham for the next two years. DanceXchange worked with the team behind the B-Boy Championships on Breathe the Beat, a unique digital dance project featuring featuring renowned international hip hop artist Salah as part of Dancing for the Games. This is a great move for Birmingham, which will play host to the world’s leading hip-hop dancers over a weekend in the Autumn.

West Midlands Dance will be posting loads of exclusive content in the build up to, and during the event, so keep checking back for updates.

Tickets are on sale now.

Back in October, not long after I moved to the City, I met Mike Hyde who talked me though the work DanceXchange have been doing for the past 20 years. Amongst the things we discussed was WestMidlandsDance.com – a resource that would be delivered by DanceXchange to continue the great work funded by the Cultural Olympiad last summer.

When I spoke to Mike the website was very much at the early stages as they planned how to deliver content that suited the needs of the region.  Based on the West Midlands Dance blog that had been run by Chris Unitt (who passed the CiB reigns on to ourselves) and Ian Ravenscroft since 2008, the theory behind the project was to create a central hub for all dance in the West Midlands to be promoted in.

The site launched last month and quite frankly I have been taken aback by the functionality available as well as its generally beauty. It is much more than I expected.

The design suits an events listing website wonderfully, almost like a well thought out what’s on section in a theatre magazine. It’s also responsive, meaning you still get a great experience no matter what device you are on (I was on my phone when I first looked at the site). The homepage displays an array of links to navigate through the site, colour coded to their relevance in a grid system. Magenta for ‘What’s On’, purple for jobs, opportunities and resources and different shades of blue for news, images and video content.

The What’s On page takes a similar shape with the grid structure, making it easy to navigate and find exactly what you’re looking for as well as having the helpful ability to filter results by date of performance and proximity to your location.

The ease of use continues through to the other sections of the site, which I am sure you can discover for yourselves. What is really interesting to me is how the user can contribute to the site’s eco-system.

WestMidlandsDance.com gives you the ability to create one of two profiles. The first – a standard profile enabling you to comment on the existing content, post updates, images and videos to your profile, giving yourself a social platform within the community.

The Edit Profile Screen

The second is a professional profile. Whilst still a free service, the professional profile gives dance organisations and professionals the ability to be listed in the Directory. This really is a great resource, because it allows the community to thrive off one another. If you’re putting on a production and need someone to perform a specific role on stage or off you can use the Directory to find that person.

The Directory also has a use for people not specifically involved in dance. For example, you may be a photographer or a fashion designer who isn’t particularly interested in dance, but you do have a service that can be beneficial to a dance company and they can find you in the Directory on the website. The same can be said for designers like myself, architects, illustrators etc. If you’re a freelancer listing yourself on WestMidlandsDance.com could be extremely beneficial for both yourself and for the dance production who is looking for someone with your talents, but before had not known where to begin looking.

Over time, the Resources section of the website will be populated with examples of productions that have taken place over the past few years, describing the work done to complete the project and (using the Directory) inform the reader of the individuals and companies involved. The page displays a list of these profiles enabling an easy link to anyone that the reader feels could help them with a future project.

As well as Directory listing, the professional profile also allows an organisation to post opportunities and events to the site, allowing them to create a significant web presence despite their current size or reach. Great for independents who aren’t quite sure the best route for promotion, or even larger companies who want another medium for listing their next production or job vacancy.

When I first spoke to Mike about West Midlands Dance, I imagined a blog similar to Created in Birmingham that simply listed upcoming dance productions chronologically. In reality, it’s much much more.

WestMidlandsDance.com offers a great platform for performers, organisers and viewers of dance to go out and find new opportunities and plan the best way develop their future productions. It also offers ‘the rest of us’ an opportunity to help in any way we can and ensure the community builds and grows, developing lasting relationships with anyone who has something to offer.

It seems a massive project and has been brilliantly delivered, a big well done to everyone involved and I’m sure it will continue to improve even further.

All that’s left is to see how you can get involved. Visit the site, attend a performance, get a profile, write a blog post. Why not start a production company? Get inspiration, create an event, find the people who can help make the event a reality, recruit some performers, list the event on the site, start the process again. All can be done on WestMidlandsDance.com

There’s a good round-up of what’s being planned over on West Midlands Dance.

There’s plenty of good stuff lined up, but the bits that made me nudge the person next to me and go ‘huh, that’ll be interesting’ were:

• Wings of Desire (the big dance spectacular in Victoria Sq), with Circa and 2FaCeD DaNcE Company
• Dave St-Pierre Company – Un peu de tendresse bordel de merde! (which generated a tonne of controversy in London a couple of months ago)

I like IDFB. It was probably the first one, back in 2008, that got me interested in dance in the first place. I then worked on the 2010 festival and managed to pack in 18 shows over the course of its month-long run. This one looks like being another good one.

Their new season features quite a few returning companies as well as some new faces, with Hofesh Shechter Company, 2faced Dance Company, Company Decalage, Rosie Kay Dance Company and Bare Bones among the ones performing. There’s a special season offer for this lot too:

Book for 3+ shows at once, get 20% off, and book for 5+ shows at once and get an amazing 50% off! That means you could come to all 10 shows in the season for just £50!

Ten shows for £50 really is a ridiculous bargain and no, I’m not on commission here.

They’ve also brought in Supercool to sort out their website, which is a relief because the previous one was pretty awful.

It’s on the iPlayer for… well, the next couple of hours. Hmm.

Chris Keenan had some of his footage used and has written about that.

Incidentally, if you’re into dance then you should most definitely follow the West Midlands Dance website.

DanceXchange have announced their Autumn 2010 performance season, which starts from 30 September at The Patrick Centre, Birmingham Hippodrome.

• Thu 30 Sep: The Featherstonehaughs – Edits. This highly anticipated new work translates the convention of film, photography and painting into dance.
• Fri 1 Oct: The Featherstonehaughs – The Featherstonehaughs draw on the sketchbook of Egon Schiele. A classic piece created in 1998, which brings the tormented and stunning artistic vision of Egon Schiele to life.
• Thu 14 Oct: New Art Club – This is Now. Britian’s funniest dance duo, jump into the dark pool of yesteryear, as their ‘delightfully silly’ show deconstructs the first ever ‘Now That’s What I Call Music’.
• Sat 6 Nov: Tavaziva Dance – Wild Dog. These high-octane performers capture the beauty and elegance of one of Africa’s most endangered species against a mind-blowing soundtrack by award-winning Bawren Tavaziva.
• Thu 11 Nov: Eddie Ladd – Ras Goffa Bobby Sands / The Bobby Sands Memorial Race. This solo dance piece is performed on a 12ft x 6ft running machine, following the life of Bobby Sands, who dies on hunger strike in the H Blocks, Belfast in 1981.

Tickets can be bought online at www.dancexchange.org.uk or by calling 0844 338 5000.

If you’ve not yet signed up to CiBmail – our weekly email stuffed with news and upcoming events – then jump on it, we’ll have a competition giving away danceXchange tickets soon.

During my first stint on Created in Birmingham I had a nagging feeling that there was loads of good dance stuff going on but it was all happening under my radar. I’m pretty much on top of it these days, partly for the reasons given in the disclaimer at the bottom of this post but mainly because there’s so much dance stuff happening around the city this year.

Anyway, from tomorrow until Sunday, British Dance Edition – a biennial showcase of the British dance scene – is in Birmingham. It’s a big deal, with loads of venues hosting performances, events, presentations and debates. It’s a national showcase, not a local one, but there’s a fair bit of local interest:

• Rosie Kay previewing her new piece, 5 SOLDIERS – The Body Is The Frontline
• DanceXchange showing some of their work on The 5 Man Show
• Listen by Ace Dance & Music
• Funny Bones, from dX and Two’s Company Management
• Receptions hosted by International Dance Festival Birmingham, Birmingham Royal Ballet and People Dancing.
• Walking tours of the city for delegates (Digbeth and the Jewellery Quarter)

There’s probably more too. Most of it’s for paying delegates only but there are some good public events too.

Disclaimer – I’m working on/at British Dance Edition (incl one of the debates) and International Dance Festival Birmingham. WestMidlandsDance.com is one of my websites too.