Home at The Rising Sun: Press Release
Video Art Dance Film by Cristobal Catalan, www.cristobalcatalan.net
The following press release was covered by The Reading Chronicle. To read their article, click here
Reading’s Newest Dance Collective, Reside Dance, have been Awarded ACE Grants for the Arts Funding to Reimagine The Rising Sun Arts Centre as a Place of Home with the Local Community Reading, 14th April 2017 — —
Is home curling up on the couch watching TV for you? Or eating dinner around a table with your friends and family? Or is it a private place where you can rejuvenate from the outside world?
Reside Dance have been awarded ACE Grants for the Arts funding to reimagine The Rising Sun Arts Centre as a place of home in a performance with the local community on 30th April 2017. From late March, the collective have been working with independent artists and the arts centre’s The Sun Poets and Move Up groups to create a 30 minute, promenade performance that not only pays homage to the art centre’s unique history but also invites up to 60 members of the local community to collectively reimagine the arts centre as a place of home through use of dance, poetry, music, video projection and sculpture. Continuing on from the placemaking focus of Reading 2016: Year of Culture, the piece, Home at The Rising Sun, aims to not only contribute to strengthening connections between Reading’s culturally diverse residents but to, also, develop local ownership, involvement and civic pride in the venue; showing stakeholders how using the arts as a tool for community regeneration can also benefit local economies. Larry Watson, The Rising Sun Arts Centre Manager, states that, “…the project has real potential to create a new focus for dance in the town; utilising spaces in ways which bring high quality, contemporary dance to new audiences.”
In order to create a performance for the local community, Reside Dance are asking Reading residents to give them a like on Facebook and take part in a poll that asks where and what is home is for them. The collective have been posting how the resident’s answers are helping them shape a performance just for them. If you would like to take part in, either, the 11 – 15 year olds or 16+ (to any age) dance workshops and perform with Reside Dance, places must be booked through the Eventbrite website, www.eventbrite.co.uk, through searching for ‘Home at The Rising Sun: Workshop & Rehearsal’. All abilities are welcome. To reserve your place as an audience member, please book through searching for ‘Home at The Rising Sun: 6:30 pm Performance’. Local stakeholders are invited to reserve their place for the cultivation meeting and 6 pm performance through searching for ‘Home at The Rising Sun: Cultivation Meeting & 6 pm Performance’. Tickets are limited so booking in advance is essential and will be allocated on a first–come–first–served basis.
Founded during Reading 2016: Year of Culture and led by Jennifer Christine Stokes, Reside Dance aims to bring individuals and communities together by developing connections to places and others through dance. With a special focus on promoting and celebrating cultural diversity, Reside Dance aims to become Reading’s first dance company to bring its’ residents side by side to celebrate their individual and collective cultures within site-specific places. Drawing upon techniques and processes from contemporary dance, dance theatre, social choreography and somatic practice, Reside Dance aims to strengthen Reading’s dance offering by creating innovative, high quality and accessible performances, workshops and programmes that widen dance audiences through its exploration of issues prevalent to Reading life.[1]
To keep updated and to contribute to shaping Home at The Rising Sun, please like Reside Dance and answer their poll at www.facebook.com/ResideDance. You can also find Reside Dance at www.residedance.co.uk and on Twitter, @ResideDance, and Instagram, @residedance.
Home at The Rising Sun is supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.
[1] Reside Dance consists of Artistic Director, Jennifer Christine Stokes, Assistant to AD and Dance Movement Psychotherapist, Emma Dickson and Dance Artists, Sarah Covington, Sam Gilroy and Hannah Grainger Gibbs. In addition to three members holding Masters degrees in dance, the collective have a wealth of professional performance experience and also, vast experience in leading workshops to a wide range of community groups. For Home at The Rising Sun, the collective received generous support in kind from The Rising Sun Arts Centre, marketing in kind from Reading Borough Council and Heritage and Creativity Institute and ACE Grants for the Arts funding of £6,247.00.
