Dr Olu Taiwo’s Project in 2018
International Conference: Laban’s Philosophy and Theatre Practice
Creative Legacies: Collaborative Practices for Digital Cultural Heritage
Commemoration of the 100th Anniversary of the birth of Nelson Mandela
OUT OF THE SYSTEM: Panel Discussion 2018. Beyond the 3T’s – Tick Box/Token/ Tolerated
Dharma Festival
The second Dharma Festival at Gaunts House, following on from the successful event in 2015, offers a range of fascinating performances, workshops and exhibitions with an opportunity to relax in the peaceful environment of the garden and park in the middle of the Dorset countryside.
http://www.tashi-lhunpo.org.uk/tours/2018-dharma-festival-at-gaunts
Urban Butoh: A.S.D. This is an Animal Spirit Dance, a movement practice that celebrates the nature of deceleration allowing us to reflect on the moment; enabling the participant to research hidden stories of identity. These workshops will allow you to release movement inhibitions through self expression, by allowing the percipient to tapping into their sub-consciousness with a series of movement and performance processes that will instinctively unlock their own body’s creative potential. By visualising and dancing an animal spirit, the percipient will re-establish dance as mindful prayer or spiritual release.
Laban Conference Athen
International Conference: Laban’s Philosophy and Theatre Practice 16-18th July 2018 – Athens, Greece Organised by Dr Kiki Selioni Post-doc Researcher, The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, Labanarium and MCF - Conference Venue: Michael Cacoyannis Foundation, Peiraios 206, Tavros, Athens, Greece.
Metaphysics of the Return beat: A Choreological analysis of the Yoruba’s experience of embodied Rhythm. By Dr Olu Taiwo. The Return Beat is a choreological theory of rhythm from a Yoruba British perspective exploring audio/visual expressions in drumming, dance and song. In this ‘Golden Triangle’, the Return Beat, underpins the musical expressions of: Bata – Yoruba, Juju – Sunny Ade, Afrobeat – Fela, Capoeira – Brazil and funk – James Brown. It articulates how ‘effort’ is shaped by cultural paradigms in rhythm; which has a circular choreological structure underpinning physical performance. The contemporary emphasis in this paper places significance on liminal spaces generated by interfacing different cultural paradigms, a kind of trans-cultural effort impulse. I will articulate a conceptual framework that performatively exists between ‘forms’ and the ‘formless’, ‘cultural juxtapositions’ and ‘hybridisation’, the ‘metabolic’ and the ‘digital’, the ‘individual’ and the ‘social’. Specifically, the framework lies at a nexus between, the centre of an embodied being (Physical journal), an experience of a curved rhythmic flux (The Return Beat) and the performative process in a transcultural practice (Performance). This paper seeks to deepen choreutic and eukinetic criticality, to include core perceptual paradigms that underpin Yoruba culture and it’s diaspora’s artistic sensibility.
Yoruba Sonnets Birchfield Festival
Acclaimed Grammy Awards-winning percussionist, Lekan Babalola is bringing his music to a wider audience alongside his co-travelling Sacred Funk Sextet in a new concert series tagged Yoruba Sonnets.
The multi-city gig will take place across major United Kingdom cities featuring Babalola’s kindred spirit, the accomplished spoken word poet and scholar, Dr Olu.Taiwo. Their artistic chemistry on stage will pick up from the successful Ebo Tour which held last year.
Together, Lekan who is releasing a new album soon and Olu will bring to the stage the Yoruba Sonnets – a unique experience, presented by two very talented, very different individuals. The Yoruba Sonnets pair spoken word poetry and mime from Dr Olu Taiwo with live music from Lekan Babalola’s Sacred Funk Sextet. The result is a unique performance of ancient Nigerian verse incorporating Afro-beat music and the contemporary sound of Western Funk.
https://www.360nobs.com/2018/05/lekan-babalola-tours-uk-cities-yoruba-sonnets-features-dr-olu-taiwo/
Yoruba Sonnets is a storytelling performance with spoken poetry and mime in phase with music. The Yoruba mystic Orunmila, whose origins are shrouded in myth and legend, performs a book of poems. In the process of rethinking the narrative of the 16 principle poetic books in the vast compendium within Yoruba oracle, key themes are explored including: Ancestry, theology, sacrifice, heaven, earth, life and death. Dr Olu Taiwo has teamed up with twice Grammy award winning Nigerian percussionist, Lekan Babalola, in this unique collaboration to explore the first book of poems called Eji Ogbe. This book speaks of a vigorous birth from a single unified origin. How the twin personalities of ‘form’ and ‘activity’ multiply to create a myriad of different beings, each seeking a fulfilling sojournment on earth. The poems within the book are spoken using: Visual, movement and literal texts in concert with Lekan Babalola’s Sacred Funk Project; whose innovative musical style, using his native Yoruba tongue infused with traditional music informs the creation of an Afrobeat with funky dance overtones
DRHA Malta
Creative Legacies: Collaborative Practices for Digital Cultural Heritage; 9-12 September 2018
Throughout 2018, Valletta will hold the title of European Capital of Culture; in this context, substantial capital projects have been developed to strengthen Malta’s cultural and creative sector. Foremost among these are MUŻA, housing Malta’s national fine art collection through a community-curation approach operated by Heritage Malta, as well as the Valletta Design Cluster, which will act as a point of reference for new design studio-laboratories to enable industry-driven product and experience design research including the design of human-computer interfaces.
Also in 2018, Malta’s national public broadcasting company will collaborate with Heritage Malta on a national-scale audiovisual digitization project, endowed with about €5 million in EU and national funds, further enhancing work on digital cultural heritage in Malta by other public entities such as the National Archives, the Broadcasting Authority, the University of Malta and the Malta College of Art, Science and Technology.
This increased activity within the arts and archiving sectors of a relatively young country, along with 2018’s designation of European Year of Cultural Heritage, provides a context within which DRHA Malta 2018 can reflect, react and contribute.
DHRA Malta 2018 mirrors Fondazzjoni Kreattività’s purpose of catalysing innovative and cutting edge research and creative work in its theme of ‘Creative Legacies: Collaborative Practices for Digital Cultural Heritage.’ https://drha2018.org/
Freedom in a Fractured world Nelson Mandela
Our international reputation for values-led teaching and research has led the University of Winchester to collaborate with the Nelson Mandela Museum in Qunu, South Africa. Emerging out of this association the University has been invited to host a major conference this September commemorating the 100th Anniversary of the birth of Nelson Mandela. Winchester’s conference forms part of a quartet of major events taking place in the USA, Kenya and South Africa this year as part of these celebrations.
Doris Summer School 2018
Tribe of Doris welcomes you to the main event of the summer at the beautiful site of Stanford Hall in Lutterworth, Leicestershire. Come prepared for an unforgettable, enriching and intimate gathering, featuring a diverse range of arts workshops. Not so much a festival – more a living, breathing, dancing community, bringing people together to share joyful and empowering moments through cultural exchange. In 2018 Tribe of Doris celebrates 27 years of music, culture and creativity. Highly acclaimed teachers who’ve graced the fields with their inspiring and uplifting workshops will be back, as well as new faces, as we celebrate the past and look to the future. http://www.tribeofdoris.co.uk/portfolio/summer-school-2018/
A.S.D: Animal Spirit Dance; rhythm; improvisation; spiritual release; creative power.
A.S.D: Animal Spirit Dance is a workshop that will allow the release of your personal inhibitions through self-expression. By tapping into your sub-consciousness in a series of movement processes, you will instinctively unlock your body’s own creative and potential power. Aided by the visualisation and performance of an animal guise, you will re-establish dance as spiritual release. A.S.D is an experience of dancing to a curved rhythmic flux; played live on a Djembe, which is originally a West African drum, but is fast becoming a globalized percussive instrument. The experience this dancing facilitates, produces non-verbal acts that trigger a primal language of movement underpinned by structured improvisation. This is about rhythmic and postural stances based on free will and instinctive choice. The structure of these ‘triggers’ and ‘acts’, can take the form of loosely devised phrases, enabling individuals to improvise while using their hyper sensitive sensorium with an awareness associated with their whole living and moving body.
Dance Umbrella
OUT OF THE SYSTEM: Panel Discussion 2018. Beyond the 3T’s – Tick Box/Token/ Tolerated
Shoreditch Town Hall; Wed 10 Oct; 5:30 pm
BEYOND THE 3T’S – TICK BOX / TOKEN / TOLERATED
Come and hear what artists and industry experts are currently confronting in their work, and join in the debate about what ideas and practices can shift stale mind sets to move beyond the 3Ts.
Chair: Oluwatoyin Odunsi (Artistic Director of Vintage Misfits, independent programmer)
Panelists: Mina Aidoo (embodiment teacher, artist and author), Dr Olu Taiwo (Senior Lecturer in Performing Arts, University of Winchester), Jenny Sealey (Artistic Director Graeae Theatre Company)
http://www.danceumbrella.co.uk/event/out-of-the-system-panel-discussion-2/
https://www.trinitylaban.ac.uk/news/trinity-laban-alumni-at-dance-umbrella-2018
http://www.danceumbrella.co.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/du-programme-2018.pdf