Rosie Kay’s Fantasia at Scarborough’s Stephen Joseph Theatre
Commonwealth Games Handover Ceremony choreographer Rosie Kay’s newest work, coming to Scarborough’s Stephen Joseph Theatre on Friday 8 November, takes ballet and tutus into the 21st century using dance and science to create an exquisite performance of pleasure, beauty and finesse.
Kay worked with neuroscientists to explore how dance can trigger sensations of pleasure and fulfilment in the brain, and what makes dance so beautiful to watch and experience.
Rosie Kay’s Fantasia is the result of Kay’s desire to make a work of pure joy inspired by music and the body’s response to it, featuring three bold female dancers: Harriet Ellis, Carina Howard and Shanelle Clemenson.
Contrasting Baroque virtuosic movement with deeper, darker themes of romanticism, and with truly sumptuous costumes that defy expectation, Kay explores the currently unfashionable aesthetic concept of beauty.
Rosie Kay says: “Returning to pure dance is a luxury to me, a return to the craft of my profession, the dance-making skills: I need to keep those skills flexed and toned.
“The great thinkers of Greek philosophy and the Romanticists of the 19th century saw beauty as a means to empower and inspire people. Yet today, beauty seems to be a deeply unfashionably idea. If we talk about it, somehow, we are being shallow; it is not a heavyweight concept, it cannot change the world. But perhaps we can re-inspire our aesthetic senses and begin to love and find pleasure in the world, with each other, and within ourselves, and this might just change the world a little bit.
“My starting blocks were great works of music by geniuses I admire and want to dance to, such as Vivaldi, Bach and Purcell, but also Vaughn Williams, Beethoven and Kurtag. I spent several weeks alone, improvising with music, creating the building bricks of a technical dance language. I chose the best three female dancers I know, all long-term performers with RKDC and used to my technical and creative ways to make new works.
“Finally, I spent a lot of time talking with neuroscientists in Oxford and in Denmark. In Oxford we talked about the simple pleasures of life, dancing and music being two; in Denmark we talked about what kind of music makes you want to move inside. I returned to explore how dance and music affect the brain in different ways, and went much further, finding out exactly what this meant for the brain and how as a choreographer I could utilise and play with those scientific findings.
“My Fantasia is a work that ebbs and flows, peaks and troughs with your heart, your mind and your eyes. The audience will be transported over an hour with delightful dance designed to draw you in, to entertain, to be watched and enjoyed, but on the other hand, created with upmost care and precision, no step without place and purpose, no bar of music uncounted or ignored. It is a deceptively simple and complex work that will stir your heart and your mind.”
Rosie Kay’s Fantasia is supported by Arts Council England, Birmingham Hippodrome and DanceXchange.
Rosie Kay’s Fantasia can be seen in the Round at the SJT on Friday 8 November at 7.30pm. Tickets, priced from £10, are available from the box office on 01723 370541 and online at www.sjt.uk.com.