2009 has been a productive and creative year so far for the company and it’s director Claire Pençak, who has been out and about working in Inverness, Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Kirkwall.

In January 2009, the company moved further north to Orkney and has been making links and contacts with the dance and arts community there. Claire has established a Friday morning advanced/professional class for a small group of professional contemporary dancers and has initiated the introduction of a Higher Dance course with Kirkwall Grammar School.

Made In Scotland

Tabula Rasa is delighted to announce that it has been chosen to be part of the ‘Made in Scotland’ showcase at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

As a result of ‘Made in Scotland’ we will be presenting ‘Dilly Dilly’, a dance theatre production for children as part of the Dance Base Fringe programme from 6th – 16th August 2009  .

’Made In Scotland’ is a partnership between the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, the Federation of Scottish Theatre and the Scottish Arts Council and the showcase will promote 12 Scottish dance and theatre companies to international promoters.

The award funds us directly to take the work to Edinburgh and provides support services through the Federation of Scottish Theatre and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Most excitingly it includes an international touring element, allowing successful performances to travel with their productions as a direct result of performing at the Fringe in 2009.

‘Dilly Dilly’ has already been performed to over 20000 children from Benbecula to Brentford. It is a one woman show performed by Tara Hodgson who has been described in this role as ‘rollickingly eccentric’ by The Herald. The central theme is about growing – growing things, growing ideas and growing up. It includes original music by Quee MacArthur who has created music for many Scottish based dance companies and is a well known figure on the Scottish music scene and as one of the musicians that make up Schooglenifty. The production is also a collaboration with John McGeoch and the Arts in Motion team who created the digital images.

Lisbon Diary and Loom

Claire has been working on two choreographic research projects this year ‘The Lisbon Diary’ and ‘Loom’.

The starting point for the ‘Lisbon Diary’ project is a daily diary of observations made over a 6 week period whilst working in Lisbon in 2008. The aim was to work quickly and to develop movement vocabulary, or choreographic structures for each day . 43 days – 43 phrases. It has taken the form of 3 creative labs at Eden Court, Citymoves, Aberdeen and The Scottish School for Contemporary Dance ,Dundee. The labs were attended by student, professional and contemporary dancers.

The result is a mammoth amount of disparate material that Claire hopes to shape into an experimental studio based performance in the Autumn for Dance Live! in Aberdeen bringing back as many of the dancers as possible.

In May the company were in residence at Dance Base, Edinburgh for two weeks working with dancers Will Thorburn and Merav Israel on the second phase of a choreographic development project called ‘Loom’ that has been funded by the Scottish Arts Council. A final week will take place at the end of June in Orkney with dancer Shamita Ray.

Finally, the company have begun working with Inverness based web design company ifoundry on the creation of a website – bringing the company (albeit reluctantly!) into the 21st century. The website will be ready for the Fringe in August 2009.

May 2009