Rebecca JS Nice previews choreographer Debbie Lee-Anthony’s piece A Nice Little Project.
A warm welcome to The Winchester Guide! I’ll be sharing my perspectives from high up on the hill at the university and down to the depths of the cathedral crypt. En route I hope to accomplish two things: uncover historical secrets about medieval Winchester, and discover quirky performances, events and local arts practitioners who are beavering away unnoticed.
The University of Winchester is my second home. Please allow me to introduce it to you as an inviting public space, rather than as a place for rowdy students who keep the city up all night. The Uni hosts an array of seminars (on subjects ranging from medieval history to criminology) and organises international writing conferences. Professional dance companies perform in its studio theatre. The Chapel on campus in particular is an unusual venue; often used for professional theatre, it should be identified with far more than its religious functions. The Chapel was designed by local architects Colson and Son of Jewry Street. It was consecrated in 1881 by The Bishop of Winchester who, quite fittingly, used the text from St Matthew: “A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid”. It’s a motto that we at The Winchester Guide can certainly claim as ours.
Make Every Word Hurt #1 is a night of cabaret-style entertainment to be unveiled in the Chapel on June 26, 6.30-8.30pm, and theoretically ideal for anyone who fancies a glass of wine and some laugh-filled live performance. With any free small-scale event, however, it’s often a punt as to the quality of experience you’ll have. Nevertheless in A Nice Little Project the choreographer/performer Debbie Lee-Anthony promises to question and provoke audiences about a subject anyone can relate to: being nice (or not, as the case may be). She’ll use speech, autobiography, audience contributions and dance to investigate this appealing theme. The intimate setting of the Chapel might well be the perfect environment for Lee-Anthony and her audience to engage in a dialogue, no doubt helped along by a little libation and the light-hearted nature of the work itself.
Debbie animatedly discusses the future of the arts in Winchester, a topic close to her heart as she also lectures at the university. “There are graduates based in the city now,’ she enthuses, “working with Wessex Dance Academy, Integr8 Dance and other project-based performance work who need to be encouraged, nurtured and offered opportunities.” She notes the popularity of festivals such as Winchester Hat Fair, stating that “performances are here all year round but people don’t know about them or aren’t encouraged to come out for them”. This is a gap The Winchester Guide intends to fill, informing our readers of as many outstanding arts events – whether one-off or ongoing, small or large-scale – as we possibly can.
But back to Lee-Anthony. She’s on a high right now, having just won the Senate Learning and Teaching Award 2014 for knowledge exchange at The University of Winchester. In a few weeks she will be attending the Impulse Tanz 2014 in Vienna, studying with Forsythe company dancer Nicole Peisl and ex-Limon dancer Risa Steinbuerg. Lee-Anthony’s passion and drive for performance, and her uncanny ability to connect individually with audience members, makes now a prime time to catch her in performance.
Billed as a pop-up-poetry event by Creative Connections at The University of Winchester, Make Every Word Hurt #1 will be followed the next day, June 27, by a free symposium called Make Every Word Hurt #2 (location: on campus at the Stripe Lecture Theatre, 10am-3pm). Various papers will be given by writers, academics and poets, lunch and coffee will be provided. For more information please email Vanessa.Harbour@winchester.ac.uk
Writer, dance critic, history geek and Winchy lover. Rebecca is a mature student at The University of Winchester studying Choreography and Dance combined with History. After teaching for eight years, she now writes for various publications and blogs about dance and all things arty-farty, whilst drinking copious amounts of tea and day dreaming in Winchester’s many café windows. @rebeccajsnice