Art on Greenwich Peninsula: Dance
Greenwich Peninsula: Dancing on the Peninsula
Year
2008
Client
Arts Council England
London Borough Greenwich
Greenwich Peninsula (Lend Lease / Quintain JV) Greenwich Millennium Village (Countryside / Taylor Wimpey JV)
GLA (formerly Homes & Communities Agency)
Artist
Choreographer Temujin Gill,
Service
Commission Management
Collaborator
Vivienne Reiss
Greenwich Dance Agency
Big Dance 2008
Funding
Greenwich Council Cultural Olympiad Programme
Location
Greenwich Peninsula,
North Greenwich, London
A collaborative dance project and performance, Greenwich Peninsula
On Thursday 10th July, at 6pm, Peninsula Square on Greenwich Peninsula came alive when over fifty local school children took to the stage in a one-off performance as part of Big Dance 2008 (5-13 July), a week-long celebration of dance in all its styles and forms.
Dancing on the Peninsula was a collaboration between Art in the Public Realm Greenwich Peninsula and Greenwich Dance Agency (gDA), in partnership with Big Dance 2008 and Greenwich Council’s Cultural Olympiad programme, celebrating the role of art and sport in our communities.
The performance brought together resident gDA choreographer Temujin Gill, six professional dance artists, and over 50 children from the Millennium and Halstow Primary Schools, who attended gDA’s after school dance club.
Over six weeks the gDA dancers worked with the children to create a site specific dance celebration inspired by the Art in the Public Realm Greenwich Peninsula’s themes of sustainability, regeneration and the natural and built environments.
“The aim of this project is to encourage young people to engage with, as well as, celebrate the vitality of nature and ask questions about our relationship to the earth’s resources as well as our use of them.”
Drawing on the values of Big Dance 2008 and the Cultural Olympiad the performance also references the idea of competition versus cooperation and its existence within the areas of sport and environmental sustainability. During the performance the dancers convey these themes with contrasting dynamics and relay races as a means of entering and exiting the performance area.
Set against the backdrop of the ‘Living Wall’ at Peninsula Square, which features water, fauna and man made constructions, this dance piece explores these themes through the language of healthy competition and cooperation, key factors evident in sports activities and the balance of the natural world.
“This project has given our children’s groups an amazing opportunity to make a different kind of performance in a new and exciting environment. Hopefully people visiting The O2 on 10th July will stumble across our performance and be inspired by what they see and possibly sign up for a dance class.”
In addition to the live dance performance, filmmaker Ros Cheshire worked with the dance artists and choreographer to document the Dancing on the Peninsula project. The participating children were filmed dancing at various locations around the Peninsula including Millennium Primary School, the old coal jetty, and the Greenwich Peninsula Ecology Park. This was be combined with footage of the live dance to produce a separate art work, a creative response to dance and movement through the environment. It was shown as part of the Greenwich Cultural Olympiad programme.
Dancing on the Peninsula informed other projects initiated to coincide with the Artistic Gymnastics World Championships held at The O2 in 2009 and the Olympics and Paralympics 2012.