Best practices for backing up work!

Further to our tech demo session on Wednesday on Backing up your work, LIS have pointed us towards a guide on their internal web pages which can give you some more information. On the Portal, navigate to LIS Homepage > Using a computer > Computer Accounts > Student network accounts > Introduction to online services (storing files and backup on page 6).

If logged in, you can also use this link.

With thanks to Sally Myers from LIS for her help with this article.

-john

Upcoming – Technical Demo Day!

Next Wednesday 14th November, your friendly technicians are running a demonstration event in the main performance studio – CKW007. We want to show you some of the many technical tools at your disposal whilst here – from lights and lighting controllers to VJ-ing decks and smoke effects!

We’ll be available from 2pm in the main studio to show things off and answer questions, and there may even be refreshments to tempt you to stay a while!

Technical Demonstration Day

Open to current Performing Arts students & staff

Kingsway 007, Wed 14th from 2pm

-john

Extracurricular – Capoeira at Kingsway!

Current students: From 7th November, we are offering extra-curricular classes in Capoeira by the wonderful Rafael and Jane. The course runs across 15 consecutive weeks, excluding both student development weeks, ending 13th March 2013. There are only 30 spaces and it will be on a first-come-first-served basis, so please place your name with our department Administrator!

Our Dance Programme writes…

This is a fabulous fabulous fabulous opportunity, Rafael is a wonderful teacher and we would really encourage you to engage! The sessions are £3 each but we are asking people to pay up front so that we know who can commit to the whole series…it’s only fair! This means that the total amount is £45 (£3 x 15 sessions). You can pay the entire amount as soon as possible or in three instalments of £15 but you have to provide a £15 deposit before the classes start on the 7th of November.

There is more info about Capoeira in the video below, and specifically on Rafael and Jane’s website, please check it out!

-john

Upcoming Event – Niamh Dowling Workshop

University of Chester Dance and Drama are proud to announce a full day workshop by Niamh Dowling on Saturday 10^th November 2012.  This will be on the application of Alexander Technique to performance.  Niamh is a remarkable practitioner who with a touch of her hands can allow a performer to be more expressive and free onstage.  The workshop will involve working in pairs and groups, and will also have times when Niamh will work on individual students in a ‘master class’ format.

Niamh is an internationally known movement specialist who combines alexander technique with directing skills.  She is Head of Manchester School of Theatre at MMU, has trained with Monika Pagneux in Paris, as a teacher of the Alexander Technique and collaborates closely with Teatr Piesn Kozla in Poland.

Niamh Dowling – ‘Hoffmania’

Niamh has worked extensively as Movement Director on productions including Manchester’s Library Theatre and Contact Theatre, Theatre By The Lake in Keswick, Sheffield Crucible, Bolton Octagon and at West Yorkshire Playhouse. She regularly teaches workshops abroad including actors in Malta, Syria and Africa, psychotherapists and performers in Poland, refugees and nuns in Central America, dancers in Uruguay, performers in Argentina and an eighteen month movement training course for Blank Space, a theatre company in Singapore.

This workshop is part of the MA in Performance Practice and MA in Dance.  However it will also be open to a small number of students from Dance, Drama and Music.  Tutors will inform you of the process to gain a place in lectures.  If you are particularly interested, please contact Dr Julian Waite on j.waite@chester.ac.uk

-john

Last-minute quick pick!

Attention 3rd year Students!

Minerva Youth Theatre has an opportunity for you to gain professional level experience in the design and delivery of workshops for children and young people.

Are you… a Combined Honours student in Fine Art, Dance or Popular Music?
Or, do you have experience and knowledge in Art, Dance, Music or Multimedia?

If so, please email minerva_arts@live.co.uk with your name, Uni email and area of specialism to receive a brief – you will then be expected to respond to the brief by creating a proposal for a workshop. Deadline is 23rd October, interviews will be held 25th October.
More info:
Website: http://www.minervaarts.com/
Facebook Page: /minervaarts

-john

Upcoming Trip – Beautiful Burnout by Frantic Assembly!

Cameron Burns is going places. He’s fighting for his club, his mum, his place in the world. And this boy is a natural. He has an affinity with the violence, the balance, the ritual, the grace, and the power of the most controversial sport of our time.

Bryony Lavery’s heart-wrenching and deeply human story follows five young fighters as they aim for the bright lights, far from Glasgow’s mean, grey streets.

This knockout production is spectacularly staged, drawing its audience into the heart of the action, where every jab, hook and uppercut feels flinchingly realistic.

Featuring a stunning backdrop of glittering video screens and a pulsating soundtrack by electronic heavyweights Underworld, Beautiful Burnout packs an almighty, and unforgettable punch.

Beautiful Burnout is touring the UK currently, and coming to the West Yorkshire Playhouse on Thursday 8th November. The Performing Arts Department are running a subsidised coach to see this acclaimed production, with tickets available from the admin office for just £20 including coach travel!

The coach will depart Kingsway at 16:30 on Thursday 8th November. If you are a combined student, please ensure you get permission from your other subject area classes if there is a timetabling conflict!

Additional: Frantic Assembly are also doing a free workshop for us in February – priority for this will be given to those who have attended the performance!

-john

Upcoming Event – Survival Tactics!

Liz Aggiss – Survival Tactics

Coming soon to Kingsway – Survival Tactics

Open to all current students and staff of the University of Chester, the Department of Performing Arts presents Survival Tactics in the 005 Dance Studio on Wednesday 17th October at 7pm.

From a glamorous, blonde bombshell in high-heels to a pigeon toed, bow legged, oddball in big pants – Survival Tactics upturns the usual perception of the female stage body on its head. Inspired by Ausdruckstanz, with a fascination for grotesque dance, and a penchant for British music hall, Liz Aggiss pays homage to her historical mentors (and to herself) through a seamless fusion of text and movement, film and reconstruction.

For the past 30 years Liz Aggiss has delivered her personal signature style in ad hoc locations around the globe dodging categorisation and being classified as unclassifiable. A maverick and anarchic dance and film artist, she has been a Guerrilla Dancer, Diva, Wild Wiggler, Grotesque Dancer, Trout, Martyr and a Professor. From her early days in the 80’s supporting punk legends The Stranglers with her cabaret troupe The Wild Wigglers, to her classic solo Grotesque Dancer in 1986, to her dance/opera duet Falling Apart at the Seams in 1994, to her award winning film Motion Control in 2002, Liz Aggiss has been redefining her own brand of British contemporary dance.

Now as an aging, subversive, post menopausal, post-post-modern artist, with transgressive corporeality, she acknowledges that she is no longer a spring chicken. But she is far from being clapped out. Indeed she is raring to go. Survival Tactics challenges expectations of what her aging, post menopausal, fleshy dancing body should be doing, why she should be doing it, and where it should be done.

Survival Tactics is coming to the 005 Dance Studio at Kingsway on Wednesday 17th October at 7pm.

Tickets for the show are a bargain at just £2 each, and are available from SJ in the Faculty Admin office. Catch them while you can!

For more from UCArts, check out our Facebook Page and Twitter Feed!

Student Resources for current students!

An occasional post to highlight some of the internal resources available to current students…

Please note, you’ll need to be logged in to the Portal intranet to access most of these resources.

Missed any!? Let us know by email at the usual addresses!

Blogs

The LIS Arts & Media Blog delivers articles and content on the services that Learning and Information Services offer to current students, including this recent post on how to get library books delivered to Kingsway.

Also remember we’re on your social media sites with UCArts at Twitter and Facebook, and the main university accounts also on Twitter and Facebook.

Web Pages

The Performing Arts Department pages offer a wealth of information on how to do accomplish various tasks within the department, from explanations and assistance with Risk Assessing your performances, booking a rehearsal space and How-To Guides covering capturing video footage in the editing suite and getting our sound cards to work.

Very importantly, the Student Support and Guidance pages on the Portal have a wealth of information on how to access help and guidance to assist your studies and relieve stress, such as counselling services, study skills development including drop-in sessions at Kingsway, and many more student welfare resources.

-john

Upcoming Performance – The End!

The End

This Wednesday evening, current students and staff of the University can enjoy The End in our 007 Performance Studio.

From the artist’s website:

Inspired by the stage direction from The Winter’s Tale, ‘Exit pursued by a bear’, The End explores endings and exits and asks why we perform and how we will know when to stop.

The End

Wednesday 22nd February

007 Performance Studio, Kingsway, CH2 2LB

£7 Tickets

http://vimeo.com/25503906

Final Years students – Please take some

Final Years students – Please take some time to complete the National Student Survey. As a reward for your honest feedback, we’re offering the chance to win 1 of 5 iPads, or £250 vouchers.

http://www.thestudentsurvey.com/