10 - 14 Jul 2017

Making dances - compositional and poetic richness

Julyen Hamilton > Making dances - compositional and poetic richness

Julyen Hamilton's teaching investigates deeply the creative act and the technique needed to accompany and facilitate it. It stems from his experience as a soloist, director of Allen's Line and performer in numerous ensemble situations.

His work observes how things are made, how they function and how knowledge, experience and intuition can be used to create the work we each wish to make.

It naturally enters the worlds of physiology, philosophy, culture, imagination and the future.

In recent years the compositional elements of major concern have been

time, space, dramaturgy, music and the voice; they are informed his experience as a dancer who creates and organises material instantly before the public.

The basic work is the handling of the body and the 'speaking' from it in space, motion and time.

Its co-ordination and its relationship to the material it creates - and then to the sharing of it

in performance.

His ability to distil and convey essential principles allows dancers from a wide range of backgrounds to engage in his methodology.

JULYEN HAMILTON is a dancer, choreographer, poet, teacher and musician He has been making and performing dances for 40 years throughout the world. Born and brought up in England he trained in London in the 1970's, a time of radical experimentation, he has been an exponent of innovative performance since that time.

His work is mostly improvised : he composes dance works instantly as well as the texts which often accompany them. His work with text is unique. It fuses naturally his long-term writing practice with his refined skills in dancing. When working with his company Allen's Line he directs dancers and lighting designers to make and perform work through this same immediacy.

Since the 80's he has performed constantly in close collaboration with many of the highest quality musicians from all over Europe. It is with some of these musicians that he gives readings of his poetry. He is well respected for his teaching which reflects his research and development into efficient ways in which technique can evolve and improvisational creativity might be imparted. He is regularly invited to teach in major training centres throughout the world, his pedagogy centring on the elements of space, time, voice and dramaturgy. He is at present performing the solos 'The Immaterial World' / ‘The Forerunner’ and ‘PLAY’ ; performing with bass player Barre Phillips and in productions of The Wheel in Brussels and The Needle in Berlin. In this period his companyAllen's Line has been performing their following piece ‘Goat Ocean’ Paris / Bruxelles and Berlin. Their latest piece ‘MUD LIKE GOLD’ was premiered in Bruxelles in November 2015. As a pianist he plays regularly with Voluptuous in Berlin and Brussels. His label ‘BLUE DOG DVDs’ produces videos of his performances on DVD. His first poetry/music cd 'The Edge of Letters' was released in 2011 and his new album 'Even Storms Break' with bassist Wilbert de Joode comes out in 2016.

More about JULYEN HAMILTON at La Caldera