Wednesday 7th November 2012
6.30pm
Ellen Terry Building, Jordan Well, Coventry, CV1 5RW
£8/ £5 concessions

Details for the first full performance of the re-vamped work can be found below, with others to follow shortly.

Friday 28th September 2012
5 – 6pm
Temporary Speigel Tent, Barkers Pool, Sheffield (between John Lewis and Sheffield City Hall)
Free of charge, as part of Sheffield University’s Festival of the Mind.

Disco dancing to Sinatra, the YMCA to Mozart, line dancing with hands and The Twist on chairs. Spiltmilk say Dance turns social dancing on its head, giving familiar favourites a facelift to create a completely new experience that will surprise, intrigue and delight!

Spiltmilk Dance present this critically acclaimed show full of their signature combination of complex movement arrangements and references to popular culture. The work takes a tongue-in-cheek look back at social dance crazes from the last century, but de-constructs and re-imagines them for today’s audience.

“Their moves are timed to perfection and it’s fun.” The Stage
“Hilarious gestural deconstruction ….performed with verve and panache” londondance.com

The work sees two performers explore how a variety of everyday, very familiar objects can be used in weird and wonderful ways. Think paper telescopes, foil moustaches, human hoopla and much much more!

The performance experience starts as soon as the audience enters, with a game of I Spy, led by the performers. On a particularly tricky round of the game, the dance begins as one performer notices a terrifying monster behind them. The pair try every which way to hide from the beast until suddenly they realise there is nothing at all to be scared of; his gruesome spots are just scrunched up pieces of paper, his scaly skin is just kitchen foil (with incidentally is great for making interesting sounds and slippery snakes), and his legs are made of something that nobody would have guessed!

The piece takes the form of lots of short dances, each one discovering another everyday object until, finally, all that is left is a big pile of Thingamajigs!

Previous young audience members said:

‘I think you should do it again!’ ‘It made me feel happy’

‘My favourite bit was when they played with the foil’ ‘Thank you, I liked it.‘

Parents said:

‘We didn’t know what to expect at all so it was really refreshing to see something completely different. Yeah, good fun.’

‘Absolutely fantastic!‘

And teachers said:

‘I saw a different side to lots of the children, for example when the children were becoming ‘monsters’, one little boy who is usually very shy, came out of his shell and got into character ‘roaring’ with his friends. It was great to take a step back and see what the children would do with the resources.‘

‘It really gave them an opportunity to think about how they can move their bodies in different ways and use materials for imaginative purposes.’

The performance involves some audience interaction and is 30 minutes in length. It can either be offered alongside workshops for the children watching to take part in (giving them the chance to try out movement ideas from the show as well as encouraging their own explorations with the objects that are used), or as a stand alone event.

For more information about staging a Thingmajigs performance at your event or school, please get in touch using the details on the contacts page.

We had a fantastic reception at both events and so thought we’d share the love by posting a video of Ballroom, one of the sections of the piece. Enjoy!

For more information about Spiltmilk say Dance, click here.

The project was carried out with support from Creative Leap, a new professional development scheme which aims to give emerging artists the chance to kick start their careers and turn their creative ideas into reality.

Thingamajigs was created with an audience of young children (aged 3+) and their parents in mind. The dance performance sees two performers explore how a variety of everyday, very familiar objects can be used in weird and wonderful ways. Think paper telescopes, foil moustaches, human hoopla and much much more!

Research for the project took place at Erdington Hall Nursery and Short Heath Primary School, both in Erdington, Birmingham. The company led workshops at the schools focussing on encouraging children to explore freely with a range of everyday objects. The company observed how the children interacted with these objects naturally, and on some occasions intervened to assist experimentation. The ideas that children had in these workshops and the ways we observed them interacting with the objects then fed directly into the choreography for the piece.

The performance was presented in March 2011 at both the Children’s Centre and School that the research workshops had taken place and was very successful in terms of engaging a large number of parents and children at each venue.

Feedback for the project was extremely positive. Teachers commented:

The children loved having you both come in and teach them! All of the children were engaged. I saw a different side to lots of the children, for example when the children were becoming ‘monsters’, one little boy who is usually very shy, came out of his shell and got into character ‘roaring’ with his friends. It was great to take a step back and see what the children would do with the resources.

The appropriateness of the workshop content was spot on for our Year 2 pupils. It really gave them an opportunity to think about how they can move their bodies in different ways and use materials for imaginative purposes.

Whilst audience members said:

‘I thought it was fab and, I mean, look what the kids got out of it.’

‘My favourite bit was wiggling with the hula hoops.’

‘We didn’t know what to expect at all so it was really refreshing to see something completely different. Yeah, good fun.’

‘The show was fantastic!’

‘I think you should do it again.’

More information about Thingamajigs and how it can be presented at your event or school, can be found here.

The children certainly enjoyed this style of learning, and were always very enthusiastic about going to the sessions. It was observed that more reserved children were participating and putting their hands up to contribute more often than they usually would in a maths lesson.
We chose to work with topics that the staff identified as often being sticking points for year 1 children – time, money and place value. There was a continual sense of development; different ways of facilitating free explorations of maths concepts were explored, games were devised and human clocks and coins were made!

Each activity was evaluated by the young people taking part, and a case study was written at the end point to assess how the findings of the project may be used to inform the school’s delivery of maths in the future.

Staff have been left with the inspiration to teach maths physically, and have already put this into practice since the end of the project by using children’s bodies to teach 3D shapes. All Year 1 staff have said they will definitely teach maths physically in future, and are even considering the possibilities of how they could do this in other subjects. Staff also left the project with a feeling of liberation to give things a go, to experiment with new ways of teaching and see what happens, and identified that the freedom to do this was key to this project.
Some comments from staff working on the project included:

‘Thank you for all your hard work and ideas.‘
‘You have been fab to work with – a real inspiration.‘
‘It’s been great fun!‘
‘Come back soon!‘

Thingamajigs was created with an audience of young children (aged 3+) and their families in mind. The dance performance sees two performers explore how a variety of everyday, very familiar objects can be used in weird and wonderful ways. Think paper telescopes, foil moustaches, human hoopla and much much more!

The performance experience starts as soon as the audience enters, with a game of I Spy, led by the performers. On a particularly tricky round of the game, the dance begins as one performer notices a terrifying monster behind them. The pair try every which way to hide from the beast until suddenly they realise there is nothing at all to be scared of; his gruesome spots are just scrunched up pieces of paper, his scaly skin is just kitchen foil (with incidentally is great for making interesting sounds and slippery snakes), and his legs are made of something that nobody would have guessed!

The piece takes the form of lots of short dances, each one discovering another everyday object until, finally, all that is left is a big pile of Thingamajigs!

Previous young audience members said:

‘I think you should do it again!‘          ‘It made me feel happy‘          

‘My favourite bit was when they played with the foil‘             ‘Thank you, I liked it.‘

And grown ups said:

‘We didn’t know what to expect at all so it was really refreshing to see something completely different. Yeah, good fun.‘

‘Absolutely fantastic!‘

The performance involves some audience interaction and is 30 minutes in length. It can either be offered alongside  workshops for the children watching to take part in (giving them the chance to try out movement ideas from the show as well as encouraging their own explorations with the objects that are used), or as a stand alone event.

Thingamajigs is supported by Creative Leap, a new professional development scheme which aims to give emerging artists the chance to kick start their careers and turn their creative ideas into reality.

The project was kick-started with the delivery of a staff inset day, aiming to give all teaching staff some fresh ideas when teaching dance. The day was a great success with participants commenting

‘I found the build up from scratch very interesting and helpful. The whole session was fun and relaxed and informative. Thank you’

‘Thank you very much for a very effective training day. It was well planned, varied and fun! Just what we were looking for.’

For the bulk of the project, we worked with years 2, 3, 4, and 5.
With the Y2 and Y3 children, we explored different ways to make movement in unusual spaces around their school. This involved making dances going over and under chairs in their classrooms, joining together two trees at the front of school using a long line of bodies and diving over and moulding our bodies into snow sculptures during the wintry weather.

With the Y4 and Y5 classes, we have created dances based on topics they are doing in the classroom. Y4 have been learning about Aztecs and Chocolate and so this has developed into dances about jumping for cocoa beans, showing a production line (including a human conveyor belt!), and making rhythms to move to using chocolate bar wrappers.
Y5 have been reading The Tempest, and this has developed into dances about storms, plotting, and some great comedy trios.

Pictures to follow soon!

Hilarious gestural deconstruction….performed with verve and panache
londondance.com

There is considerable wit in Spiltmilk’s performance, from their incongruous musical choices to their sharply satirical choreography
ayoungertheatre.com

Their moves are timed to perfection and it’s fun.
The Stage

I enjoyed this work greatly and am most pleased with these ladies for sticking a big fat ray of sunshine right in the middle of a cold November night. Thanks so much!
webcowgirl.wordpress.com

The event has been described as ‘three unique programmes from some of the most exciting and innovative artists working in the UK today’.

We will be performing a 25 minute extract of Spiltmilk say Dance as part of a triple bill on Tuesday 16th and Wednesday 17th November 2010 at the Linbury Studio Theatre (housed below the Royal Opera House). Tickets are just £5 each and can be purchased here.

There will be one session for 2-3 year olds and their parents, and one for 5-7 year olds. The sessions are entitled ‘Busy Bodies’ and will lead participants through an exciting exploration of the human body. Stories, songs and objects will be used alongside creative movement and arts activities designed to encourage children to identify body parts and to investigate new ways of moving.

What a fab night!