The key to the door...

Hello, so I’m Olivia Hayes and I’ve have been asked (very nicely!) to blog along through the ins, outs, ups and downs of Surface Area Dance Theatre giving you a peek through the keyhole behind Auricular’s door. 

As a budding choreographer myself, when approaching this blog I’m going to be thinking about what I’d want to know which, for now, is the good, the bad and the downright ugly. I’m learning more and more that being a dance artist is not the glamorous, easy life that’s portrayed and the truth is you spend more time talking about what you want to do and writing about it then actually doing it. So how do they do it? How do they keep going? And why bang against the door more times than actually walking through it. As the project goes on these questions will inevitably change for me.

So first things first, I guess…. What is Auricular? 

Auricular is Surface Area Dance Theatre’s next big project for 2013. A dance performance commissioned by Dance City in association with BALTIC, created by Surface Area Dance Theatre with Newcastle music collective, :zoviet*france: providing the musical backdrop. Auricular will be performed this summer at BALTIC 39 – the first performance of its kind at the hidden treasure located on High Bridge Street. 

It’s a multi-disciplinary performance that glues contemporary dance with digital media and sound whilst collecting strangers in an experience that weaves in the art of British Sign Language and allows witnesses to leave feeling a connection between disparate communities. I’m told that Auricular will work to engage and connect audiences that may not have experienced contemporary dance before by exploring the depth of physical language and semantics.