Getting to know you better - Meet Beth!

Welcome to the first in our series of "Getting to know you sessions" here at Surface Area Dance Theatre. This is where you'll get to learn a little bit more about those involved in the Auricular process and a peek into the mind of those who are helping to bring this piece to life. If you have any questions for the artists then let us know and we can add some of those in as well! First up is performer - Beth Loughran...


1 - First name:    

 Beth

 2 - Word or phrase that's your favourite to sign: 

The word for green 

 3 - Can you speak any other languages? 

Yes, French and Spanish fluently and a bit of Italian.

 4 - Who inspires you?

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, especially their signature work 'Revelations'.

 5 - What is your first memory of dance?

Sitting on the floor looking at the soles of my feet, then looking up to my mum and saying 'mum I want to be a tap dancer' ...she saw to it! 

6 - Do you follow your head or your heart?

Heart ultimately.   

7 - Where is your favourite place that you've visted? 

I love London... But in addition, the Dia visual art gallery in Beacon, upstate New York really had an impact on me in lots of ways. Nicole and I visited there on a recent research and development trip, the recommendation was made by Laurence from the Baltic who is closely supporting SADT and Auricular.

8 - If you weren't a dance artist, what would you be?

A Police Detective or a Florist

9 - Describe what Auricular means to you in 3 words. 

It's quite hard to pin down, especially at this stage, but experiential, dynamic, transient.

10 - Best advice you've ever been given?

To draw boundaries.

Before Battersea....

So the Surface Area team are currently heading to London ready to perform an excerpt of Auricular down at Battersea Arts Centre. Hosting artists from across the country, Scratch is a 4 week long festoval celebration of new ideas and creative discussion whilst previewing it's fair share of legendary work in its past 10 years - even Jerry Springer the Opera was first shown there, fingers crossed for the same success with Surface Area! 

For more details on the event please have nosey over at https://www.bac.org.uk/content/20433/see_whats_on/current_shows/cook_up/scratch_festival 

If you're down near Battersea then get yourselves there for a sneak peek of what's to come in a few weeks time! And for those of us still facing the cold in the North, here's some of the previously unreleased Auricular photos to keep us warm whilst waiting for summer (and Auricular of course!) to come...

 All Photos by the incredibley talented Tanya Mills. 

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.

The Hard Sell dress rehearsal.

A selection of images taken from the dress rehearsal of The Hard Sell in Dance City at 3 p.m. on the 27.08.2011. Thanks to Michael Halliday for being such a wonderful dance photographer!