Elliot was a participant of TCFT's Youth Arts Residency in February 2016 at Bridport Arts Centre. He took part in the dance workshops led by Billy Read (UK) and Giulia Marchetti (ITALY).
When I turned up on my first day I didn’t know anything about the project. All I knew was that I was doing a dance workshop over the half term.
I soon realised however that this was part of an ongoing project, and that the only reason I hadn’t heard about it before was because I was too young!
I actually couldn’t make it to the first day. But from what I’ve heard it was more about getting to know everyone than anything else and I knew quite a few people there anyway.
Billy Read and Giulia Marchetti lead emerging young artists from West Dorset.
On the second day, (my first), we chose wether we wanted to do dance, music, painting, photography or film. I chose dance but all the other stuff looked good as well.
Then we went off to our separate venues to start working on our pieces. We learnt a few sequences in hip-hop and bharathanatyam, which was a great experience for me as I’d only really ever done contemporary before.
The teachers were both really good and Billy, (the hip hop teacher), was deaf so it was really interesting working with him.
At three o-clock we came back to the town hall for a sharing of what everyone had been doing. Then after that we had until five to come up with a piece of our own.
The next day we all met at the town hall again and went off to finish our main dance. We came back to the art centre at three and did another sharing then we went up to the town hall to practice the dances we had made the previous afternoon on our own.
On Thursday we did pretty much the same thing, practicing and refining our dances.
Then, Friday. The day of the performance. We had rehearsals in the morning and then at lunch time I had to go off to do something else, so I missed the tech rehearsals. It didn’t matter too much though and I got back in time to do one of them.
And then before I knew it, the audience were arriving and we were all getting into our places, ready to go on.
All the shows I’ve ever done before have always had weeks of tech and dress rehearsals and plenty of time to relax. But this was just, a few days to make it and then, get on stage and perform it!
The show went really well. In a way it was much more fun than spending a long time practicing. But then, as with any show, it was all over too quickly.
It was great to be part of this project and I’d love to do whatever’s coming up in the future. I got the chance to meet new people, make new dances and over all it was just great fun!
Thank you TCFT!!!