Shards
1993
Choreographed by Liv Lorent and Dancers
Dancers: Geoffrey Hopson, Brian Palm, Emma Redding/Sarah Bateson, Ingrid Reisetbauer
Music: Leoš Janáček
Costume Design: Suzie Holmes
Premiered: Bonnie Bird Theatre
Presented: BAC New Choreographers Platform, South Bank and selected to represent Britain at the Second Recontre Chorégraphique Européene at Fougères, France
A quartet about love, and abandonment. The powerful music of Janáček had a very strong influence on the choreography, and the movement was created from a high idealism of the most passion people can offer each other. This graduation work, created at The Laban Centre won the choreography prize for the year, and became the first of balletLORENT’s works to be seen outside of London.
ROT
1994
Rot was a re-imagining of an earlier piece called 9 1/2 Minutes. Liv Lorent explored how people might behave in the run up to impending war and how that time was spent under duress, unpicking the romantic notion that the last minutes a couple might spend together would almost certainly be a movie portrayal of blissful optimism. This was the real starting point to Lorent's forensic examination of gender and relationships.
Music: Ravel's 'Violin Sonata'
Dancers: Sonia Rafferty and Steven Coates
This piece was part of the London Barcelona Exchange
Albatross
1995
Choreographed by Liv Lorent and Dancers
Dancers: Kate Andrew, Patricia Bastian, Eric Colvin, Kit Dickinson, Vincent Gayle, Orla McLaughlin, Pedro Montoya, Andrea Nundy, Cheri Seel, Julia Todd, Beverly Voice
Music: Lee Deal Albatross 1 and 2; John Was The Swan; Alfred Schnitke Concerto for Piano and Strings
Costume Design: Suzie Holmes
Lighting Design: Simon G Smith
Previewed: The Cutty Sark, Greenwich
Premiered: The Place, London
Liv Lorent’s fascination with this glorious seabird inspired this deeply moving ballet. The albatross is a bird that mates for life and has very sadly become endangered due to being ensnared in trawler nets. Concerned with grief and passion; flight and fall; the dancers performed lifts and dives which propelled them into a spiral of desperation.
PassAge to Passion
1996
Commission: Artists’ Agency, Northumberland Dance Project, Dance City
Choreographed by Liv Lorent and Dancers (The project which brought Liv to the North East)
Dancers: Three professional dancers and 80 community participants aged 8-82 years. The older people were from Ashington, Gateshead and Newcastle and the young people from Heworth, Walker and Bothal Schools.
Music: Sibelius Prelude - Romance; Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten; Arvo Part Festina Lente, Spiegel im Spiegel; James Macmillam After the Tryst; Dmitri Shostakovich Chamber Symphony; Wojcieh Kilar Portrait de Manon, Massenet and Orawa. Played live by Northern Sinfonia
Costume Design: Pam Allen
Lighting Design: Martin Warden
Premiered: Federation Brewery, Gateshead
Toured: Theatre Royal, Newcastle with Northern Sinfonia playing live (as part of Northern:Electric Festival), Newbiggin Sports & Community Centre and Ballroom Blitz, Royal Festival Hall, London.
A chance meeting at The Place theatre bar with Janet Archer secured Liv’s first choreographic commission and became a catalyst for a young company and choreographer who had never before travelled to the North. The cast was comprised of 80 performers from Walker, Central Newcastle, Gateshead and Ashington and they were all either under 14 or over 60. This commission relocated Liv to the North East and was supposedly a temporary move out of London, but she stayed and now calls Newcastle her home.
"The outcome was spectacular, sensitive and moving. The older performers were motivated by, willing to take risks for, and inspired by Ms Lorent’s work." Brenda Bond, Chief Officer, Age Concern, 1996
Wounds Too Bleeding Flesh Where Angels Land
1997
Choreographed by Liv Lorent and Dancers
Dancers: Clyde Melville-Bain, Caroline Reece, Steven Skamarski
Music: Arvo Part, James Macmillan, Leopo Sumera, Giya Kanchelli
Lighting Design: Mark Baker, Becky Wilkinson, John Perkins
Premiered: Spring Loaded at The Place, London
Presented: Northern:Electric Dance Festival at Gulbenkian Studio, Newcastle Playhouse and the Southbank Centre, London
This trio was significant as it was the first full length work balletLORENT created solely on paid professional dancers. It was made in Newcastle and premiered in The Place Theatre, London, when choreographer Liv Lorent was a Resident Artist. Accompanied by a collage of contemporary Estonian music, the work was a story of unhappy love. This piece signified the beginnings of a new aesthetic for Liv. An urgent, ultra-committed physicality and emotionally vulnerable performance, which the three dancers brought to the creation of this work. The Director of Dance City Janet Archer introduced dancer Caroline Reece to Liv who has since had roles in most of balletLORENT’s works, most recently Rumpelstiltskin and After Dark.
I Say Me but I Could Say Man Any Man?
1998
Commission: Tim Rubidge
Choreographed by Liv Lorent in collaboration with Tim Rubidge
Dancer: Tim Rubidge
Music: Soundscore created by Philippos Theochardis with music by Ingram Marshall, David Darling and Wocjeich Kilar
Costume Design: Jane Robinson with Jenny PearsonLighting Design: Andrew Biscoe
Set Design: Paul Hardcastle
Premiered: Gulbenkian Studio, Newcastle Playhouse
Tim Rubidge, 2018
As a finished piece ‘I say me, but I could say man, any man?’ did not have a long life - too out there for regional venues? Who knows... but in my mind it was an important piece and found its way into the territory of what contemporary choreographic practice can be when it is unrestricted by the ephemeral.
La Famille
1999
Commission: Dance City, part funded by the European Community (ERDF)
Choreographed by Liv Lorent and Dancers
Dancers: Geoffrey Hopson, Linda Payne, Caroline Reece, Helen Thomas and a cross-generational community cast of 35 aged 6 months - 75 years.
Premiered: Sunderland Empire Theatre and recreated in Kendal and Barrow-in-Furness with the North West premiere at the Brewery Arts Centre, Kendal.
The interest in working with different generations that had begun with PassAge to Passion continued with La Famille. balletLORENT dancer Helen performed with her baby, Molly, and joined a cast of 30 community performers and three other company professionals. balletLORENT also created a whole new full-length work also called La Famille in Barrow-in-Furness and Kendal.
Anne Armstrong, community participant for La Famille
"My daughter Victoria and I already danced in classes at Washington Arts Centre and it was there that we heard about an audition/production by balletLORENT. The workshop was for any age and dance ability so we went along together. At the workshop we learned that the production 'LaFamille' was to explore a whole range of family relationships and experiences. I would get to dance with Victoria, which was a lovely experience. We got to take part in two whole cast routines but we also got to perform a routine for just the two of us. Twenty years on I still remember it. We performed at Sunderland Empire and at Hartlepool Civic Hall. It was a great experience. So much so that it has brought me back to perform again and again."
Supported by The National Lottery Heritage Fund
