April 26, 2025

OFFTA, Montreal

"For nearly two years, at the invitation of LA SERRE - arts vivants and in partnership with Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff, four artists from Wales and Quebec have come together to reflect on how we connect and form relationships. Through conversations, residencies conducted between the two territories, and the use of various performative scores, they explore notions of dissensus, hospitality, uncertainty, and wisdom, seeking pathways toward a harmonious polyphony while blurring the boundaries between performance and encounter. OFFTA presents the outcome of their experiments across different spaces in the city, engaging with community and cultural partners, as well as their neighbours.
The artists present three performances of the same work, each followed by an activity in response to the environment that hosts it.
“It feels like this moment requires new languages or to unearth the ancient.
We have been huddling trying to find our way out of the mess. We’ve tried long talking, walking, dancing, swimming, cooking, listening, mending, making, stretching, gardening our way out of it. We’ve tried together. We invited other people. Here and there. This is how far we’ve got:
Courage is a matter of the heart
This is progress
It’s not going to be solved in our lifetime
An ongoing conversation
We’d now like to invite people in Ahuntsic, Centre Sud, and Verdun to join the conversation. If you want to come, you’re invited.”
—Jo, Sonia, Marilou and Spicey"
Jo Fong, Sonia Hughes, Marilou Craft & Alexandra ‘Spicey’ Landé
Thursday, May 29: 12pm*
*Followed by a walk along the river in Verdun
Friday, May 30: 12pm*
Venue: Pavillon d’accueil du Parcours Gouin
*Followed by a shared meal on the shore of the Rivière des Prairies
Saturday, May 31: 12pm*
*Followed by a swim at the sports center
The performances are presented in English.
FREE!
Book your ticket here: nettles-how-to-disagree
April 25, 2025

The Rest Of Our Lives

ON TOUR 2025 March Peterborough Key Theatre 31st July Theatr Brycheiniog Brecon 30th August Padepokan Seni Bagong Kussudiardja (Indonesia) September Homo Novus Festival (Latvia)
April 24, 2025

Open Studio Cardiff, Dance, Law and Consent

An invitation - FREE EVENT Open Studio  Common Room, Chapter, Cardiff 8th May 2025 2.30 - 6pm  Hi everyone,  I’ve come together with anthropologist James Leach and we are both involved in a research project called The Choreography of Consent. The project brings together Dance and Law practitioners with a question around the movement of consent. We invite you to an informal Open Studio. James and I are approaching this from the angle of how do we “come into contract”, and by this I don't necessarily mean the written, sign on the dotted line version or not even the spoken or physical understandings that come into play. James and I understand, as community practitioners, that consent is complex, messy, layered and continuous. I like the idea of consent being continuous, a navigation, that success, even if it goes wrong, success is how we might go about continuing or ending well.. Many of us like our law to perhaps be able to protect us or even free us. Our law colleagues Sean and Jess talked about how we like our law to be clean, bright lines and they are the first to admit it just isn’t, its blurry and that as far as law and the everyday is concerned, Jess said "law doesn’t really capture the everyday" And as I write this I'm wondering if they would consent to me writing this in a public invitation? (endless layers…) I'm holding this phrase dear “We are consenting to explore the unknown." We’ll be devising ways to meet (moving, listening, dancing, walking…) and devise ways to document and reflect on what is happening together. With James’ anthropological hat on there maybe things to notice or acknowledge, feedback or gather For us there will be no clear line at the end but we hope to begin to articulate what is happening and honouring the idea consent is complex, evolving and takes into consideration everything including space, time, who, how and why. In general, as a facilitator, I never ask anyone to do anything, I simply ask people to be themselves, which as we have learnt can often be a work in itself. I will make sure there will be fruit and snacks! 
Please email jofongjofong@gmail.com to book a place. And of course, if you have access needs you would like to tell me about, just let me know.
   
Photo Cheniece Warner @chen_lightcapturer
April 4, 2025

NEUROLIVE WORKSHOP IV – London

 

TUE 27 MAY – SAT 31 MAY 2025, 11AM - 5.30PM

Experience the artistic processes behind NEUROLIVE.

This five-day workshop is an opportunity to experience the processes behind the artistic investigations of liveness that contributed to the NEUROLIVE project. Each day will share the artistic research of a different NEUROLIVE commission, and will be led by different artists closely involved in that particular work. These workshops are geared towards experienced artists, practitioners or researchers in dance, movement, choreography, performance and related fields. We encourage participants to book for the whole five days. Limited day only places may be available from 6 May, for those who can’t attend the full week, dependent on availability. NEUROLIVE is an interdisciplinary research collaboration that brings artists, scientists and audiences together to study what makes live experiences special. Each year since 2021, NEUROLIVE has commissioned a public performance work that is both an artistic event and part of a scientific research process. This workshop, followed by a symposium, marks the conclusion of this unique research project at SDS.
FULL SCHEDULE OF EVENTS neurolive-workshop-iv
April 4, 2025

CARDIFF Open Studio – morning practice session

15/4/2025

Open studio for dance artists

: NDCWales Cardiff 10:00 - 11:30am.

Free event

You are invited to join the three dance artists from iCoDaCo Jo Fong, Anna Seymour and Gwyn Emberton, in morning practice, as they combine their individual movement / artistic practices and approaches into a collective endeavour.

As the Wales Collective they are working within a wider collective of European contemporary dance artists as part of iCoDaCo - International Contemporary Dance Collective.

You will be introduced to the week's research tasks that they are exploring and gain insight into what iCoDaCo is and will be. Read more about iCoDaCo below.

📍 Location: National Dance Company Wales

📅 Date: Tuesday 15th April

open-studio-cardiff-icodaco
April 1, 2025

Open Studio – Brecon

Open studio invitation to the dance artists: Brecon 9/4/2025 10:00 - 11:30am
Scroll down for English - sign up via Linktree
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Gwahoddiad i’r stiwdio agored i’r gymuned ddawns gan Anna Seymour, Jo Fong a Gwyn Emberton
Rydych chi’n cael eich gwahodd i ymuno â thri artist dawns, Jo, Anna a Gwyn, mewn ymarfer boreol, wrth iddynt gyfuno eu harferion symud / artistig unigol a’u dulliau i greu ymdrech ar y cyd.
Fel y Wales Collective, maent yn gweithio o fewn casgliad ehangach o artistiaid dawns gyfoes Ewropeaidd fel rhan o iCoDaCo – International Contemporary Dance Collective.
Byddwch yn cael eich cyflwyno i dasgau ymchwil yr wythnos y maent yn eu harchwilio a chael mewnwelediad i beth yw iCoDaCo a beth fydd yn dod ohono.
📍 Lleoliad: Theatr Brycheiniog
📅 Dyddiad: Dydd Mercher 9fed Ebrill
⏰ Amser: 10 – 11:30 AM
Rydych yn cael gwahoddiad cynnes i aros ar ôl am ddiod boeth a sgwrs bellach rhwng 11:30 - 12 canol dydd.
————————————————
You are invited to join three dance artists, Jo Fong, Anna Seymour and Gwyn Emberton, in morning practice, as they combine their individual movement / artistic practices and approaches into a collective endeavour.
As the Wales Collective they are working within a wider collective of European contemporary dance artists as part of iCoDaCo - International Contemporary Dance Collective.
You will be introduced to the week’s research tasks that they are exploring and gain insight into what iCoDaCo is and will be.
📍 Location: Theatr Brycheiniog
📅 Date: Wednesday 9th April
⏰ Time: 10 – 11:30 AM
You’re warmly invited to stay on for a hot drink and further conversation from 11:30 - 12 noon
March 26, 2025

Cardiff – Open Studio

Its an exciting week Jo, Sonia, Marilou and Alex are back in a room together this time at Chapter working on something they have called Nettles: How to Disagree? Open studio Common Room, Chapter Arts Centre 30th March 2025 4pm- 5/5.15pm nettles-how-to-disagree
February 12, 2025

Open studio – Llandudno

Email JanFeb Get InvolvedJo Fong, Gwyn Emberton and Anna Seymour have begun a 15 month collaboration with iCoDaCo. The artists will gather to research as the Wales Collective and connecting with 12 collectives from across Europe.
The Wales project has been led by Jones the Dance . Find out more about our Open Studio events in Cardiff and Llandudno in Jan / Feb 2025.
 
December 17, 2024

Dance Law Consent

The Choreography of Consent AHRC Research Network Led by Film Dance Artist Anna Macdonald, Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London and Professor Marie-Andrée Jacob Jo has just begun an 18 month collaboration coming together with  practitioners and scholars from dance and law to develop innovative dance/law research methods that explore the movement of consent. In March 2025 Jo and anthropologist, James Leach will open the studio to people who dance. (Dates coming soon). The Network addresses the growing emphasis on the embodied dimensions of the law and the developing recognition of the refined understanding of movement that dance can bring to legal studies. The Network will bring together UK and international scholars with specialisms in dance improvisation, choreographic practice, somatic practice, socio-legal study, legal ethnography, anthropology, and legal materiality to experiment with innovative interdisciplinary research methods that investigate the following key research questions:
  • What the distinctive offering of practice-based dance research to legal and socio-legal research might be?
  • How can law and dance be brought together to understand topical societal issues in a way that avoids simplistic oppositions between language based and embodied ways of looking at things?
  • How might dance-based research enrich understandings of consent and in turn, how can legal forms of consent enrich dance research-specific, or dance embedded understandings of consent?
Over four events, the Network will: map existing dance/law expertise and methods; exchange and develop new collaborative dance/law methods; test these approaches focusing on the practice of consent; and identify future applications for these innovative methods. Each event will involve dance workshops, performances, academic presentations, and exchanges. Findings will be shared via a blog and podcast hosted in the Independent Dance Digital Library and People Dancing website, peer-reviewed journal articles, conference presentations and an exhibition documenting the Network activities and findings, to be hosted at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of London, and online by the CSM research website.
December 1, 2024

Butterfly Soup 2025

Jo will return to Butterfly Soup to lead a session on the 10th February 2025 at Ardour Academy in Roath, Cardiff. Butterfly Soup is a weekly evening Creative Queer Meet-up. To find out more see the LINK