Past Projects

Moving Summer, 2007

• Course leaders: Lois Taylor & Sally Robbins
• Film-makers: Chris Lewis-Smith

We headed for the beach again to let it stimulate our mind, soul and body for another creative week in the summer sun or rain.

Guided improvisations, space to explore indivdual ideas using stimulus both given and found, working together and sharing ideas and working independently.

The nature of the course was to be able to respond to the group, the environment and the findings, so there was always an unpredictable element that kept it fresh, unknown and exciting.

Clean Sweep , 2007

• Choreographer: Lois Taylor
• Musical Director: Jon Sterkx
• Dancers: Luke Birch, Sam Edgecombe, Judith Hughes, Saara Lamberg,Maryam Pourian, Hanna Tatham
• Musician: Charly Harrison

Clean Sweep was a three week skills exchange between dancers and musicians resulting in a performance created to entertain shoppers and passers by with a creative mix of dance theatre and live music.

The street cleaners arrive to tidy up and create order.  But musicians are in town and the rhythm of the drums pull at their best intentions.  In a flurry of overalls and brushes they give in to their wilder side...

Clean Sweep toured to Exeter, Plymouth, Yeovil, Newton Abbot and Bournemouth

Touching Base, 2006

Touching base was funded by the Clore Duffield Small Grants Programme to create a new model of practice for the role of dance in secondary schools, working in partnership with young people from partner schools. 

We worked alongside 6 partner schools in Devon. From these schools we engage a core group of young people from the age of 14 - 18, to work alongside attik dance to establish creative starting points for the workshop and performance programme, project evaluation and  future development ideas.

The Touching Base day consisted of a 30 minutes performance piece, half day workshop and feedback and question session. We toured to secondary schools in Cornwall, Plymouth, Devon and Somerset during November 2007.

To view rehearsal footage please click link below.

Nervous Tension

The Hug

Hell or High Water, 2006

Lois Taylor and Sally Robbins used the work of sculptor Antony Gormley as a starting point for this creative summer course located on Perranporth Beach in North Cornwall.  

The aim of the course allowed space for individual exploration of the landscape using shared stimuli, improvisation processes and collective reviewing of experiences and findings.

Shoppafrolics, 2006

Shoppafrolics  was a three week skills exchange between dancers and musicians resulting in a  fun, stylish mix of dance, theatre and live music for open spaces.

Drawn in by the sound of music playing, a group of ‘shop-‘til-you-drop’ shoppers converge on a band of musicians.  In the chaos of bags and belongings they dance, take a rest and recharge their shopping batteries for the next round of retail therapy. 

Shoppafrolics was performed in Bournemouth, Newton Abbot, Penzance, Plymouth and Torquay. 

The Big Bang, 2005

A cosmic exploration using dance, experiments and creative writing to explore the ideas, images, facts and the fantasy behind the Big Bang theory for Key Stage 1 and 2 students.  
attik toured this performance and workshop package to 17 primary schools in Devon, Cornwall and Somerset.

Passion Fruit, 2005

Mix nine musicians and dancers of outstanding talent, the choreographic language and creative narrative of artistic director Lois Taylor and a dash of mischief, stir well and you have Passion Fruit.
attik dance prepared a cocktail of chaos, seduction and fun on a knife-edge. Audiences were shaken and stirred by the high quality, high velocity dance, in which games of status and lust were played between beautiful guests, rebellious waiters and (apparently) innocent musicians.  

 “For me, this is what Exeter Festival is about. Shoppers, cyclists, parents with toddlers, and even a group of children canoeing in the canal basin stopped to watch. Definitely my festival highlight.”
Becky Moran, ExeterExpress & Echo

Time to Dance, 2003 – 2004

From January 2003 to December 2004, attik dance and the Barbican Theatre delivered weekly dance classes for older people in some of the most deprived communities in Plymouth, as well as in some residential homes.

The project also included a number of social events. It aimed to combat some of the problems associated with social exclusion, including poor health, social isolation, marginalisation and low self-esteem and confidence.
To download Arts Council England’s report of this project, click here 

Sense of Place, 2004

A residential summer workshop for young people from Plymouth at Slapton Ley Field Studies Centre. Working with an environmental scientist the students explored dance and movement inspired by their surroundings and the environment.

Enchanted Spaces, 2004

An interactive performance event for children at Key Stages 1 & 2.

The children were introduced to the idea of an Enchanted Space under the sea and asked to visualise what might be in it.  They learned songs to send pirates to sleep, dances to celebrate the creatures of the sea and made giant fish mobiles and scaly costumes for themselves. 

A beautiful ceremony space was created, full of painted cushions and twinkling lights and, of course, the pirates den complete with jewels and skull and cross bones.

Tangled, 2004

 We set sail with Tangled, diving into the depths of hidden memories and surfing the wave of realization.
A picnic on the beach, a setting sun, shared intimacies and a turning tide – Tangled was a series of snapshots, dipping in and out of different realities to reveal the moment when life stands still and the truth rushes in.
Lois Taylor brought her celebrated mix of insight and narrative to this creative unpicking of fact and fantasy.
Funded by the Arts Council England, South West, the piece toured to 16 venues in the South West.

Crouching Chef, Hidden Waiter, 2002

Funded by the Arts Council of England’s National Touring Programme, the piece toured to 24 venues in 11 counties, working with rural touring agencies.
Crouching Chef, Hidden Waiter was dance, physical theatre and visual comedy, wrapped up in a delightful tale of culinary calamity.
The story followed the fortunes of four wildly eccentric characters: a semi-pro boxer, a young office girl, a stressed maitre d' and his long lost brother. Left to fend for himself in the restaurant, the maitre d' is not a happy man!
With the arrival of two beautiful guests come dark secrets, desperate longings and a figure from the past. As a power struggle develops, passions rise to boiling point and sharpened knives are drawn.
Premiered at the Eden Project in Cornwall, the work featured some of the country's most inspiring and beautiful dancers and a live double bass player, guaranteeing audiences a veritable smorgasbord of visual and dramatic surprises.

Gut Reaction, 2002

Gut Reaction represented a new kind of visual dance theatre designed to bring urban centres to life. It was devised and performed in shopping centres, bus stations and bars.
The performers drew resources including a bench, an escalator and a plant to create unique site-specific performances, watched by an audience of shoppers and passers-by.
Four characters, both wildly eccentric and very everyday, explore their relationship with their environment, its inhabitants and each other.
Gut Reaction toured to Frome, Gosport, Plymouth, Bournemouth and Dartford, bringing new audiences to contemporary dance.
attik offered local dancers in each location professional development opportunities, devising 'dance for unusual spaces'.

Stuff That (pilot project for Crouching Chef, Hidden Waiter), 2001

This piece is about food. Food is vital, sensual and yummy - and the bizarre etiquette surrounding it opens up lots of opportunity for theatre.
Stuff That was commissioned for, and performed at, the Eden Project in Cornwall to the many hundreds of summer visitors.

“It was very popular with audiences and helped us to confirm that we can place new and challenging work in front of our broad-spectrum audiences, providing that the quality is excellent.”
Sue Hill, Eden Project

“Very accessible, well danced with humour and an easy to follow plot…an excellent piece for new audience areas.”
South West Arts assessor

Highly Visible, 2001

Year of the Artist project Highly Visible was an opportunity to put the creative process on the street and be as inclusive and open as possible to the general public.
A physical exploration of the landscape of Plymouth city centre. Lois Taylor and the two dancers spent three weeks on the streets, working creatively in a variety of urban spaces, including subways, walls and sitting spaces.
The project was a collaboration with award-winning film artist Kayla Parker and cameraman Stuart Moore, and a short film Inner City was produced and screened in shop windows and cinemas.

Breathing In, 1999 - 2000

Breathing In was based on ideas of hope juxtaposed with the uncertainty of each day we face. It used the sea as a running theme with a taped mantra of being "cast adrift on an endless sea" and "wide-eyed and slightly sea-sick", echoing a feeling of hidden depths and the unexpected swells of human relationships.
The production toured to 17 venues nationwide and was supported by an extensive education programme in secondary and higher education.

“A beautifully accomplished piece that shows attik to be pushing new and exciting narrative into the dance arena, with fluidity of expression and movement to make many envious of what they are yet to achieve.”
Andy Jex - Scene magazine