Candoco Dance Company: The Show Must Go On

Image: Candoco Dance Company
 

How did you get involved with Candoco Dance Company?
I performed with Marvin Gaye Chetwynd, the Turner Prize nominee, at the Contemporary about a year ago. I enjoyed it and apparently got ideas above my station and thought I could do this performance thing. I applied to do The Show Must Go On through the Dance4 website and went through the recruitment workshop with Adam and Toke who are Candoco Dance Company dancers. I guess I had an audition, and somehow, someone made a clerical error and here I am. I applied because I saw the Philadelphia Fringe Festival extract (of The Show Must Go On) and thought it was funny. It’s python-esque humour but there’s a commentary there about re-referencing in pop culture. As an artist that’s what I’m interested in.

Have you done performance stuff before?
Going way back, I did all the school plays and did an A-Level in Theatre Studies. I did some amateur dramatics outside of that, but once I left sixth form that was all put to bed. I went to study astro-physics at Trent and left the creative path behind me. I re-found it and went to study fine art at degree level at Loughborough. I haven’t really looked back since then. I’ve become an artist and I’ve ended up being involved in art performances.

You’re an artist through and through then.
Yeah, and kind of in a strange way. When I was about 16 I went to work for my dad’s electric cabling company. I started off as a pair of hands and ended up as the Finance Manager for a multi-million pound company and that’s what I’ve been doing for the last two years whilst running my own art gallery - Bohunk Institute - on the side.

You’ve got fingers in so many pies! The Show Must Go On was created 14 years ago in 2001, have you been involved with the show since then?
No, this is a completely fresh cast. We’re all kind of new to this. Dina and Henrique, our re-staging assistants, were in the original cast and now they’re directing us. Jérôme Bel was keen on it being a local cast. There’s a connection with local audience and local people then.

Is the show still relevant? Do you update the songs or can we expect to hear some old school Dido?
The track list is exactly the same as fourteen years ago, minus one song. It remains relevant because these tracks are timeless. Not just in the way that they’re famous and engrained into our minds, they’re timeless in that they’ve lost their reference point. They're just floating around in our collective consciousness. That was part of the lure of getting me to apply.

Give me a brief outline of the show…
The Show Must Go On is made up of seventeen pop songs, each song is a ‘proposal’ by the DJ who is situated at the front of the stage. He puts on a track, and collectively the cast respond. It’s quite a textured dance piece, at times it’s quite active, but some of the time it’s quite still. There’s a lot of texture in that. A lot of playing around with the idea of what dance is and what dance can be, I guess. I think the piece will surprise a few people, in that they maybe would never have considered this dance. We had two standing ovations in London, a five star review in The Guardian, and if people don’t book their tickets soon, it will sell out. It’s gonna be big.

Image: Candoco Dance Company
 

Have you got a load of home ground mates coming to support?
Yeah, my family and friends are all coming. My interns from the gallery are gonna be there. My life is kind of schizophrenic with the art world and the contracting, so there’s gonna be a mix in the audience. I’m sure that most of the contracting lads that are coming will be heckling me and the art people will be more respectful, but I think that’s exciting. The piece is so accessible and welcomes all kinds of responses.

It’s inclusive theatre then…
Yeah, with Sadler’s Wells, the reaction from the audiences on both nights were wicked. Both nights. Some people started getting up and dancing, I don’t want to push a Nottingham audience into doing that, but some started laughing, some were crying, some sang along.

I watched a couple of audience reactions videos, and they describe the performance as ‘diverse, modern, amazing, totally out there’…
The range of the emotions the audience feel is part of the texture of the piece. The beauty is that you’ve got 21 people, all of completely different backgrounds, skillsets and abilities, and the piece gives licence for every single person to be celebrated on stage. Whether you’re 64 with a big beer belly, or you’re a trained dancer with one leg and crutches, those two characters, those two people are completely equal and celebrated on stage. It’s an amazing thing to be part of as a cast member.

The performance is built up of people with all kinds of different abilities, does the performance set out to change public perception of people with disabilities, or is it just a celebration of people who like to perform?
I think it’s just a celebration of people, and they come in all different shapes and sizes, and that’s as simple as it needs to be.

Are you classically trained dancers?
Candoco Dance Company has six of their company dancers involved, and then the other fifteen have gone through an application process. In that fifteen, some people, like Gary Clarke who is a trained dancer and works with Dance4, have got a lot of experience. Then there are people like myself who just play a bit of football and run an art gallery. There’s a real mix. I’d say it’s about a fifty-fifty split. I think it’d be interesting to speak with an audience member afterwards and see if they could tell who was trained or not.

Did you find the process difficult at all? Have you done much dancing apart from on a Saturday night?
Physically, for someone not at the peak of their fitness, it was a bit challenging at times. I’m not one for going out at the weekend and going dancing. It’s not my bag. The last time I was dancing on a dancefloor was around five or six years ago. This is not a regular thing for me, but I have a love of music so that was always gonna be a way in. The most difficult thing I found was the singing. I have to sing at one point, but I’m an awful singer. It was the least amount of ability I had, but I just threw myself at the whole thing. The cast are like a family. When we were on that stage, while we were being celebrated individually, we’re always together you’re never alone. It was easy to put myself out there because of that.

Can you describe the show in five words?
Witty, unexpected, provocative, cheeky and it’s playfully antagonistic towards an audience.

That’s not five words! How has the experience been for you?
It’s changed my life. That moment on Sadlers Well's might be the best thing I ever do. If that’s it, that’s ok. I’m completely content with that. Someone like me being on that stage when there are people who train for years and years to do it, and then me – someone slightly squidgy round the edges and bearded and dances like his dad suddenly walks on like, yeah I’ll do it. I feel kind of guilty!

The Show Must Go On will be performed at Nottingham Playhouse on Friday 17 and Saturday 18 April. Tickets are available from the Nottingham Playhouse website

Candoco Dance Company website