How can the processes of design, choreography and producing music scores influence each other? Costume and set design work at the Ballets Russes is central to Natalia Goncharova’s practice. These works have been performed in different cities including Paris, Madrid and London. Hear London based opera director Cecilia Stinton, Dame Monica Mason and composer Dan Chapelle discuss how the complex relationship between media can result in a productive clash and repositioned modes of working.
Biographies
Cecilia Stinton
Cecilia Stinton is a London-based opera director; she has directed for Spectra Ensemble, Helios Collective, XOGA, Wagner 1900 and Opera Holland Park, and assisted at British Youth Opera and University College Opera, London. In March 2019, Cecilia will direct the UK premiere of Smetana’s opera, Libuše, for University College Opera at the Bloomsbury Theatre, London. Alongside her freelance work, Cecilia is reading for an AHRC-funded PhD in History of Art at University College London. Previously, Cecilia worked as programme curator at the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, Oxford where she staged LiveFridays. Cecilia's initial training was as a musician at the Junior Royal Academy of Music, London, where she studied the violin under Igor Petrushevski.
Daniel Lee Chappell is a composer and pianist from Salford. His music has featured at Royaumont Festival (Vocalise, 2017), The Place (Liturgie, 2017) and the Arts Theatre (Io Transfigured), and been performed by groups including the Berkeley Ensemble, Psappha, and Quator Tana. In 2018 he was selected by PRS for Music for their inaugural Accelerate composition programme, culminating in a new ensemble work premiered at St James Piccadilly (Epiradyalis, 2018). This year he will be returning to work with the Cohan Collective focusing on collaboration between emerging composers and choreographers, with the support of Yorke Dance and Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.
Monica Mason
Monica Mason is former Director of The Royal Ballet, a position she held 2002–12. She trained at The Royal Ballet School and entered the Company aged 16, becoming the Company’s youngest member. She became a Principal in 1968, dancing repertory that included classical and dramatic roles. Mason was appointed Répétiteur to Kenneth MacMillan in 1980, Principal Répétiteur to The Royal Ballet in 1984, Assistant Director in 1991 and Director in December 2002. In 2002 Mason was awarded an OBE and in 2008 was created a Dame Commander for her services to dance. In 2014 she became Chairman of Dance Professionals Fund.
Sharon Watson
Sharon Watson is the 7th Artistic Director of Phoenix Dance Theatre. Trained at the London School of Contemporary Dance, Sharon Watson was one of the first female Principal Dancers invited to join the all-male award-winning Phoenix Dance Theatre, and toured with the company from 1989 to 1997. Having left Phoenix to pursue a number of other ventures including setting up her own company ABCD, Sharon returned in 2009 as the new Artistic Director. In 2010 she was named as one of the Cultural Leadership Programme’s Women to Watch, a list of 50 influential women working in arts and culture in the UK. Sharon recently received the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts’ Companionship Award from the school’s co-founder and Patron, Sir Paul McCartney. Sharon is a trustee of Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures, The Place, West Yorkshire Playhouse, and an artistic advisor for Central School of Ballet.
Daniel Lee Chappell
Daniel Lee Chappell is a composer and pianist from Salford. His music has featured at Royaumont Festival (Vocalise, 2017), The Place (Liturgie, 2017) and the Arts Theatre (Io Transfigured), and been performed by groups including the Berkeley Ensemble, Psappha, and Quator Tana. In 2018 he was selected by PRS for Music for their inaugural Accelerate composition programme, culminating in a new ensemble work premiered at St James Piccadilly (Epiradyalis, 2018). This year he will be returning to work with the Cohan Collective focusing on collaboration between emerging composers and choreographers, with the support of Yorke Dance and Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.