Contact Dance Company this summer bursting with innovation and energy has invited guest choreographer Debbie Lee Anthony to give a series of workshops and to create a new work for the Company. She is basing this new work on the plays of Noel Coward taking dance to another challenging diverse area of text, song and movement. The workshops happening in July at The Dance Workshop are open to any participants who have at least three years dance experience. The technique warm-up will consist of Limon/release influenced principles of fall, recovery, use of breath, weight and fluidity with motion. Moving with rhythmic articulation and dynamic contrast and yet with the minimum of tension. Dancers will explore a stuctured warm-up which will lead into more challenging motional sequences and phrases. The latter part of the workshop will investigate imagery, rhythm and detailed articulation using text as a starting point. Participants will have the opportunity to learn some repertory allowing some time also for creative development. ([email protected])

Debbie trained in the UK , She was a founder member of Theatre of Motion and Tacit Dance Theatre. She has taught at the Laban Centre, Greenwich Dance Agency, Salisbury Arts Centre, Bristol Dance Centre, Fonty’s Dance Festival in Holland and Swindon Dance. She has her own company Soma/Numa since 2000. She has created numerous works the most recent Body of Experience’ bringing together 6 artists from different dance traditions for a programme of works celebrating the mature dancer.

As a choreographer she has created many pieces for students, professional, community and youth groups nation-wide. She has had several commissions from youth dance companies and dance institutions to create new work. Debbie is currently Artistic Director of the new student dance company at Winchester, D@win, touring schools and colleges in the Southern Region of England.

Currently Senior Lecturer at the University of Winchester. She specialises in Limon-influenced technique, choreography, improvisation, dance management and the direction and supervision of students’ final year projects. Her practice as a choreographer, director and performer directly feeds into her teaching work. Her area of research is concerned with the dilemmas of the ageing process upon the mature dancer, collaborative processes and the relationships between dance, innovation and accessibility. Her research project for a Masters degree in 2003 was entitled ‘A Matter of Interpretation.’ Debbie was published in the dance journal ‘Animated’, entitled ‘Age, Agility and Anxiety’. Her focus is a study concerned with the ageing process upon the dancer. Debbie’s travelled to America, where she worked with Liz Lerman and her company, presenting devised work in nursing homes and day care centres.

Debbie’s latest project for Soma/Numa was directing ‘Body of Experience’ an evening of culturally diverse works, touring England. As part of the concert, with performances by mature dancers aged 46-70, she presented two new solos ‘Holding The Moment’ (2005) and ‘Wistful Thinking’ (2006) and also created a short company work Finale (2006), incorporating all the different cultural dance forms. Please see the website www.bodyofexperience.co.uk