Neophilia Weblog

Neophilia Summer Sampler...

“You only tarnish your reputation by sitting back and doing nothing” was a piece of advice that someone gave to us a couple of days before we embarked upon, what was to be one of the most taxing days of our lives. Launching a company is a scary experience, so much to lose, so much to gain. On Friday the 20th of August, Neophilia had it’s launch evening. We’d been planning the evening since April, when we had initial discussions about how we could address the many concerns we had about the future of dance. Hours of rehearsals, discussions and planning would accumulate in one evening of a ‘visual’ business plan. We were all aware of how much effort would be involved and we’d briefed ourselves to expect the unexpected. By Friday, the company had already spent a solid week in the studio, perfecting our choreography, dancing and arranging the actual event management. We were tired and stressed, apprehensive and excited and felt as if we’d been stuck on a ride at Alton Towers with a blindfold on for the past 48 hours.

Friday, 5.30 in the morning, my alarm went off. I’d been up until two o’clock printing off running orders and approximate talk times. Little did I know, that David too had been up the whole evening arranging programme notes and biographies. Beth had been working the night before and had literally run out of the studio at 5.00, been to the hairdressers at 5.30 and started work at 7.00. All three dancers hadn’t had an easy time either. Gaby worked in the evening, Sheena was on antibiotics, due to a virus she had picked up on the Monday and Noi had been working until 3 in the morning. So far, so good!

At 10.00 I was to meet Marcus (the 7th member of the team and lighting director) at The Sadlers Wells Theatre. Sadler’s had kindly lent us a dance floor, but we now faced the problem of getting the floor from Angel to The Docklands. Somehow I managed to get to Sadler’s Wells nearly two hours early. I’m generally a punctual person - but this was taking it to extremes. After the dance floor was placed into a heavily loaded car containing 30 bottles of wine, 4 people, costumes, computers, cables and cameras we set off to ‘The Space’ where the evening was to be held. It was just as well we had my Dad’s car, because the Fiesta I drive finds the weekly trip to Sainsbury’s (I say Sainsbury’s, but it’s more like Lidl and Asda these days!) challenging.

At 11.00 we got to the venue only to find a pianist practicing in front of a mirror while Marcus got cracking on the floor. Enter the first problem: we only had black tape to secure the floor, but the floor was grey. Thankfully Marcus managed to tape the floor by placing the tape under the flooring as apposed to above. David and Beth joined us at 11.30 and all the team got down to cleaning the venue up. So far everything was going to plan. David had bad news though: he had spoken to the venue the night before and been informed that they had just installed a new sound system and that we couldn’t use it until 6.00, when a sound engineer would arrive to test it out! This meant that our run would be without music and there was no guarantee that the system would be up and running at 8.00, when the show was set to start.

Around 12.30ish Marcus’ colleagues (Seorais and Michelle) arrived. Seorais, a DJ and sound technician, set about helping with the set-up and Michelle helped out with the projector that was currently about as much use as an ashtray on a motorbike! The rig was basic and many of the lights had key parts missing. Marcus was stuck up a 20ft ladder having to sort out putting gels in all of the lights as Beth tried to anchor the thing and simultaneously fill the dancers in on our morning’s antics. At this point I was trying to find out where the remote controls were for the window blacks and projector. Without the remote for the projector, we were going to end up with a blank back wall and a fantastic flash presentation that would remain on a computer screen for my personal entertainment only! David had problems of his own, the printer he was using to print all of the programs was playing up and seemed to be eating ink cartridges at a similar rate to Johnny Vegas downing pints. In addition to this, our photographer was stuck on the M25 and we were trying to manouver 30 bottles of wine into a fridge in David’s Flat! We were managing, but only just.

At 2.30 we still hadn’t got around to doing a warm up, the projector was not working, Marcus and Seorais were run off their feet and I had a headache.
Beth took the class and we condensed a 45min class into 25mins. Paul Haliday, the photographer arrived and miraculously got the projector working!
Unfortunately we were so behind with the set-up, the tech run was late and very basic. The sound system was not working; Marcus was still fighting with the lights (and also with a madman that had somehow gained access to the venue and was delighting in the fact that he could make sounds that resembled an ambulance, whilst running round the stage area uninvited.) The dress rehearsal was scrapped as 8.00 drew nearer.

The sound engineer never turned up. If Seorais had not offered to help out, we would never have had any music. Seorais set up a sound system that had never been used and was encased in plastic. Marcus had created an atmospheric rig and Paul and Michelle had managed to get a picture from a projector that had parts missing! The flooring looked great and the wine was chilled and formed part of a fairly impressive spread. The performance ran with few glitches and exceeded both our expectations alongside many of the audiences.

Despite all of the problems encountered we accomplished what we set out to do: present a visual business plan. Everyone involved in the team were professional and had the skills necessary to sort out problems that could have potentially crucified the performance. The dancers were professional enough to be left to their own devices and prepare themselves to produce energetic performances. The technical crew had the know-how and experience to sort out major problems and improvise with the facilities available. We’d put the groundwork in to arrange the music rights, the rehearsal space, the costumes, the choreography, the business plan, the spread and all of the peripherals that form the components of a production.

On reflection, Beth, David and myself reasilised that we’d achieved something fairly remarkable. We’d actually put our money where our mouths were. It’s one thing to talk about doing something and quite another to actually do it!
We now have the foundation and materials to build a great house. We have a long journey ahead to make that house an impressive building, but the blueprints are looking good. We owe thanks to many people, especially Jane Hackett at Central for allowing us to use the studios for the past week and Sadler’s Wells Theatre for letting us borrow a dance floor.

The final thanks goes to our audience for the night. All of your feedback was invaluable.

Poppy Ben-David

Hi All...

I am sure that although I am writing this on Friday 13th it will be good luck for us...only time will tell I suppose!

Well, Neophilia was founded in April 2004 by us, three friends - David Johnson, Poppy Ben-David and Bethany Elliott. The name by the way means "Love of novelty and new ideas" and this just about sums us up! Bringing dance to entertain the masses!

david / beth / poppy

Ever since I have known Poppy and David - both aged 11 at the Royal Ballet School. There has always been a connection between us in terms of how we feel about dance and how it should be perceived by the public. Since the first of the yearly choreographic competitions at school we were all busy choreographing. Looking back, I have realised that one of the key elements we all wanted to project was simple, human appeal and so that no matter who the audience are, where they come from or what they do for a living, they can enjoy the piece for what it is - dance for dancing's sake!

We only have five more days to go until the big day! On Friday 20th August we will be showing the Neophilia Summer Sampler. This is our baby at the moment - our visual business plan. It shows our intentions for the next year. We have invited over 70 people from various companies and agencies. Everyone has a special role to play whether it be for investment, advice or opinion! Whoever comes means a great deal to us and hopefully we will also have the company of our incredibly supportive family and friends who have bee strongly advised to turn up!

We are so nervous! The run up to the 20th has in itself been nothing short of a miracle. We started rehearsing back in April and have begged, borrowed and stolen rehearsal space to create the eight pieces we will be showing on Friday.

One thing I must say is that none of us were aware of just how much work is involved in setting up an event like this. Lets hope all of our efforts are worth it. We keep telling each other we have nothing to lose which is true! Afterall the three of us are only twenty two years old. However we are all slightly tired of hearing people talking about changing the future of dance and not doing anything about it. At least we can say we are honestly trying to do just that!

Watch this space...

Bethany Elliott - Artistic Director