AT FACTORY INTERNATIONAL / AVIVA STUDIOS MANCHESTER, UK
Uli and Thomas went to Manchester to light (the darkest) Dark Noon for another round march 1-7 2024.
The venue is a huge space that fit the piece very well, newly build and well sound proofed. What looked like an arena turned out to function great as a theatre space. Facing the fact that new institutions nowadays invest in LED lighting we had some problems with our completely analogue approach with mainly tungsten Fresnel 1kw and 5kw fixtures, especially because the rental company had not sent any spare bulbs and those turned out to be hard to find in Manchester.
Great fun with the beautiful ensemble from South Africa: Thulani, Bongani, Joe, Barileng, Mandla, Siya and Kaygee.
And the Fix and Foxi team with TUE, ANNETTE, SVANTE AND CLARA!
Anyone who has handled white dance marley at some point may have noticed that the material is tending to change color into something greyish after a while. We´ve made numerous attempts to clean that away and it normally works quite well. Here is how it´s been done.
We rent a floor polish /cleaning machine with different cleaning pouches and a vacuum cleaner for water. For spots and marks a good rough cleaning sponge works best together with VIM, Natron or spirit.
Different chemicals work for a few different purposes:
Natron / baking powder: pour out some powder and rub it in gently with some water and a sponge on e g spots from shoes or tape stains.
CIF / VIM (kitchen and bathroom cleaning, contains rubbing particles): Same as natron, but sometimes better on shoes stains. Try out.
If someone for some reason used baby powder on your floor the only way to take it off is stain remover (for bathroom, not the same as cif/vim) or products used for grease removal (degreasing) on e g cars. (Turtle has such a product) Svenska: Bilavfettning eller Kalkborttagning.
Red Spirit / alcohol : tape stains, mix in with cleaning water in machine.
Do the cleaning in this order: A scrub with the ,machine to clean off the worst dirt, use warm water and universal cleaning agent. Take off the water immediately every 2-3 meters with the vacuum. Then scrub the stains with a sponge and a suitable chemical, natron or vim/cif/kitchen surface cleaner. The go another round with the machine. Now the floor should be clean enough. Clean it manually with warm water and floor sweeper, let dry, ready!
If you want to clean a black marley beware of the polishing products, those may alter the floors color to something greyish that eventually may get black again but will take a while.
A dance and performance work by Rachel Tess for 6 dancers and 1 musician.
Idea and choreography: Rachel Tess
Dancers: Isaac Spencer, Thomas Zamolo, Anna Pehrsson, Rachel Tess, Oisin Monaghan, Clyde Emmanuel Archer.
Music, composition and sound design: Ulrich Ruchlinski / imULto
The Last is a quasi dys/utopian Gala Des Étoiles staged in a former shoe factory. It is a celebration of dancing, dancers, and personal dance histories. It is the ‘last’ in a series of ‘lasts’ for six dancers dispersed, alone, and simultaneously together, bound by an immersive soundscape seeping through the cracks in the floor, out the windows, and beyond to the small town that sits in the building’s ever-present shadow. Through six solos crafted for experienced dancers with different backgrounds at different stages in their careers, The Last asks:
Who has the right to be celebrated, where are they celebrated, and who bears witness?
