Staurt Bishop
Stuart, let’s start with looking at the latest innovation of Rudeye Dance Agency ‘Rudeye Live’ - “the world’s first live weekly online dance classes…“ - broadcasted live over the internet. ‘Rudeye Live’ sounds like a fantastic vehicle to allow people access to learn and practice dance in the comfort of their own living room. Do share some insights into this new and innovative project from behind the scenes and where it has derived from. Have you had any feedback from users, first time dancers and professionals?
From teaching master-classes all around the world, dancers would email me and fellow Rudeye Director and Choreographer Charlotte Stevens to say how much they wished they could continue with our style, that is when the idea ‘Rudeye Live’ was born. We wanted to create access to our style ‘Fusion Funk’ for anybody no matter where in the world they were. We have a strong fan base and already within the short period of time the classes have been running they have been downloaded from all around the world including USA, Bahamas, Japan, Norway, Greece etc. Closer to home, it enables for example someone in Cornwall to be taking part in classes with top choreographers when they would not normally have that chance as London is not easily accessible to them.
We have started to introduce more teachers and styles including Jazz, Locking, Popping and Breakdance as well as different levels. For professional dancers who are some how unable to attend my professional class at Pineapple Studios it gives them a unique opportunity to learn my choreographic style preparing them for Rudeye Agency auditions or for when we are casting for professional work. It also allows dancers to learn the basics of new styles to them such as Popping from the comfort of their own home. We have had great feedback from ‘Rudeye Live’ from dancers all ages saying how much they have enjoyed taking part in the classes or have bought the downloads which is great!
Offering classes for your agency dancers, other professionals and the general public plays a big part in your day to day work as Artistic Director and Choreographer of Rudeye Dance Agency. Together with fellow Choreographer Charlotte Stevens you hold classes at Pineapple Dance Studio, Danceworks and other venues. You have also choreographed 7 instructional DVDs. Reflecting on your own dance training, was teaching and choreography always something that has interested you? Are there any significant moments of your training that shape your approach now?
Myself and Charlotte trained in Cambridge on an extensive 3yr course at Bodywork Dance studios, every morning I would be in my ballet tights (hard for a guy from a football background!) and at first would begrudgingly take the Ballet classes or faced being not allowed to do the more favoured Jazz classes, it was this strictness and discipline from the course that has carried into my professional work. I learned to love the ballet techniques that were being taught to me by Shirley Rees Edwards. Add the great Jazz training and Inspiration I received from teachers like Darren Charles and Theresa Kerr it gave me all I needed to launch myself as a dancer. Right from day one I had an interest in making up choreography, originally my works and pieces were of a contemporary nature and then as I got more into choreography I learned to entwine the new funk and street styles I was learning.
Throughout my three years training with the little free time I had, I started to teach at local dance schools and even with a friend set up a boy’s only Streetdance group which at the time was unheard of as normally schools would have maybe one or two boys attend only. The group went on to win 1st place at every competition they entered!
When I reached my final year at Bodywork I was allowed to set up the 1st ever Streetdance class at the studios as part of their open evening classes program which built to a packed class full of teenage boys and young adults and to my knowledge over tens years later it still runs today! Upon finishing my training and moving to London I was introduced to Maggie Paterson who runs the Pineapple Performing Arts and then within months of teaching at the school I was asked by the management at Pineapple Studios to set up a class on a Friday which has built into our very busy Advanced/Professional open agency class. Without a doubt by building up my name as a teacher it helped open doors for my choreography career as it enabled me to practice and fine tune my style and choreography on a regular basis.
Looking at your choreographic work, where do you source your stimuli for the creative process and movement vocabulary?
As a choreographer it’s important to keep inspired and be able to always come up with new and fresh ideas, this can be by coming up with different ways of dancing a specific step or even a whole new choreographic pattern or concept. I keep up to date with modern styles and music and continue to take class in Ballet, Jazz, and Funk styles whenever I can.
Versatility is also the key, as I am just as capable of choreographing a Jazz or strictly style number as I am a hip hop or Contemporary piece. Every choreographic job that I take on has a different brief so it is vital for me to be able to come up with individual ideas for each job and client. My choreographic principles stemmed from watching videos by pop artists like Michael Jackson whose choreography would create fast theatrical funky pieces which were accessible to a wide commercial audience. Keeping the choreography commercial and also clean is especially important when the brief has an urban or hip hop vibe as a lot of moves for these styles are more detailed, fast and feature much less structured technique than say more traditional Jazz and Ballet steps. Selecting the right dancers for the job can also help me with my choreographic ideas and inspiration because if you have great dancers then you have no limitations and can suggest and come up with more advanced and spectacular creations.
Alongside your work as Choreographer and Artistic Director, you are also co-producing Rudeye’s very own music featuring Charlotte Stevens. Do give us more insight into the music strand of Rudeye and also the working partnership of the two of you, Charlotte and yourself, as joint Directors and Choreographers of the agency.
As founders and directors of Rudeye it is up to Charlotte and I to keep the company and our dancers hardworking and disciplined as well sticking to the principles of which Rudeye was set up i.e. to improve the quality and work ethic of commercial dance in the UK. As agents we work hard to represent our dancers to our best ability, this includes negotiating for the best work conditions and pay for our dancers. We believe that our dancers should be paid well for their services and in return the client receives the best choreography and amazing hardworking dancers. Charlotte and I were both dancers so we know the conditions and standards that a dancer would expect and should receive; as long as, of course, the dancer is maintaining a high professional standard at all times.
As choreographers we can work together or individually depending on the size of the project and budget. If it’s an individual project then we will often discuss ideas and concepts before the job starts and if it’s a larger scale job involving lots of dancers then one of us will take the role as an assistant. For me it’s great to get Charlotte’s input especially when I need to incorporate sexier and sassier female orientated moves. Charlotte’s music is cool and commercial pop which is great to dance to, check out her website www.charlottestevens.com for all her latest news and tracks; we use Charlotte’s music as the soundtracks to the Rudeye Instructional DVDs and also for the agency showreel and class warm ups. Last year Charlotte had chart success with her single ‘Gimme the Beat’ which can be found along with other tracks on itunes. We also have official ‘Rudeye Live’ music which has a mega funky street dance sound and used for the routines we teach on the online classes.
Where would you like to see your career as Choreographer take off to? Is there also a long term vision for Rudeye Dance Agency you’d like to share?
As
a choreographer I am 100% focused, dedicated and confident with the
path that I am on. As the Rudeye name gets bigger it’s creating more
opportunities for me as a choreographer and artistic director for larger
scale projects and works for e.g. I would like to think Rudeye could be
involved somehow with the Olympics whether its choreography or
supplying dancers and looking even further years ahead the opening
ceremony if England win the right to stage the World Cup (dream job!!!).
Right now every phone call we get is exciting and every day is bringing
bigger things, so as a long term vision generally without giving away
the master plan (hee hee!) we will be continuing much of the same as we
have always been doing and that’s ‘keeping working hard!’
Many thanks for your time, Stuart.
Pleasure, it was great talking to you, and don’t forget dancers should check out www.rudeyelive.com for the online classes and www.rudeye.com for information on the agency and studio classes.
For more information about Stuart Bishop please contact Sally Brooker via Sally@danceuk.org