Music for dance
NEWS
Tongues of Stone, a proposed dance collaborative site-specific performance for the Perth International Festival of the Arts, is to undergo a period of research and development in Perth during September 2009. Choreographer Carol Brown, designer Dorita Hannah and composer Russell Scoones will collaborate with Perth dance company STRUT and members of the local community.
Auckland dance company Touch Compass have commissioned Carol and Russell to create a new work with the company. Research begins in November 2009.
Since 1990 Russell has collaborated on dance works with his partner choreographer Carol Brown. After early works for Dance=Arts in Dunedin New Zealand, Carol & Russell continued when they moved to the UK in 1992. A successful NZ tour of The Mechanics of Fluids in 1995 and performances on London's South Bank and The Place Theatre led to the formation of Carol Brown Dances in 1996. Russell toured frequently with the company as composer/tour manager as Carol's work was given presentations at international festivals and venues with a diverse range of dance performance pieces. These included theatre works, site-specific pieces, installations and film.
Russell's composition style and techniques have included voice, text, live, sampled and recorded music and found sounds, each a response to the concepts of the work. At times real instruments have been used for such pieces as Like a House on Fire, Ocean Skin and The Glory Box, while other works have demanded different approaches. Nerve sourced found sounds from under bridges in Philadelphia and the Pantheon in Rome, while Aarero Stone used rocks, wood, glass and metal.
Russell's self release Russ L Skoons: Danceworks (1999) brought together a collection of pieces from collaborations with Carol Brown. Songs, Dance & Darpana Music (2006) brought together a collection of original songs alongside pieces from Aarero Stone and music made with the classical Indian dance musician of Darpana Dance Company in Ahmedabad, India. These are available on CD by request at russell@cranium.demon.co.uk.
Russell continues to collaborate occasionally with Carol. 2007 saw the large scale commission GLOW in Woking and Carol's solo Dancing Aloud in Auckland, Bath and London in 2008.
For a full list of dance works see www.carolbrowndances.com.