High Beam Festival (Australia, 2002)
Touchdown's director visited, was a speaker on various panels and delivered workshops to professionals and other sessions to the community. The High Beam Festival had various stakeholders including very Special Arts and national disability arts organisations in Australia.
Partners: Arts Council England North West and the festival.
Feedback was very positive: the workshop group decided to ask for the opportunity to continue and to find a facilitator who had experience in contact improvisation. The company has been invited back s a whole in 2004. The German Centre for the Blind, Frankfurt (Germany, 2002)
A festival of dance and theatre for the blind. The company delivered a workshop and performance to over 150 people, most visually impaired students from Germany, Croatia and Spain. Touchdown Dance has been asked to return in the future and to sustain a dialogue with the organisers for future events and potential exchange. Joint Forces USA and 25th Anniversary of Contact Improvisation (USA, 1997)
The director curated a mixed ability dance weekend involving workshops and performances.
A long-term collaboration has followed with Steve Paxton (founder of Touchdown Dance and director until 1994) and the new director (Katy Dymoke) with their e-mails being published by Nouvelles de Danse in Belgium. They explore issues around the use of the senses in dance, the relevance for visually impaired people etc. A subsequent visit in March 2003 has led to planned collaborators in 2004 on the next production project in Alitto Alessi, director of Joint Forces and mixed ability training for professionals.
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