Moving in Time

 

 

May 2017 marks 50 years of the Mowlem Theatre.   The public first saw the inside of the theatre on 17th November 1966 when Southern Television recorded the panel game “Seven Year Flitch”.   The building had only been handed over days before and the theatre was not at that point equipped for live shows.

The official opening took place on the afternoon of Thursday 11th May 1967 with an evening performance by RobRoy Productions of the world premier of the play “The Secretary Bird” by William Douglas Home opening a pre-west end tour.   Three weeks later on 2nd and 3rd June there was a show by The June Ranger School of Dancing.
June’s involvement with the theatre over the fifty years goes much deeper.   She directed and choreographed a number of musicals for the Swanage Choral and Operatic Society as well as taking a number of principal roles. She also directed some enormously successful summer productions from Salad Days to Guys and Dolls then a series of superb pantomimes before concentrating on full-length classical ballets performed by The School to a very high standard.

 

The Theatre is able to celebrate 50 years of June Ranger productions at 6:00 p.m.  on Sunday 4th June when The Ranger School of Dance performs as part of the Purbeck Art Weeks Festival production Moving in Time.   Tickets are modestly priced at £8 adults, £2 students

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 ‘Moving in Time’ is a unique community dance event of all sorts of glorious dance, with Purbeck’s young dancers, contemporary dance professionals and a melee of delightful films around moments in dance history.

 

Rising Swanage star Hazel Firth and the Simple Dance Company will perform their latest piece 0.16, and dance students from Lytchett Minster School, The Ranger School of Dance and Bournemouth and Poole College have created dance pieces especially for the event. These will be interspersed with short films showing various interpretations of different dance styles. So if you like tap-dancing you are also in for a treat as there will be a showing of the short film Dancin’ The Camera. There will be much to enjoy and celebrate! “Come dance with me, I’m on my way to the stars”....via the Mowlem!
The evening will take you on a journey, using an unusual and exciting combination of live dance and films that show different dance styles and celebrate the sheer joy of dance - from the classical virtuosity of a prima ballerina to street dancing students.

 

Purbeck and Dorset dance students will present three dance pieces based on the Festival’s ‘A Moment in Time’ theme – starting with the influence of jazz and Hollywood glamour in the first half of the twentieth century, followed by the freedom and vitality of contemporary dance, leading us into the 21st century with urban/street dance.

The dance films selected will show inspiring contemporary interpretations of dance styles old and new. They include Dancin’ The Camera, a delightful film showing the magic of tap dance; Escuala - a powerfully rhythmic new tap piece from the acclaimed Lombard twins set to the lively music of Astor Piazzolla; ballet shown in a dramatic contemporary context in Lost in Motion II; and Mad Scene 2.0 – the story of madness and love in the unlikely setting of a Silicon Valley office, danced to an arrangement of a Schubert song.