Lewis Gardner's BAPP Blog

  April 5th 2023  As part of the movement Momm project we had a meeting yesterday with the Swiss embassy. This year marks the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations between south Korean and Switzerland. One of our dancers in the project is from Switzerland and was speaking to the cultural affairs officer about possibly performing for one of their events and using their embassy for a video location.    This would be a very exciting project to be a part of, I especially love the idea of filming within their embassy. The Swiss embassy in Seoul is named the Swiss Hanok. Hanok is the traditional style house in South Korea. Architecturally, it brings together the old and modern of both Korean and Swiss cultures and this perfectly mimics what we are trying to achieve with Movement Momm.  A big vision for our project is bringing different art forms together in one place. The architecture alone is a masterpiece, but the Swiss embassy also works a lot with contemporary ...

  I watched a live concert this weekend. It was Mahler 5th conducted by Klaus Mäkelä and performed by Cleveland orchestra. Not only was I over 6,000 miles away watching this breathtaking performance but I was watching with my boyfriend, who was also about 6,000 miles away from me, but in the same state as the performance. He had been to watch the concert live the night before and wanted to watch it again with me. It’s an extraordinary time we live in when we are able to watch a performance of such quality in the comfort of our own bed… in my case.    During the Pandemic, live theatre streams as well as pre-recorded versions of productions became a part of our everyday life. Not only for us artists and regular theatregoers but also for an audience who wouldn’t usually attend a show. Going to see a live performance in a theatre is something I take for granted, many people don’t have the means to do this, whether that’s because of the price of theatre tickets, distance to th...

Well, module two came around quick… I thought I’d start with a little life update. I spent January on vacation in Mexico and LA with my boyfriend, it was the most amazing time and I feel so luckily and grateful for the moments we can share together. We are long distance so every moment is precious. I came back from vacation and did some serious thinking… I’d been contemplating this decision for awhile, but it just seems like the timing is right, so I’m going to take the leap. 2023 will be my last year as a performer. I’ve been lucky enough to be on stage professionally for over 10 years and thankfully without many injuries. Unfortunately my knee injury from last season seems to want to stay with me and gives me a lot of pain and discomfort I don’t want anymore. But I feel very positive about the change and I believe, in part, this course has given me the confidence to take the leap! So I plan to push through this year and retire in December. Next year I will move back to the uk, by whi...

I’ve recently been performing one of my favourite ballets Onegin. It’s a powerful, beautiful drama ballet with a lot of dancing for the corp de ballet. It’s always very exciting and hard to be involved in this piece. The last time we performed it was in 2020, during the height of Covid. Every day during that time was uncertain, would we perform? Would someone get sick? We worked very hard as a company to make sure we were performing safely and to a level that we were proud of. Our performances in 2020 were some of the only big-scale performances that were allowed to take place in South Korea during that scary time. Revisiting this ballet now has made me wonder how the covid situation has changed our industry. Many more companies are offering live streaming of their performances either for free or at a small price. This is allowing people who might not be able to get to see a live performance easily the opportunity to watch more from the comfort of their own homes. I’ve also heard that ...

I finally feel creative again  I was recently asked to be part of new choreography as part of a friend's university graduation performance. I was very excited to be asked and be part of something like this. Although my schedule is already very full, I knew I had to make time to be involved in this process. I’ve recently been struggling with why I do this job. I sometimes feel like I’ve hit a wall and there’s nothing else for me to do within my practice. Obviously, this is nonsense and there’s always so much to do, but I started to see dancing as a job and not a passion for the first time…. I've definitely lost a sense of purpose over the last year. I’ve suffered an injury that has meant I haven’t been able to perform or dance as well as I would want and that can be a hard thing to deal with. Starting this course and having a new focus has really helped and now to be part of the creative process, something I haven’t done for a while, has been inspiring. As a ballet dancer, I don...

This week I’ve been doing some thinking and research on leadership within the classroom. While doing my research I stumbled across a leadership theory called, ‘Situational leadership theory.' It was developed byPaul Hersey and Ken Blanchard.  The  basic principle is; to be able to change your leadership type depending on your situation, environment and the people around you. I believe this is what all teachers should be doing in the classroom. We, as teachers, should be able to make a quick call while we are teaching and change how we approach a problem when it occurs. For example; if I’m teaching a class and giving them a correction on a pirouette, but I can see that the student doesn’t understand what I’m trying to say then I should be able to change the way I’m saying the correction. It sounds simple, doesn’t it? But does it always happen? In my experience, no. I’ve had teachers tell me over and over the same thing, in the same way, but it just hasn’t made sense, and it’s n...