JONATHAN STONE
From Imagining to Managing

FACEDANCES

People dancing with their Face to their favourite Music.

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So many kinds of people.

They’re all similar but different

They all like music

But different kinds of music.

 

And everybody finds listening to music is relaxing

we recognise the enjoyment 

Of the music in those we see

So many kinds of music

Reflected in peoples faces

 

And strangers become less strange.

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Facedances began in 2004 as a performance at the Place Theatre, but it has found its form as a public art video project, about and for the people of particular place. It was picked up by other places and developed in size and scope and found its form as a film and community art work, commissioned for different towns and festivals in  European countries.

Although Facedances was made to the same template in different countries, the form it took was  invented anew each time. It varied from venue to venue, sometimes as a very public projection, sometimes an installation, sometimes online. 

Now there are over 1000 Facedances, in various formats (tech develops all the time!) - tape, disk, some edited, some raw, providing a unique document of faces in six countries in the early year of the 21st century.

In UK - National Theatre Studio; British Dance Edition,Leeds; Woking Dance Festival In France -  Montbeliard & Laval, in Ireland - Carlow Eigse, in Netherlands - Utrecht Springdance, in Germany - Hannover. In Spain - Facyl Festival, Salamanca.

 

 

Now in 2024, The French town of Montbeliard, where I made Facedances in 2011, is the French Capital of Culture.  Congratulations Montbeliard! As part of the celebration, MaScene Nationale has commissioned another FACEDANCE Project  

 Montbeliard Facedances 2 was filmed in June 2024 in various locations in th Montbeliard Sochaux area.It will be shown in exhibition during September at Hotel Sponeck and screened publicly in Ouverture Musicales on 28th September. 

       

       Everybody thinks someone else knows.

       But it's what you happen to do.

       As the songs say,

      'Every thing here is Alive,'

      ' Feel the Magic in the Air,'

       'Follow …’

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