Castle Steps

Look east to Japan and you won’t be far from where choreographer Cecelia MacFarlane and her dancers dreamt up Traverse – the new joint British-Japanese dance performance which will soon be taking Oxford Castle by storm.

It was there, while visiting the area of Fukuoka, that Cecelia, pictured, had her epiphany.

“We worked on our performance separately from the Japanese company up until Easter, when we travelled to Fukuoka.

“That was when we first saw their work and they saw ours,” she tells me.

“Over two weeks, we had some time on the beach and in the mountains, camping and using performance space, where I put together the two halves into one piece.

“I was plotting it out frantically and when I finished I talked it out in front of everyone round the fire and they all loved it.

“We were a very mixed form group and the Japanese offering was very physical. We both needed something from each other.”

The resulting show sets out the ambitious aim of bridging nations and generations and bringing them together, bridges being a key theme.

“I wanted to join up thinking,” Cecelia explains. “I was working in 2009 with my company here and I decided I wanted to keep working with that idea. Something that connects us with Japan.

“At every point in life we’re always going under or over things to move forward. Everything is connected in so many ways. I’m also trying to bridge an understanding between our two cultures and the common language is dance. What we’re trying to show, is harmony.”

Cecelia, who lives in Oxford, is well known internationally for her dance performances involving communities.

“I’ve just come back from my sixth visit to Japan,” she tells me, “where I’ve been working with the Japanese Contemporary Dance Network since about May 2009, doing large events with people from the communities and I love it.”

Under her artistic direction, the ambitious show features a company of 150 British and Japanese performers – both professionals and amateur – and takes audiences on a journey through displays of dance, music and artwork and around the historic Oxford Castle grounds.

“Dancin’ Oxford commissioned me to set a production in the castle grounds,” she says. “Besides telling me which areas I was allowed to use, they let me have an open plan.

“Plus, there are, coincidentally, a lot of bridges around the castle, which ties in perfectly with our theme,” she says happily.

“We got a huge grant from the arts council too, which was fantastic.”

Cecelia also made me promise to not refer to the dance performance as a “routine” in this article because she wants to break the stereotype that dance attracts: “Every dancer and director has had some kind of input in Traverse. “That’s my philosophy about dance,” she says. “Everyone can do it if they want to.”

Traverse will be performed every day at 4.30pm at Oxford Castle from today until June 2. Admission is free. Limited availability. For more information, visit dancinoxford.co.uk