This is an interesting and very varied collection of pieces by professional choreographers living or working in Oxfordshire. Miranda Laurence was surprised by the number of applications she received.

“You’re never sure, when you send out a call that’s limited in this way, how many people will respond, but it exceeded my expectations.

“It was quite a difficult selection process — there were some whose work we’d seen, others new to us, so we made our decisions by how much each person’s proposal jumped out at us, but it had to relate to our theme of ‘moving with the times’.

I asked Miranda to tell me something about the six choreographers who were chosen, and also about the piece they will be presenting.

“Ana Barbour works mainly in Butoh — a Japanese form of movement and dance.

“She is making a new solo piece, but working with a video artist, Dariusz Dziala, so there will be projections while she performs.

“She says her piece ‘explores the impact of time and physical degeneration on the human body with humour, grace and honesty’.”

Next on the list is Anuradha Chaturvedi, a kathak dancer whose work, like that of Barbour, I have admired in the past.

“Anuradha is making a piece that celebrates the onset of spring. It is in the Kathak Indian classical dance tradition, and she’s performing with a company of several dancers.

“Like Ana, Anuradha will be dancing in her own work, and she’s working with musicians Malcolm Atkins and Pete McPhail. She’s worked with them before, and her group will be dancing to their improvisations.

“I’m always very much struck by their facial expressions during a performance, and also by the lovely costumes which she designs herself.”

“Hannah de Cancho has just formed a new company which specialises in tap- dancing. Hannah’s proposal was to bring lots of different tap styles together in a sort of medley, so obviously you’ll have the show-dance aspect of it.

“She’s also bringing in Amarita Vargas, who’s a flamenco dancer, to demonstrate that particular style of dance.

“Hannah is a contemporary dance specialist, but she’s done a lot of tap, and has been wanting for a while to set up a company.

“I think it’s great that she’s managed to do it for this performance, as we don’t have anything like that here”.

Already, as you can see, there’s a lot of variety, and now we come to Jo Lott, a dancer and film-maker.

“Jo Lott has danced with Nickely Burke’s company Biserk, but she is not dancing in her own piece.

“She’s working with a group of dancers, and with film-projections.

“She has three professional dancers and the fourth is a senior member of Oxford Youth Dance Company.

“This will be a contemporary piece with some physical theatre.”

“Paulette Mae is one of the newest artists in this platform.

“She’s quite young, and studied at the Northern School of Contemporary Dance in Leeds.

“She makes work with a group of dancers here in Oxford. She also writes poetry, and there are some of her spoken words in the piece.

“She has a very contemplative style — it’s very deep, very meditative. She works for a long time on pieces, and there’s a real feeling of artistic depth.

“Finally we have Naomi Morris, who came up through the ranks of Oxford Youth Dance Company.

“She’s also a film-maker, and is using film in this piece, and she’s working with a rock band called Smilex, which has been described as ‘languorous, melodious and fragile at times, loud fierce and brutal at others’.”

lMoving With The Times is at the Pegasus Theatre on March 10 and 11.