Online Event

Upgrade Yourself: Process | Structuring Collective Thinking with Akram Khan Company

Thu 25 Mar 2021

13.00 - 14.30

Online

Webinar

Join team members from the highly acclaimed and influential Akram Khan Company (AKC), a resident organisation based at Somerset House, in this performance and concept-led workshop. The AKC team will be mapping out processes and sharing their working practices in collective thinking and doing.

Christine Maupetit, Head of Legacy Projects, Céline Gaubert, Head of External Relations, and Creative Associate, Mavin Khoo join us for this process-led workshop.

People, process and collaborative working methods lie at the heart of the Akram Khan Company’s DNA and values; emphasising that each stage is as important as the other, from initial ideas and live performance to its legacy. In our 90-minute session on collaboration and collective practice, AKC members will share some insight into their own career journeys, before walking us through their shared working practice(s), focusing on how important attention to detail is, and how moving to remote working (for now) has proven so successful.

The team will offer advice on how to manage and creatively develop ideas through a rigorous and robust process of ideation, empowering colleagues with the space to shape possible outcomes, allowing trial & error, identifying doubts, and using reflective practice, to drive forwards creative force and vision.

In this session, AKC members will be covering topics around:
•   Their own journey into dance, performance, and wider creative industries
•   Structuring research and development processes
•   Working in new remote spaces and responding to the digital realm
•   Working as collaborators, facilitators and within a world leading organisation

During the session we promote the Q&A box to interact and ask direct questions.

About the speakers

Christine Maupetit - Head of Legacy Projects
Christine started her dance training at Centre James Carlès in Toulouse, France graduating with a BA in Choreographic Studies in 2008 and worked as a professional dancer for E.Go Company and James Carlès G2RC. She graduated from Paris 8 University with a MA in Dance Research in 2014 and published articles and reviews for specialised dance magazines. She joined Akram Khan Company in June 2016 as Communication and Archives Assistant, and then as Participation Projects Co-ordinator, and soon took charge of the Legacy department. She has worked in project management for other companies (Fevered Sleep, Akademi) and in video editing. In February 2017, she performed for Common Initiative at the V&A Museum for the festival Collecting Europe. In 2018, she spent two months in New York City at Trisha Brown Dance Company volunteering as Archives Assistant for Trisha Brown Archive.

Céline Gaubert - Head of External Relations
Prior to joining Akram Khan Company in April 2012, Céline was the Press Manager at national theatre La Comédie de Clermont-Ferrand in France. She decided to settle in London in 2011 to focus on international production and administration of arts projects. She has worked with Crying Out Loud and Dance Umbrella Festival, and then joined Akram Khan Company as Administrator when the Company was invited to create a section of the 2012 London Olympic Games Opening Ceremony. She then became the Communication and Development Manager leading on the Company’s communication, documentation, and audience development strategies. She is now Head of External Relations, curating special creative projects through film and publication. Céline holds a Master’s degree in French Literature and French as a Foreign Language as well as a Postgraduate Diploma in mediation between Education and Culture.

Mavin Khoo - Creative Associate
Mavin Khoo is internationally recognised as a dance artist, teacher, choreographer, and artist scholar. His initial training was in Malaysia. He then pursued his training in Bharatanatyam intensively under the legendary dance maestro Padma Shri Adyar K.Lakshman in India. As a contemporary dance artist, he has worked with Wayne McGregor, Akram Khan, Shobana Jeyasingh and many others. Khoo founded mavinkhooDance in 2003. He was Artistic Director of ŻfinMalta Dance Ensemble between 2014 - 2017. He currently maintains his touring work as a mature artist with a focus on solo Bharatanatyam performances and specifically commissioned contemporary duet works. He also worked as rehearsal director for Akram Khan Company productions iTMOi, XENOS, Outwitting the Devil and worked alongside Akram on Giselle (English National Ballet). In 2019, he was appointed Akram Khan Company Associate Creative.

Upgrade Yourself: Process

We bring participants together in small groups to meet innovative creative industry thinkers and doers (either individuals, collectives, or organisations). We encourage everyone in the room to contribute to the session, allowing for deeper engagement, which could be conversational, bitesize prototyping and/or creative play, alongside a Somerset House poducer.

Led by members of the Somerset House creative community and external partners, these digital sessions primarily aimed at people aged 18-25 are for those looking for access routes into the creative industries and the cultural sector.