Performance at Falmouth: collaboration is the key to success

Carving an original niche in the world of performing arts is an exciting and challenging prospect for every artist in today's extraordinary world of entertainment. The students and graduates from University College Falmouth's (UCF) Dartington Campus enjoy a reputation for creating unusual, thought-provoking and unique performances and they continue to shine as pioneers of audio visual experimentation.

Indie pop musician and producer, Majiker, alias Matthew Ker, graduated from Dartington College of Arts in 2001 with a degree in Contemporary Music. He describes his work as a "sonic theatre experiment" and is not only a lyricist and minimalist composer but also a body percussionist - a sort of human beatbox.

He has co-written and co-produced albums with award-winning French singer, Camille, and has appeared on Later... with Jools Holland, toured the world and produced material with many vocalists and singer/songwriters including Dartington alumni, Indi Kaur and Rosa Rebecka, who have also established successful music careers.

Matthew, who now resides in Paris, believes that his time at the College was invaluable to his career: "The number one thing I gained from my time there was the collaborations that are still going on today. The best thing to do when you are surrounded by talented and creative people is to make the most of talking to them and discussing ideas."

Indi has released two albums - Keep on Walking, Songs of Sikh Saints, an album of contemporary songs which tell the tale of four God-conscious souls and Imajind, full of upbeat tracks featuring Indi's vocals - and has sung extensively with Camille, supported bands such as Flook, and composed music for a documentary film entitled, Musafer, which premièred at the Spinning Wheel Film Festival in America.

Following graduation, Rosa worked for community music charity, Wren, and has remained in Devon where she teaches singing, leads choirs and performs her own music. Rosa has recorded Water Carvings, produced by Majiker, in memory of her late husband, Tom; a live album, Boundless and More; and Untold recorded and produced by Tom Waite.

"Rebecka has a lyrical, sun-dappled and golden voice, tinged with a hint of steely moonlight that brings to mind Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell," said Michael Quinn of BBC Music. "Untold is a markedly lighter album than 2003's debut, Water Carvings and 2005's Live: Boundless And More. But it is alike in being packed with well-crafted tracks, beautifully delivered."

"UCF is committed to preparing its graduates for stimulating, successful creative careers," said Dr Trevor Wiggins, who is Field Director of Music for University College Falmouth (UCF), following its merger with Dartington College of Arts in 2008. "By fostering a culture of entrepreneurialism through our proactive engagement with the creative industries, and emphasis on professional practice, work placements and live projects, we encourage our students from day one to explore their individuality by collaborating across many performance and multi-media disciplines."

Having the confidence to develop your own style and professional practice is something that  UCF performance courses positively encourage. Working with international experts and staging events are also key facets of that process.

Internationally renowned choreographers, Malgven Gerbes and David Brandstaetter, worked with BA(Hons) Choreography students for six weeks, for example, on working processes, contemporary dance techniques and improvisation. Malgven and David have travelled with video artist, Julien Crepieux and sound designer, Christoph Engelke through South Korea and Japan, working with local artists to produce site-specific performances in a new environment each day. These performances were then made into a short film, Eulogy to Shade, which premièred at Tanznacht, a major dance festival in Berlin.

MA Arts & Ecology students produced an event as part of the Arnolfini's 100 Days: Countdown to the Climate Change Conference. In conjunction with Soundart Radio 102.5 FM, the community and arts radio for Dartington and Totnes in South Devon, which broadcast related material, the students screened films and projected words and texts onto Dartington Campus buildings, offering a creative response to climate change.

Last term UCF students, graduates and lecturers performed, presented and documented the curatorial collaboration, The Pigs of Today are the Hams of Tomorrow, in conjunction with the Marina Abramović Institute for Preservation of Performance Art, Plymouth Arts Centre and Live Art Development Agency.

This was the first curatorial project of the Marina Abramović Institute comprising of three days of free live art performances by international artists at The Slaughterhouse in Plymouth. These performances were documented by students from UCF's Dartington Campus in an exhibition at Plymouth Arts Centre and will be finally housed within the Marina Abramović Foundation for Preservation of Performance Art in New York.

Marina Abramović has pioneered performance art for over four decades on an international scale and her major retrospective at New York's Museum of Modern Art opened this month.

For further information regarding The Pigs of Today are the Hams of Tomorrow you are able to download the brochure here: www.plymouthartscentre.org

For further information about BA(Hons) Music at University College Falmouth, visit www.falmouth.ac.uk/music, email admissions@dartington.ac.uk or telephone Admissions on 01803 862224.

For further information about BA(Hons) Dance: Choreography at University College Falmouth, visit www.falmouth.ac.uk/dancechoreography, email admissions@dartington.ac.uk or telephone Admissions on 01803 862224.

For further information about MA Art & Environment at University College Falmouth, visit www.falmouth.ac.uk/maart&environment, email admissions@falmouth.ac.uk or telephone Admissions on 01326 213730.

University College Falmouth is the only independent Higher Education institution in Cornwall with the powers to award degrees in its own name. It has two campuses in Cornwall - at Woodlane in Falmouth and Tremough in Penryn (which it owns, and jointly manages with the University of Exeter) - and a third campus at Totnes in Devon, following its merger with Dartington College of Arts in 2008.

This merger created a new institution focusing on the expansion of Falmouth's expertise in Art, Design and Media and Dartington's expertise in Choreography, Music, Theatre, Art and Writing. The Devon-based courses will relocate to a new, high-specification Performance Centre at Tremough in 2010, paving the way for a new specialist Arts University in Cornwall by 2013/2014 that will be unique to the South West.

The University College is a founding partner in the Combined Universities in Cornwall (CUC), a unique initiative to promote regional economic regeneration through Higher Education, funded mainly by the European Union (Objective One and Convergence), the South West Regional Development Agency, and the Higher Education Funding Council for England, with support from Cornwall Council.

Ends

For further information about University College Falmouth, please contact Jilly Easterby MCIPR, Head of Public Affairs, Telephone: 01326 213792, or email:  jilly.easterby@falmouth.ac.uk

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