| Arrangement | In 1998 a placement student working for Green Candle organised the papers into subject categories while the archive was still at the company's office, and compiled an accession listing of the materials to be deposited at the NRCD. In cataloguing these papers, some amendments have been made to the original subject headings and file titles in order to reduce the number of categories and to reflect more accurately the file's contents. Not all files have a subject heading at the beginning of the title. These subject headings are used:
--Arts Council of Great Britain
--Association for Business Sponsorship of the Arts
--Board Meetings
--Contracts from Schools (arranged by dance work)
--Finance (subcategories include invoices, ledgers, salaries and wages, and taxes)
--Funding
--Greater London Arts
--Independent Theatre Council
--London Arts Board
--London Boroughs Grants Committee
--Productions (arranged by dance work)
--Publications (subcategories include teachers' resource packs, information packs, and newsletters)
--Publicity and Marketing
--Publicity and Press
--Reports on Workshops, Residencies and Performances
--Touring (arranged by destination or dance work)
--Westminster Arts
The papers remained filed with the most recent date on top and the earliest date at bottom. Where a lever-arch file filled more than one archival folder, the sequence was added to the title (e.g., 1 of 2, 2 of 2).
These are the other material types (formats) in the collection:
--Audio (grouped by work)
--Artwork
--Posters (grouped by dance work)
--Theatre Programmes (arranged chronologically)
--Periodicals
--Videos |
| Administrative History | Green Candle Dance Company believes: everyone has a birthright to communicate, express themselves and enjoy themselves through dance. This is reflected in the company predominately working with those who have a limited access to dance. Green Candle aim to bring artistic excellence, access, education, training, lifelong learning, health, research, advocacy and equal opportunities to the community. An emphasis is placed on participation, that dance should not only be devised for everyone but also include everyone. Fergus Early, as artistic director, has a presiding influence on this. His work with ‘Ballet for All', highlights his grounding in the idea that dance is for all. The company's first work, based on Alfred Jarry's play Ubu Roi , provided the source from which Green Candle took their name. From this experimentation the company became professional in 1987, bringing dance, drama, narrative, and song to community groups across the country. They operated on a revolutionary concept that any venue could become a performance area. This was not a direct use of site specificity, but rather that dance had been liberated of being designed for a set space. They reached individuals through working in hospitals, homes for the elderly, special needs schools and even on boats on the River Thames.
Throughout their lifetime Green Candle produced works for primary and secondary school children, the elderly, groups with physical and mental special needs, and general audiences. Their works for children have included Oonagh and Finn (1987), Fiddle-di-Goop (1987), The Lost Song (1990), Sooki and the Kozzibimweh (1993), Alanna and the Tree (1995 and 2000), The Very Best Friend (1997), forWard Motion (2000 and 2001), and Mina's Story (2002 and 2003). Their works for teenagers have included Songs for the Beast (1989), The Road Home (1991), and Old Man Dragging Stones (1994). Green Candle's attention has also been turned to the elderly in projects such as the Coming of Age. The works incorporated in this project include Your Prayer is Doubled When You Sing (1988), and Cheating Fate (1990 and 1992). Dances For Small Spaces (1997 and 1998) a work designed specifically for residential homes and day centres. This project linked in with the company's publication of Growing Bolder: a start-up guide for creating dance with older people. The archive holds other Green Candle publications including the monthly newsletter UpDate, and teachers' resource packs for The Lost Song, The Road Home, Sooki and the Kozzibimweh, Alanna and the Tree, Old Man Dragging Stones, The Very Best Friend, and forWard Motion.
Green Candle, in theory did not work on many collaborative projects with well-known artists because they viewed their participants in the projects as artists themselves. The Lost Song was devised with the help of children at St Luke's School (Epping), all of whom had moderate or severe special needs. Where collaborations did occur, they aimed to widen their audiences and make their art even more accessible to the public. This included collaboration with Ra-Ra Zoo, on the work Swan (1992), staged on the River Thames, and later collaborating with the playwright Goran Stefanovski on Old Man Dragging Stones (1994).
Green Candle religiously applied for funding from the onset of the company, greatly benefiting from their dedication to the process. They received fixed term funding from The Arts Council of Great Britain, with support from Greater London Arts, London Arts Board, London Borough Grants, (are 2 of these the same company?) Westminster Arts, Eastern Arts Board, Calouste Gulbenkian and a number of other trusts, charities and councils. Being financially stable enabled the company to explore its creative potential, with the attitude that no project was off-bounds. They were awarded with The Royal Ann iversary Trusts' Challenge Certificate on behalf of Queen Elizabeth II in recognition of their work in 1992.
Members of the creative team have dedicated themselves to Green Candle since its origins in 1987. Fergus Early has been Green Candle's artistic director for 17 years, and during this time has one three awards including the Greater London Arts Dance Award, a Lisa Ullmann Travelling Bursary, and the Time Out/Dance Umbrella Award for Outstanding Artistic Achievement. Sally Davies has also been from its founding as the company's musical director. Rachel Elliott joined the company in 1995 as the Education Manager and is now Associate Director. |