This Friday sees the opening night of NUDance Extravaganza, the annual dance show brought to us from Nottingham University’s dance society. We spoke to James Dyble, Show Secretary for the society, about the upcoming event! James has been incredibly busy planning the show; the venue was booked from the end of the last academic year. “We had to get in there early because there were so few dates left at Lakeside Arts Centre even back then,” said James. The show was at Studio 7 on Kings Meadow Campus last year, but the committee thought Lakeside would be a better venue. Being on University Park Campus, it’s a lot more accessible and the venue itself is better suited.
The whole society has been busy preparing too – rehearsals have been on a weekly basis since returning from the Christmas break and the competition team have been rehearsing since October. Some of the most exciting performances featured in the show are originally competition pieces from the Loughborough Dance Competition. This is the biggest university dance competition in Britain, and Nottingham recently won the prize for Best Dance Society. “The show is an opportunity to showcase the society’s biggest achievements so far, and we’re obviously incredibly proud of our competition team,” James says.
This year the theme of the show is ‘All of the Fun of the Circus, Carnival and Fair’, which means we can expect a lot of bright lights, colours and confectionary! James told Her Campus how he’s tried to branch out the theme beyond the dances themselves: “We wanted the tickets, competitions, everything to reflect our theme, creating a real atmosphere in the whole theatre”. And the costume secretary’s have worked incredibly hard around the clock sewing, gluing and bringing together an impressive array of costumes that will bring the circus characters to life.
It’s not all been plain sailing though. James says that the hardest thing about planning a big event within the SU is keeping up with all of the forms that need filling in. “It’s important to keep everyone who is involved up to date as well, which can be difficult when there are so many people contributing! You need to have good time management, be creative and just have a lot of enthusiasm if you want to be good at this job”. Enthusiasm is something James certainly has lots of, which means we’re in for a treat with this year’s Extravaganza!
Tickets are available from the SU Box Office, or Emma at email lgyeh2@nottingham.ac.uk
And check out the event on Facebook!