Main Dance Styles

The first meeting – Amira and John perform a contemporary based duet that narrates their sarcastic and bickering relationship with an underlying love blossoming throughout. This duet incorporates technical lines prominent in Lester Horton technique and a fusion of release and traditional Dabke style dance. The choreography is expressive, expansive and emotive.

EU piece- The equivalent to the West Side Story gym scene will be this section in which the EU politicians argue over the best way to deal with the current migrant crisis. This section is comprised of contemporary and street dance style influences fused together to create the climax point within the series. The scene combines frustrated and conflicting emotions to create a tense and powerful atmospheric experience for the audience.

Syrian Dance Styles and Origins

Dabke is a modern Levantine Arab folk circle dance of Canaanite origin. It is performed in Lebanon,Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Palestine and Israel.

Dabke combines circle dance and line dancingand is widely performed at weddings and other joyous occasions. The line forms from right to left. The leader of the dabke heads the line, alternating between facing the audience and the other dancers. 

The Palestinian dabkeh jumps may or may not have origins in age-old Canaanite fertility riteswhich communicated the growth of plants. They were used to scare away evil forces and to protect the security and growth of seedlings. According to Yazbec, the Phoenicians were the first teachers of the dance in the world, and the dabke is a representative descendant of the Phoenician dances.

According to one folk tradition, the dance originated in the Levant where houses were built from stone with a roof made of wood, straw and dirt. The dirt roof had to be compacted which required stomping the dirt hard in a uniform way to compact it evenly. 

Why Should “From Calais, with Love” Receive Funding?

“From Calais, with Love” is an innovative production based on real life, current events and is accessible to a wide range of audiences. Our take on the original West Side Story is modern, funny, and heart-warming and follows a tragic love story doomed from the beginning. With this single season story we offer viewers an insight into a relevant topic occurring at this very moment in time whilst still providing a fun, interactive performance each week. 

We have incorporated many of the factors that made West Side Story so captivating such as current political and social problems, technical and entertaining dance and musical worksand an addictive love story that connects with all ages. With each episode ending on a cliff hanger audiences will be left longing for more and find themselves routing for the young lovers. 

This production will provide a huge platform for us to share the aspects of The Refugee Crisis that many of us don’t get to see and hopefully inspire a change in how we view and handle the situation. We could spark a rise in unity within today’s society and encourage people to get involved in helping to contribute to refugees in need creating a positive buzz around our production and The Refugee Crisis. 

Not only are we hoping to raise awareness and promote change regarding the social and political predicament we also hope to create and share an original and innovative production that presents the excellent quality of dance technique, performance and choreography we have achieved today. With the arts becoming more and more diverse audiences are open to experimental and abstract performances and we intend to deliver just that. We have created a unique and outstanding fusion of dance culture from early jazz technique to hip hop and commercial styles today. We have also studied and developed ethnically cultural dance styles to provide our viewers with a fresh and one of a kind musical experience. 

You should fund “From Calais, with Love” because it provides so many public platforms for not only the serious current topic but also the development of dance and performance over the years to what we have achieved today. Our modern day West Side Story offers audiences a first-hand look into the ever changing performance industry and how far we have come. “From Calais, with Love” is an exciting and entertaining remake of West Side Story that successfully maintains all we’ve grown to love about the original whilst still bringing a fresh, flavoursome plot that audience all over will love.

From Calais, with Love

West Side Story runs on timeless themes than can be tweaked and edited to suit a modern day audience. With our version we have maintained the most prominent themes of love, hate,tragedy and rivalry and fused them with a topic relevant to our society today – The Refugee Crisis. 

As the topic is so current to our society today audiences of various ages can relate in some way, shape or form and the relevance of the topic modernises our version. With constant news reports and coverage surrounding our topic advertising will be more successful and audiences will be able to make emotional connections to the story based on the reports they see daily. The topic creates a platform for us to present an eye opening, heart-warming and modern insight to a current event and hopefully through our remake we will change people’s ideas and perceptions of The Refugee Crisis. 

We decided to present “From Calais, with Love” as a weekly series on ITV that consisted of one season comprised of 8 episodes. Episodes 7 and 8 would be linked with episode 8 being the continuation of episode 7. We decided to structure our presentation this way as in today’s society television series and box sets have become increasingly popular and are accessible to a wide range of diverse audiences. With the development of Sky On Demand and ITV Catch-up TV even if viewers miss an episode they are able to catch-up and continue following the series. This means we are more likely to receive viewers and a buzz will develop around our show. 

Our choice of characters also follows not only the themes of west side story but the relevance of the topic. We kept the lead roles young so a youthful audience could easily connect with the story line and themes. Our rivalry lies between the two lovers and the state authorities within the UK. Despite Amira’s countless efforts and Trey’s extensive work with his various connections the two failed to get Amira into the country and this put a strain on their relationship. This is a common predicament hundreds of refugees face every day and adds a real and true element to our story. The UK Parliament officials will be represented as a menacing and powerful group that have their own battles and issues to think of when it comes to The Refugee Crisis. 

Movement material will be significantly more modern in comparison to the original West Side Story due to the development of technique and birth of various new dance styles over the years. “From Calais, with Love” incorporates a diverse range of current popular dance cultures such as hip hop and commercial whilst fusing these with culturally appropriate dance styles originating from Syria and other areas. Our choreographic ability today will allow us to successfully fuse styles and develop a technical entertaining performance that will engage audiences throughout the series’ duration.

Our 2016 'West Side Story'

In 2016, there is a gap in the market for a re-take, on one of the biggest and most influential musicals out there being West Side Story. As young people today, we are rising up in the industry with actors such as John Bodega, Tom Riley, Gemma Arterton, Mandheep Dhillon, and more representing the British industry, showcasing the talent young people have.
Being in the heart of technology and growing up as a digital native, the creative arts, and the mass media.

As a group we plan to collectively create our own adaptation of 'West Side Story' (WSS) with a modern twist on things. We have done this to appeal to a wider audience in the 20th century, and especially a younger, and more current audience being apart of that age group ourselves we cover a huge chunk of the niche market. Our interpretation will be called "From Calais, With Love", shot and edited into an 8-part series showcased on ITV, every Wednesday night at 9pm.


Synopsis

Reporter John Blackwell (Tom Riley) is working with refugees in the Calais “Jungle” and meets young refugee Amira Nizar (Mandheep Dhillon) who has made the journey across the Mediterranean Sea from Syria alone. At first the leads have differences and don’t get along but their love blossoms as the season progresses. However despite their feelings for each other the main obstacle in their way was the Refugee Crisis and Amira’s inability to successfully move to the UK.

We have chosen these actors as we feel that they would both embody the roles of Amira and John, and both being actors that are in current hit series' such as 'Some Girls' and 'Da Vinci's Demons' that have both been picked up by leading production companies such as BBC/BBC3 and ITV, they already have a star power following, experience, and accountability when it comes to their
performance.

Narrative

The episodes will be shot episodically in an 8-part series, and debuted at 9PM every Wednesday on ITV. We have chosen ITV due to their popularity with documentaries and successful fiction series such as Mr Selfridge, Downtown Abbey, and other political drama's. I feel that our series has the real appeal to a variety of audiences due to the themes and current affairs it contains. As we speak the 'Refugee Crisis' continues in Calais, as migrants have been forced to leave their homes, countries and families, fleeing war and violence.

The Refugee Crisis began in 2015, as Europe started struggling, to manage the worst influx of migrants since World War II. Migrants began to cross over European borders from the likes of Syria, Afghanistan, Turkey, Greece and more. Fleeing war, and any of those making the arduous journey are fleeing the civil war in Syria, now in its fifth year. Many of the refugees have come from Syria where a civil war has been taking place for the last 4 years. over 4 million have fled the country and the majority decide in refugee camps in neighbouring countries around the world. The UN and EU were really unprepared for this, as camps have become over-crowded.The refugee crisis is all really controversial because there are so many conflicting opinions on the whole situation, what should be done, and what shouldn't be done looking into the welfare of these people and the countries they are trying to get to.

When it comes to shooting and editing the series, it will be shot using high quality Canon DSLR 1200D cameras that we are familiar with already, allowing us to us technology to our advantage
and edited using 'Final Cut Pro' or 'Premiere Pro'.

Bibliography

All Sources:

Mr Moir

http://jeromerobbins.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Side_Story_%28film%29#Cast

http://kimmy-westsidestory.blogspot.co.uk/

http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/calendar-and-events/2014/11/10/jerome-robbins-fancy-free-to-on-the-town/3955

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy#Latin_America_and_communism

Social,Economic,Technological,Political,Historical, and Cultural Influences

America

To understand the history of America firstly you have to travel back before West Side Story to unravel the series of events. During the 1920's America was fairly young, and was a hub of transformation especially regarding mass production from the invention of the radio,chewing gum, to jazz. At a very technological time these formative years were definitely the year of development from Ford the car giant to colour TV. America hadn't yet started trading abroad and were 50% below the poverty line which was a huge struggle not to mention the total lack of equality not just in the South but everywhere with WASPS (White Anglo Saxon Protestants) controlling everything, times were tough but this was the start.

From 1939-1945 for America WW2 had begun and by 1945, American was out for primacy through a mixture of economy,power,technology,and weaponry which in being up and coming America had. American now had enough money to loan to Europe in the Marshall Plan of $16 billion dollars, as Britain,Russia, and Germany were all bankrupted from two world wars. America started to worm their way to the top through the medium of soft power which was a quick leap to dominance, like a virus spreading themselves quickly and efficiently, through branding KFC,APPLE,MCDONALDS and more were soon everywhere as much of the world became "Americanised". Popular Culture in the 50's can be captured in just a few words which speak volumes. "The Cold War", "Baby Boomers" , "Korea" , which contributed to overcrowding,less jobs and recession. This was the decade where people built Bomb Shelters, had babies and the news was filled with what the reds were doing or going to do. Another other important change was in how teenagers were perceived up until the 50's when teenagers were just children and were treated as such. As the future decades changed that was when teenagers became an important section of society when politicians and others had realised that teenagers would very quickly become voters and consumers and a new generation of pop stars including Elvis Presley.

Before WW2 the popular and talented people from the world were the Picasso's and Monet, and Ballet Russe, but as soon as America started its bid for primacy, The American Dream looked very fetching to everyone, which was endorsed by public figures such as Elvis.This is where countries like Russia come into play being communist trying to block out this American Dream and idolising of America. At this time politically America was a dangerous place to challenge authority following lots of assassinations and the WASPS. Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army during World War II and served as Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe, Eisenhower entered the 1952 presidential race as a Republican to crusade against "Communism, Korea and corruption". After Eisenhower, 

John F Kennedy (JFK) was the next American President where such a contrast in leadership resulted in a culturally changed America as an American politician who served as the 35th President of the United States from January 1961 until his assassination in November 1963. significant events that occurred during his presidency included  the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Space Race—by initiating Project Apollo, the building of the Berlin Wall, the African-American Civil Rights Movement. JFK was a catholic man, all for equal rights and equality for America which helped solidify the Civil Rights Movement, and the JFK Foundation which supported and funded projects from the "black and other overlooked races" giving them an opportunity to be free, and do what they love from art to dance and literacy skills. This was probably to the angered and frustrated the WASP's as the colonised nations of America spread the news about escaping colonialism, and hardship and the ability of being accepted slowly but surely. All this change was even more significant when Kennedy was assassinated in 1963 as part of a conspiracy.



How did the Puerto Rican's end up in America?


The answer is 'The Great Migration'. In 1917 the United States Congregation approved 'The Jones Act' permitting citizenship for Puerto Rican's wanting to live in America. By 1920 roughly 5'000 Puerto Rican's were living in the USA , but post war over 58'500 more had migrated. The migration was sparked by mainly economic factors as "The American Dream" was very prominent as the urge came for a fulfilment of a better life. The new use of air travel was also very handy as this meant that it was much quicker to get to America rather than the ferry which took days. Spanish Harlem/East Harlem were very popular places to settle for Puerto Rican's although with more than 4 people per apartment, poverty,racism, and discrimination Puerto Rican's still flocked in their huge families to fulfil a better life. After a successful yet difficult migration Puerto Rican's would move to populated places like the Bronx which was a city moving up the social ladder from poorer  neighbour hoods due to the housing scheme which was introduced at the time.

As the Puerto Rican's  arrived they were not met kindly by the New Yorkers which is shown throughout West Side Story, especially in the 'Prologue' where after a fight erupts Lieutenant Schrank and Officer Krupke arrive and break it up, the authority are definitely not very unwelcoming to the Puerto Rican's and this summarises how the Puerto Ricans are treated generally, he says “Get your friends out of here, Bernardo, and stay out!...Please! Boy, oh, boy…As if this neighbourhood wasn't crummy enough." In addition, the gang’s name (Sharks) is a metaphor for bloodthirsty fish with large teeth, also known as ugly filth, and menaces of the sea (or streets in this case). They are also treated as criminals because they are never given warnings but taken to jail right away if they “break the law”. Racism and discrimination were a daily struggle for Puerto Rican's let alone the language barrier, the Puerto Rican's were at the bottom of the chain.
There is no specific morale that one can gather from both stories on love and relationships. Both stories seek to portray the chaos and obstacles that surround passion and love.