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'.