We are ecstatic to announce that Janis Claxton has won the prestigious HERALD ARCHANGEL AWARD for her sustained contribution to the arts in Edinburgh during the festival.
Previously Janis was awarded the Herald Angel award for Enclosure 44 at Edinburgh Zoo, and this year Pop-Up Duets (fragments of love) has taken the company to new heights!! What a high coming to the end of our 2018 international tour!!! Herald article here

Pop-Up Duets don’t mind being mentioned amidst such glitterati in the New York Times – article available here 

After great success in Sweden, next week we will be stopping in New York for the Lincoln Center Out of Doors Festival.  Not only once, but we have the honour of being mentioned twice in the New York Times. The second article is available here. #feelthelove

POP-UP Duets had the absolute thrill of performing at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in Massachusetts USA in June, where we made our debut in the Opening Gala just before the festival officially opened.

Janis Claxton Dance then had the honour of performing all week in and around the Jacob’s Pillow venues, we are only the 2nd company from Scotland invited to perform at this amazing festival! Following in the footsteps of Margaret Morris in 1954!

Here we are mentioned in the New York Times as a top dance pick!

Thanks to ISPA (International Society for the Performing Arts) for the introduction, and Creative Scotland for support

We are pleased to announce that Pop-Up Duets will be performing at Tanzmesse in Düsseldorf, one of the largest professional gatherings dedicated exclusively to contemporary dance, from 29 August-01 September.

Pop-Up Duets will travel to Germany after 2 weeks of performing in the Edinburgh Fringe at the National Museum of Scotland, where this work was originally premiered back in 2016. More tour dates and details can be found here.

Thanks to Creative Scotland for support.

• New tour announced for 2018 across Scotland, England, USA, Singapore and Sweden. More details here!

• Janis Claxton Dance is the first Scottish group to perform at Jacob’s Pillow since the Celtic Ballet of Scotland, founded by Margaret Morris, made its U.S. debut at the Pillow in 1954.

★★★★★ The Herald  ★★★★ The Observer  ★★★★ The Times   ★★★★ The Scotsman

Janis is currently in Kolkata, India to work with Vikram Iyengar, Ruchira Das and co at The Pickle Factory from 7-25 February.

The Pickle Factory has invited Janis to import the idea of POP-UP Duets, but not the product, re-imagining it in and for an Indian context working with Indian dancers drawing from the forms they are trained in. Janis will work for two weeks with a group of kathak-trained dancers from Calcutta companies Ranan and Rhythmosaic, introducing them to improvisation and partnering techniques that underlie POP-UP Duets. This exchange between dancers from two completely different contexts, histories, physical understandings and assumptions will hopefully create areas of overlap, friction and discovery that familiarity cannot uncover. Improvisations developed during the period will pop-up in various venues across the city for The Pickle Factory’s inaugural season.

“The invitation to re-imagine POP-UP Duets within a new and unfamiliar context is almost as terrifying as it is exciting. The work is deeply rooted in specific and detailed processes based in a unique system of partnering improvisation that will be totally new to the Indian dancers. Classical Indian kathak dance is a form totally unfamiliar to me. Together we will share in trainings and use the improvisation processes to allow new material to emerge.” – Janis Claxton

Thanks to British Council Scotland & Creative Scotland for support.

We are pleased to announce that Pop-Up Duets will launch our 2018 international tour at Singapore International Festival of Arts from April 26-29.

With music by Pippa Murphy and dancers Al Garo, Joanne Pirrie, Valerio Di Giovanni and Amy Hollinshead.

We will tour all summer with other dates to be announced soon including throughout Scotland and our USA debut at Jacob’s Pillow Dance in June.

Janis Claxton Dance is excited to announce that the award winning POP-UP Duets will be performed at Jacobs Pillow Dance Festival in June 2018! More details of our 2018 tour coming soon!

Janis is currently working with Dantzaz in the fabulous Basque Country.

She is creating new work for the company’s summer season for public and theatre spaces.

POP-UP Duets (fragments of love) updates January 2017:

Photo’s by Phil Chu. Dancers: Adrienne O’Leary, Upock Quagavan & Albert Garcia

The fabulous POP-UP Duets BBC Loop clip has to date had more than 70,000 views!

POP-UP Duets had a fabulous success at the 2016 Edinburgh Festival Fringe with performances at the National Museum of Scotland receiving 5 and 4 star reviews in all of the major newspapers. Alongside bespoke performances for Merchant City Festival, Fife Cultural Trust, Creative Scotland and the Scottish Government, the first tour of POP-UP Duets was seen live by more than 7000 people.

Janis Claxton and Pippa Murphy were awarded Creative Edinburgh’s Collaboration Award and are now the proud owners a very beautifully crafted piece of The Crags designed by Alasdair Thomson.

POP-UP Duets was listed in the Observer as one of the top dance works of 2016!

At the Edinburgh festival the choreographic stand-out was Janis Claxton’s small but beautifully formed Pop-Up Duets (Fragments of Love). Claxton has paid her dues, but like many female choreographers has had to fight harder for her chances than her less experienced male colleagues. The issue of equal gender representation in dance’s power roles gathered momentum in 2016. (Luke Jennings, The Observer)

POP-UP Duets was selected as one of only ten international works for the prestigious Pitch New Works at the ISPA New York 2017 Congress.

POP-UP Duets was recreated in Taiwan in March 2017 at the Kaohsiung Spring Arts Festival with 2 dancers from Europe and two from Taiwan and presented in public spaces to over 5000 people.

Photo’s of Adrienne O’Leary & YiChi Lin by James Lin & Phil Chu

More info here  POP-UP Duets (fragments of love)