Be CreativeL’ART

Issue 8

June 2012

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Editor’s Letter

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Hi all and welcome to the eighth issue of L’ART; the Ol-ympic issue.

Over the past few months, we have been hearing about a lot of events surrounding the 2012 Olympics and we’ve even got a few things happening closer to home, which is going to be a great experience in itself!

We have Susannah Barnes, a London-based dancer who will be performing in the olympic ceremony and we take a closer look at the Take the Stage campaign that allows everybody to be involved in one of the biggest events London is hosting this year.

Plus, a new theatre school is set to open in Kent, we count-down to who we can’t wait to be up close and personal with at Wireless Festival and see which Oxford graduate approached a well-known fashion retailer and is set to work alongside Ox-ford’s new radio station.

Get updated with this, and more in this issue of L’ART. Enjoy!

Letisha & Daniella

ContentsMusic

14 We countdown to our top 3 performers at Wireless Festi-val 201218 Afrobeats singer May7ven talks shows, singles and UK recognition of her genre. Find out how you can support her.

22 Here is your chance to get involved in the Olympics with Take the Stage campaign

4 The Kinki Collection relocates to Oxford. Get in the know with this branded handbag line plus more!20 With an opportunity to help inspire the marketing behind fashion house New Look, the opportunities just keep coming for graduate Nicole Conn.

7 Jemstone Academy - Get involved with this new theatre

school, opening soon.

11 Every Olympic ceremony needs its performers and dancer Susannah Barnes is on the bill! Read her story here...16 EmJ unveils her new company, Body Politic

10 Word On The Street 2

Performing Arts

Reviews

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There’s an old saying that two minds are better than

one. Well as much as some may work better on their own, there are those who can’t im-agine where they would be without their working partner and this can be said for Oxford based duo Adam and Hayley.

Having upped roots and moved from the Republic of Ireland, you can just imagine how challenging it is to main-tain a great work ethic.

“When you move, you lose the contacts, the seamstress’, the fabric shops,” Hayley ad-mits. As one half of the Kinki Collection team, she looks back on the disadvantages

they faced before progressing and starting again in a new lo-cation.

Turns out the move for their self described urban, modern fashion brand was the best thing they could have done, as today they look forward to more conquests, building con-tacts and enjoying the benefits that come from owning a sell-ing brand.

“Looking back over a year or so, the UK is a far more suit-able environment to begin a project like Kinki,” Hayley continued.

“Now finally all the hard work has paid off and we are at a

point of selling.”

But let’s go back to the begin-ning. What made this pair get into fashion? And just where did the name Kinki come from?

Knowing the popularity of branded names, something ‘short, catchy’, ‘sexy but not tacky’ and a name that would roll off the tongue was cer-tainly needed. So with a little tweeking of the spelling of an English word and the addi-tion of the word ‘collection’, it seemed to tick all the boxes.

“Adding ‘collection’ to it made it sound a bit more lux-urious, so that is how ‘Kinki Collection’ was born,” Hay-ley revealed.

Having a head for business was a bonus for Hayley as she strived for a career as a wall Muriel decorator, but follow-ing a mishap with a portfolio and flooding in the boot of her

car, her passion for art went from decorating to designing hand bags.

“When I was 18, I was so naïve with regards to prod-uct development,” she ad-mits, after filling us in about the endless amounts of hours she used to spend on YouTube studying tutorials on how to make products from scratch. “I did not even know there were companies out there of-fering embroidery services.”

Having now discovered the broad amount of help in courses and work experience placements, 2011 saw great opportunities for both Adam and Hayley to really build upon their brand and gain the knowledge and expertise needed to survive in the fash-ion world.

“We met two years ago and I immediately fell in love with the idea of Kinki Collection,” Adam states. “I thought it

Kinki Collection is the new handbag brand for 16-25 year olds. Read their story below...

www.kinkicollection.com www.kinkicollection.com

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was ambitious.”

Adam was no stranger to me-dia experience so he went on to find a hands-on job in graphic design and sales for a garment printing firm, whilst Hayley gained experience in branding and retail, working for the popular designer retail firm Juicy Couture.

Here, Hayley gained a knack for learning what the consum-er wants. By studying differ-ent age groups and the varied styles people like to wear, she found this was the perfect way to spend her time developing the hand bags for the Kinki Collection.

“It’s really exciting to see it all coming together,” she says. “Working with various cus-

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tomers allowed me to study what designs work, what peo-ple want. More importantly, I could learn from their mis-takes,” Adam added.

Today this duo is all about net-working, expanding their vi-sion and continuing to praise the existence of social net-working site Twitter; its ben-efits of reaching thousands of people at a time certainly ben-efit a company getting on its feet.

With liaisons with a local Ox-ford graffiti artist currently in the works, Hayley and Adam will soon be adding the pro-duction of printed tees to their Kinki Collection.

As Hayley puts it, there are “exciting things to come! L’ART

Jaime and Emma-Marie share many interests as

friends, but their passion for the theatre outweighs them all.

“Performing Arts has been a major part of my life from as early as I can remember,” said

Jaime. “I started tap and bal-let aged two and progressed into music when I joined a brass band. I learnt to read musical notation and three brass instruments, the clarinet and piano.

“Music has had a big impact

The Jemstone AcademyL’ART

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It will be a platform for crea-tivity and freedom of spirit. Once a week, children from all walks of life will get to ex-press themselves and natural-ly learn some technique along the way.

“I am very lucky to be teach-ing in a fantastic prep school as my day job, which has giv-en me the chance of making some excellent links to other professionals, events and char-ities.”

Emma Marie continues: “I trust Jaime as a friend and business partner. Once we decided to go ahead with the musical theatre school I then suggested the idea of a train-ing school for young adults.

“JEMTTA will have 1 week-ly session for six hours on a Sunday and students will en-rol on to the course for a year. “Opportunities will include

McCutcheon in 2000.

“I got to meet Terry Wogan and sneaked a peek at Bev-erly Knight rehearsing for the show; such an amazing voice and inspiring thing to have been a part of.”

Future PlansEmma-Marie said: “I always had the idea of creating a

school to train young adults want-ing to become pro-fessional dancers. Jaime approached me with the idea

of JEMstone (J for Jaime and EM for Emma-Marie) and I thought it was fantastic.”

“The idea for the theatre school was born out of my de-sire to give something back,” said Jaime. “And allow chil-dren to experience the life change that the theatre had on me.

“My school is about nurture.

on who I am today.

“The real life-changing expe-rience was switching to Sands Musical Theatre School in Wheatley.

“I adored my time there. I just remember it felt like another world that I never wanted to leave.”

E m m a - M a r i e said: “My mum took me to dance classes from a young age. Then I was lucky enough to be accepted onto the foun-dation degree dance pro-gramme at Creative Academy, Slough. It was an intense ex-perience that prepared me for life as a dancer.”

Treasured Memories“My earliest memory of per-forming would be singing on the BBC,” said Jaime. “I was part of the Children in Need choir backing for Martine

receiving professional high quality training and develop-ing into mature and capable dancers.

“We are aiming to open offi-cially in January 2013. At the moment, plans include hold-ing fun workshops throughout the summer holidays to show off our new school.”

“And JEMTTA will hold work-shops throughout the year at a va-riety of locations throughout the

southeast.

“JEMTTA offers amazing value for money for students at just £714 for a whole years training. We will also be of-fering a scholarship to one student which will include a whole years training for free!”

This could be you! Simply search online for more up-dates.

“Another world that I never

wanted to leave”

“A platform for creativity and

freedom of spirit.”

Twitter: @JemstoneAcademy

JEMTTA - Theatre Training Academy

JEMstone Academy - Musical Theatre School

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Next month marks the start to the Olympics

and what a countdown it’s been! With the big event being so close to home and the city of London being hosts for 2012, the lady you’re about to be intro-duced to felt she just had to become involved in some-thing that will particularly be remembered by locals for years to come.

With opportunities to see the building process and pur-chase tickets to events such as athletics, basketball and volleyball, living in a coun-try where such an occasion is taking place is a great honour for many, including Susan-

nah Barnes.

“I thought I really want to be involved with that,” Su excit-edly revealed, as she recalls on one of her friends taking part in the ceremony held for the closing events in Beijing back in 2008.

Following a long but great ending to a process, Su’s re-search and quick off the mark thinking led to her completing her application to be involved with the closing or open cer-emony’s for 2012.

“I got my audition date and then I had a two to four hour audition,” she explained. Specialising in contemporary dance, Su auditioned with as many as 200 people at a time. As you can imagine, thou-sands of people auditioned and every individual was aware they really had to stand out as a performer whilst their skills, presence and ability were being assessed.

WORD ON THE STREET

With the UK’s residents celebrating the

Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, we were on the look out for your

red, blue and white colour schemes at a local dance competi-

tion. Here are a few favourites...

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Su will be one of thousands putting on a great show for live audience members and the millions of people watch-ing on TV, so as expected, a lot of hard work and dedication is needed to perfect routines and apply themselves to the strict rehearsal schedule given.

“There are four hour block re-hearsals spread between now (May), all the way through until the closing ceremony,” she said.

Although Su is not aware of who she will be performing with or what her routine’s will offer as of yet, there’s no hid-

ing the fact that she’s looking forward to getting stuck in whatever is thrown her way. And with a bonus of being involved with the Olympic torch’s journey from GB to Brazil, she will get a feel for the closing ceremony experi-ence as Brazil’s takes place before the UK’s.

“It’s great for me. I’m a Hack-ney born girl, I live in Hack-ney,” she continued. “There are quite a few parts to the closing ceremony, so we kick off in July starting in Hack-ney, then we go to Crystal Palace and then it goes on.”

Since training at Northern School of Contemporary Dance in Leeds, Su has been involved in plenty of projects throughout her career, where she became the proud owner of a scholarship for her first year. She then went on to get her Bachelor in Performing Arts.

And this isn’t actually the first time Su has had the op-portunity to represent her country. Highlighting just a percentage of her impressive resime in the arts, some of the events that came to mind as Su looked back on her career includ-ed represent-ing Great Britain at a dance school in Japan. She then later returned to the country to work for three months as a show dancer.

It was then on to Turkey where she gained an interest for dancing and touring sev-eral places with a role as a backing singer and dancer for a Pop group.

As a freelancer, Su now finds being in and out of so many projects all the time as second nature: one day you could be

doing an editorial like French Vogue, next you’ll be work-ing in Oxford working with contemporary dance group

Gelede, both of which she has done.

Today Su juggles teaching at her own Stagecoach Chigwell fran-chise with 14-18 year olds and re-

cently celebrated her second student to make it onto ITV show Britain’s Got Talent, but as much as Su has not been short of accomplishments to celebrate, performing at the Olympic stadium in Stratford has to be the biggest thing in her career so far.

“This is such a historical mo-ment in life. I can’t imagine anything beating that… other than giving birth,” she jokes. “It’s cool. It’s just a fantastic thing to be involved with.”L’ART

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Summer is the time for fam-ily holidays, adventures

with friends, lots of BBQ’s, outdoor outings and (most of all) music festivals!

One big-time festival that is taking place over the July weekend is Wireless and there are so many talented stars performing over the three-day extravaganza, that you’ll be star-struck by the end of it.

Music fans have been spoilt for choice, as the line-up in-cludes Drake, Rihanna, The Dream, Mz Dynamite, Clem-ent Marfo & the Frontline, Nicki Minaj, The Roots, Rita Ora and a whole lot more.

Rita OraThis will be one of the first op-portunities that fans will get to see Rita live on stage, so why wouldn’t we be excited? She’s one of Jay-Z’s latest signings and as a UK talent, she has certainly kick-started her career in a fabulous way.

Plus, her upcoming album seems like it will sound in-credible, as collaborations in-clude Kanye West, Will.I.Am and Chase & Status.

Her single ‘R.I.P’ featuring Tine Tempah remained at number one for a number of weeks and she has also been busy supporting Coldplay on their current tour. She has continuously kept her twitter followers up-to-date with her latest movements, so we’re looking forward to what she has in store for us on July 7th.

Nicki MinajIt’s different watching stars perform on TV to when they’re live on stage and Nicki Minaj is definitely someone we want to witness in person.

She is full of energy and stage presence and this is something we love to see, especially when live music is involved. We’re sure she’ll be perform-ing a range of songs from her two albums Pink Friday and Pink Friday: Roman Reload-ed so we’re counting down to see what creative stage show she has planned this time.

The RootsThis is one of the indus-try’s longest running hip-hop groups right now and they continue to produce a high standard of music. As they’re based in America, you could say this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to catch these guys this summer and enjoy their endless list of hits since their 1987 debut.

Plus their work has been rec-ognised and named by Rolling Stone as one of the 20 greatest live acts in the world. Now that’s a title you don’t just give to anybody!

They are our top three art-ists overall, but to be honest, we’re very much looking for-ward to the whole event. It’s going to be full of good vibes, a vast range of music and ce-lebrities everywhere in the beautiful Hyde Park. Are you excited yet?Im

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Countdown To The

Wireless Festival

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On Saturday 22nd Sep-tember, Body Politic

will be hosting the ultimate hip-hop showcase at Pegasus. Local Oxford crews such as Pink Noize, Unleashed, KC’s School of Dance and Raw Diva will be performing alongside the incredible De-finitives (London) and Project Patchwork (London). We are also excited to have special guests from Leeds, Plymouth and Southampton represent-ed.

Body Politic is a new com-

pany amalgamated from the original EmJ’s classes, dedi-cated to growing a strong dance community in Oxford and the UK. It strives to unite the industry through offeringtraining opportunities, for young people to develop their passion for hip-hop.

Emma-Jane Greig, the found-er of EmJ’s Classes, has been hosting workshops with pro-fessional choreographers from across the UK and in-ternationally for the past two years.

Emma-Jane Greig (25) said:“Body Politic is the natural step forward for EmJ’s Class-es. The name itself repre-sents a unified body of people working together towards the same goal.

“The showcase aims to high-light just this. We dance be-cause we love it, it’s simple! I just wanted to offer a platform opportunity that would cele-brate the incredible talent that we have in Oxford and create a real buzz for the city.

“I feel very privileged that both the Definitives and Project Patchwork will be headlining the event. Both these crews are incredible and are artists that I really admire and respect. It’s a brilliant op-portunity for young aspiring dancers to share the stage with such talented artists. This is definitely not to be missed!”

The show will take place at 7:30pm on 22nd September 2012 at Pegasus, Magdalen Road, Oxford. This is the first of many Body Politic activi-ties that will be held across the city of Oxford and London.

If you would like to know more about the event, please check out www.bodypo-liticdance.com or book your tickets online (JULY 2012) at www.pegasustheatre.org.uk. Limited tickets are avail-able, so book yours as soon as possible. This is the event of the year!

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EMMA-JANE GREIG

CompanyDirector

Oxford Launches new Company dedicated to uniting the dance industry

emjgreig@gmail.com Contact: 07791905851

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L’ARTL’ARTAfrobeats singer May7ven is loving the reception to her single ‘Ten Ten’. Find out what she plans to

do next, what she wants from you and which artist she has her eyes on for a duet...

African music, particular-ly afrobeats, is becom-

ing more and more popular in the UK. But for a genre of music that’s been celebrated by Africans for years, it’s nat-urally part of their everyday life.

One lady in particular who’s helping to make the genre of afrobeats more mainstream outside of her native is singer, May7ven.

With her single ‘Ten Ten’ be-coming one of summer 2012’s popular dance tracks, the Ni-gerian born artist has been

focusing on her upcoming promo performances, keeping her face out there and most importantly, pushing for those music downloads.

“What I do is combine mine (style) with rnb music,” May-7ven explains. “A few years back I used to call it afrnb, which is a combination of Af-rican rnb. I think it’s some-thing that’s really merging.”

It is with this merge of gen-res that May7ven, real name Yemisi May Odegbami, stands out from the crowd, following her conscious decision to pur-posely inject African music into her style.

“I was born in Nigeria, so I was always going to add in-fluences from where I’m from in my music.”

Right now with her style be-

ing so new to the UK scene, May7ven is naturally received more positively to audiences in Nigeria. But with things getting off to a good start over here, she remains positive in knowing afrobeats is seen as a fresh and new sound.

“It’s definitely a step in the right direction to getting the music heard,” she expressed. The UK market has been a bit of a challenge. Now they’re starting to get it and afrobeats is growing.” And if all goes well, she hopes ‘Ten Ten’ will keep progressing as a single so she can then go on to re-lease another single and pro-duce an album by the end of the year.

On July 14th, May7ven will perform at an event in Lon-don’s Somerset House, hosted by Choice FM’s DJ Abran-tee, as well as with fellow

afrobeats artist Dbanj at his live show on August 27th. He’s one artist in her genre that she would love to col-laborate with in the future, so this is no doubt going to be an exciting experience for her. When asked about those outside her niche, she replied: “Usher… it would be out of this world!”

As she continues to push the barriers, May7ven wants the fans to keep listening to her music and look out for her up-coming shows, as she’ll defi-nitely be keeping herself on the TV and radio.

Like she said: “it can only get better.”

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With your introduction to Oxford’s local ra-

dio station OX105FM in full swing, get ready to clear your diary’s for that all important date, as they are soon to have a launch party!

Creative advertising graduate Nicole Conn, one of the lady’s behind the marketing team, had a chat with L’ART about how she approached this new, growing station with fresh ideas, her bubbly personality and a brief that showed just a handful of her buzzing poten-tial.

With three years worth of pro-fessional practice and finding her own projects to persue, this art director in the making offered bosses an impressive pitch, which has led to their collaboration in updating their media outlet, as well having a local event to highlight the launch within the community.

“Me and my partner (Andy Mulvany) went in and had a meeting with him (the man-ager) and he absolutely loved it,” Nicole happily revealed.

Having successfully produced a media pack within a two week trial, Nicole and Andy focused on the popularity of social networking’s potential influence on advertising; “as an urban radio station with a wide generation of listeners,” this was the perfect idea.

“I want it to bring Oxford

back together. We really want to advertise this one, we want everyone to go to it,” Nicole said.

With the opportunity to pro-duce everything from busi-ness cards to the organisation of the launch party, Nicole is looking forward to getting more experience under her belt as a freelance creative advertiser and becoming the sales executive of Oxford’s new station; OX105FM! We look forward to seeing more of your work!

Nicole’s snapshot portfolio:

Nicole became part of one of five creative teams, making

up a duo of a film ed-itor and an art direc-tor for New Look’s advertising. “We had a screening in Soho, got the team in to watch, it was a really good experience. It will hopefully trigger some inspiration.”

Nicole works for SB:TV’s James and recently produced an exhibition based on the contrast between women’s relationship’s and their fash-ion sense. A 5 minute video was the result.

Nicole has experience with TDA agency who campaign for charity F**k Cancer. Look out for a FB app taken from Nicole and her partner’s work in the near future.

From fashion houses to her work with local radio station OX105FM; Art Director in the making Nicole Conn has plenty to look forward to...

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As well as Wretch 32, stars such as NBA player Derrick Rose and David Beckham are fronting the 30-second ad-

verts for this campaign.

As we count down to the huge Olympic event taking place in the city of London, Adidas have been working together with our stars of today in the music, fashion and sport world. This is all in aid of cel-ebrating talent in and around the UK before we witness the most anticipated event on our doorsteps in years.

Each advert is bound to in-spire people in many different ways, as the main message surrounding the campaign is that there is a stage for every-one in 2012. Wretch couldn’t

have said it in a better way when he said: “Greatness is made in the city I’m from.”

So as Great Britain are host-ing one of sports biggest events, it’s only right to show why London was honoured with this privilege. Be proud to represent the UK and get yourself involved in the Ol-ympic event of a lifetime! Here’s how…

Worldwide SupportMobile network Samsung are proud to support the London 2012 Olympic Games and they are working alongside David Beckham and Zara Philips – the Samsung Am-bassadors – in celebrating this year.

Take part by experiencing the day-to-day lives and training regimes of top British ath-letes, including Daniel Purvis, Jenna Randall and Victoria Pendleton.

If this sounds like something you want to get involved with, simply keep visiting their site Samsung/takepart for their latest video updates.

The Next Step‘The campaign refers to im-possible dreams, achieve-ment, rising against all odds to succeed. It’s inspiring, emotive and patriotic in a very contemporary way.’

And we couldn’t agree more. By offering their services, these celebrity role models have encouraged the public to go for their dreams. Two opportunities up for grabs are with David Beckham, who will be working with a bud-ding new photographer in the making and one lucky person will get the chance to hang out and play with basketball star Derrick Rose.

“Celebrate London and in-spire the rest of Britain,” says Nick Craggs, the Adidas UK marketing director. “Our new Take The Stage campaign is designed to showcase Lon-don, but also the talent that exists within Great Britain.

“Adidas is providing young people across Britain with once-in-a-lifetime opportuni-ties that could change their lives.” It’s up to you to take those chances. Are you in-spired?

TAKE THE

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