Dare | A pioneering collaboration between Opera North and University of Leeds
Tariq Ali and Abdul Salam Kheir perform at the Howard Assembly Room, 2009. Photograph Brian Slater.

Events

27 June - 1 July 2012
Performance Studies International
University of Leeds, Howard Assembly Room and venues across the city.
The University won the bid to host the conference in 2012. An International Festival of Performance will complement the conference and embrace a range of DARE initiatives including performance, panel discussions and workshops.

12-14 April 2012
The Theory, Practice and Business of Opera Today
A new kind of international opera conference which will bring practitioners and academics together to debate key themes through presentations, workshops and performance.
http://www.operaconference.leeds.ac.uk

7 October 2011
PHANTASMAGORIA - Seduction and Psychosis
University of Leeds
Becs Andrews, DARE Fellow in Opera Related Arts 2011/12, created and presented her first work as a Fellow within the Leeds Light Night Programme. The multimedia piece performed by three artists including Pettman DARE Scholar and cellist Hugo Zanker, charted temptation, obsession and ascent into madness, inspired by Puskin's character Ghermann.

29 June 2011
Love & Death in Opera
University of Leeds
A one-day workshop exploring the two universal themes in Opera North's productions of Norma, The Queen of Spades and Das Rheingold.

January 2011
Green Angel
An opera for young people created by DARE PhD student Adam Strickson.

21 April 2011
The DARE Lectures: Tariq Ali, writer, filmmaker and political campaigner
Howard Assembly Room at Opera North
Tariq Ali discussing the causes and consequences of war over the last century, its impact on literature and music, and his own experience of US bombing raids in Hanoi and Thanh Hoa during the Vietnam War. Plus a live performance of composer Oliver Messiaen's masterwork, Quartet for the End of Time, written for fellow inmates in a German prisoner of war camp in 1941 and played by members of the Orchestra of Opera North.
The DARE lectures On Liberty complement Opera North's main-stage season on the theme of liberty and incarceration, including Janacek's From the House of the Dead, Bizet's Carmen and Beethoven's Fidelio.

15 April 2011
The DARE Lectures: Gareth Peirce, human rights lawyer
Howard Assembly Room at Opera North
Identified by the Guardian in 2011 as one of the world's top 100 most inspirational and influential women, Peirce, whose clients have included The Guildford Four and the family of Jean Charles de Menezes, presents her thoughts on imprisonment, torture, secrecy and the possibility for justice in the 21st Century. Plus a short concert by Kurdish singer and refugee, Nawroz Oramari, whose powerful music conveys the experience of being a refugee and the loss of one's homeland.
The DARE lectures On Liberty complement Opera North's main-stage season on the theme of liberty and incarceration, including Janacek's From the House of the Dead, Bizet's Carmen and Beethoven's Fidelio.

27 March 2010
Songs at the Year's End
Howard Assembly Room at Opera North
A piece of commissioned new work marking the 25th anniversary of the end of the miner's strike. Ian McMillan (libretto) and Hugh Mankivell (music) have been funded by ON to prepare an initial treatment which will be reviewed by S Daniels, D Gray and S Popple to decide whether the full work will be commissioned for two performances in HAR.

26-27 March 2010
Between the Lines: reconfiguring the miner's strike
Stage@leeds
A workshop and photographic retrospective on the miners' strike.
Featuring writing workshops with poet and BBC presenter Ian McMillan, an interview with photographer Ken Wilkinson by Dr Philip Kiszely and an exhibition of Ken Wilkinson's photographs of the miners' strike.

15 November 2009
Kevin Crossley Holland
Howard Assembly Room at Opera North
Kevin Crossley Holland speaks about Norse mythology and the Vikings at an evening of words and music.
www.operanorth.co.uk/events/idea-of-north-kevin-crossleyholland

5 November 2009
Heimat
Howard Assembly Room at Opera North
A partnership between Dare and Leeds Film Festival. Talks about and screenings of Edgar Reitz's classic TV films Heimat, plus reflections on representations of history and German-ness, music, film, modernism and contemporary German film.

7 October 2009
Discovering Dante: an evening of poetry, music and art
Howard Assembly Room at Opera North
Short readings, projected illustrations and performance by Leeds Cathedral Choir reveal the power and drama of Dante's Italian. www.leeds.ac.uk/italian/cdsdiscoveringdante.htm

April 29 - May 2 2009

fuseleeds09

DARE is a key partner in the Leeds contemporary music festival.  The Howard Assembly Room, within the 'Opera North Centre in association with the University of Leeds', is a focal venue.

Sunday 26 April : Leeds City Museum 2pm

First live performance of composer Michael Berkeley's collaboration with visual artist and University lecturer Kevin Laycock, with the Orchestra of Opera North.

Wednesday 29 April: Howard Assembly Room

DARE Icebreaker workshop: Performance of student compositions by members of Icebreaker.  Followed by a discussion exploring the notion of collaboration with panelists including Michael Berkeley; James Poke, Icebreaker; Michael Spencer, University of Leeds; Mira Calix, sound artist/composer; Kevin Laycock, visual artist and University lecturer.

``A display of material from the University's Michael Nyman collection will be displayed at the Howard Assembly Room during Fuse.

http://www.fuseleeds.org.uk/

10 March 2009

Professor Slavoj Zizek

Howard Assembly Room at Opera North: 5pm

'The most formidably brilliant exponent of psychoanalysis, indeed of cultural theory in general, to have emerged in many decades' (Terry Eagleton).   

The International Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities at

Birkbeck, University of London presents: Brunhilde's act, or, why was it so difficult for Wagner to find a proper ending for his Twilight of the Gods?

Followed by a Q&A chaired by Prof. Derek Scott, University of Leeds

7 March 2009

Sex and Sensationalism in Early Romantic Opera' (1800-1830)
School of Music, University of Leeds
A one-day symposium contextualising the British premiere production of Spohr’s Pietro von Abano (1827). Keynote speaker: Dr Wolfram Boder, author of Die Kasseler Opern Louis Spohrs
Martin Pickard, Opera North. Prof. Clive Brown, University of Leeds

www.leeds.ac.uk/music/conferences/spohr09

25 February 2009

Promoting Models of Arts & HE Collaboration

stage@leeds

Symposium exploring collaboration and considering how Arts Council England can support models in the region.  Includes presentation about DARE by Susan Daniels, University of Leeds and Ric Green, Opera North.

Organised by EIAT Creative Education.

24 January 2009

Skin Deeper: Cosmetic surgery and popular culture

Howard Assembly Room at Opera North

Independent critic Lynne Walker leads a panel of academics and artists to explore the ethics of cosmetic surgery.  To coincide with Opera North's new commission Skin Deep, composer David Sawer, libretto Armando Ianucci.

http://www.operanorth.co.uk/special-projects/talks-literary/skin-deeper/

14 December 2008

Vengeance& Desire

Leeds Town Hall

Conference day on the theme of psychoanalysis and sibling rivalry.

Keynote address: Juliet Mitchell, Professor of Psychoanalysis and Gender Studies at Jesus College , Cambridge . An Opera North/ CentreCATH collaboration to coincide with Opera North's new commission, Skin Deep.

2 November 2008

America Elects

stage@leeds

Cultural and political commentators provide an insight into the race for the Whitehouse. A half-day conference to coincide with Opera North's new productions of Gershwin's Of The I Sing and Let 'em Eat Cake.

10 October 2008

Leeds Light Night

A multi-media project ‘ A Light in the Rhubarb Shed'  on the theme of the sound associated with growing of rhubarb by candlelight.  Performance by Opera North cellist Matt Sharp and students from the School of Performance & Cultural Industries.  Created and directed by Dr Kara McKechnie and Scott Palmer, School of Performance and Cultural Industries.

http://www.lightnight.co.uk/leeds/index.php

5-7 September 2008

Music & the idea of the North

Leeds Town Hall

Speakers from the UK , US, Canada , Scandinavia , Germany , Italy and Russia explore relationships between music and northern identities across the globe.  Orchestra of Opera North perform Belshazzar's Feast.

http://www.leeds.ac.uk/music/research/conf_north.shtml

4 - 5 March 2008
4th Annual Film and Music Conference Bradford Film Festival
Shakespeare was the theme of this year's conference, hosted by The University of Leeds School of Music, the School of Art at Brunel University, and the National Media Museum, Bradford, and in association with the DARE collaboration. Highlights included a keynote interview with Patrick Doyle, and a master class hosted by Gary Carpenter. http://www.nationalmediamuseum.org.uk/
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/music/filmmusic/

30 January 2008
Shakespeare symposium University Of Leeds
http://www.dareyou.org.uk/main_stage/index.htm

December 2007
'Make Me'
The launch of new material exploring the making of Pinocchio, a new opera commissioned by Opera North.
http://www.dareyou.org.uk/learning/index.htm

23 - 25 November 2007
The Orpheus Myth in Modern Culture: conference
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/cath

18 September 2007
The Music of the Spheres
A day of discussion and experimentation between professionals and academics from a range of arts and science backgrounds on the theme of ‘Music /Harmony of the Spheres’ (the ancient Greek philosophical/ scientific notion).

29 June – 1 July 2007
Performing Literatures conference,University Of Leeds
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/theatre/conferences/performingliteratures

June 2007
OPUS at University Of Leeds
http://www.dareyou.org.uk/outreach/index.htm

28 April 2007
Collaborative project for National Association for Gifted and Talented Youth, University Of Leeds
http://www.dareyou.org.uk/outreach/index.htm

March 2007
Song, Stage, Screen 2 conference,University of Leeds
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/paci/songstagescreen.html

Monday 26 March 2007
Official launch of DARE

Opera North Centre in association with the University of Leeds,
The partnership between Opera North and the University of Leeds was officially launched with a champagne reception for 400 key influencers and stakeholders.
View launch event photos