Following recent claims that the UK’s dance graduates are lacking adequate performance skills, Luke Jennings questions whether this is a sign of a greater shift in contemporary dance.
It’s a spring morning, and I’m watching a contemporary dance class at the Trinity Laban conservatoire in Deptford, south-east London. The studio is large and airy, one of 13 such spaces in the building designed by the Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron, and the students, in their late teens and early 20s, watch as the teacher demonstrates the moves.
It’s a familiar scene to me. I trained as a dancer, and performed for 10 years before becoming a journalist. I’ve been in and out of studios like this for most of my life, and the teacher’s words “Pull up… Hold your backs… Feel the floor...” are the same as they always were. Except that in the 70s they were as often shouted as spoken. And if our limbs weren’t in the right place, teachers felt free to reposition them, sometimes forcibly. “You’re all gutless!” the school principal would snarl, as we balanced at the barre, legs quivering with strain.
Here, though, all is tranquil. Teachers don’t shout at students any more. But these are far from tranquil times in the British contemporary dance world. In April, a triumvirate of leading choreographers – Lloyd Newson, Akram Khan and Hofesh Shechter – issued a press release raising grave concerns about standards of training in the three main contemporary dance conservatoires. Specifically, Trinity Laban, Northern School of Contemporary Dance (NSCD) in Leeds, and London Contemporary Dance School (LCDS) in Euston. These publicly funded establishments, supposedly flagships of the government’s Music and Dance Scheme, produce about 150 graduates a year. And, apparently, they were failing... Keep reading on The Observer
It’s a spring morning, and I’m watching a contemporary dance class at the Trinity Laban conservatoire in Deptford, south-east London. The studio is large and airy, one of 13 such spaces in the building designed by the Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron, and the students, in their late teens and early 20s, watch as the teacher demonstrates the moves.
It’s a familiar scene to me. I trained as a dancer, and performed for 10 years before becoming a journalist. I’ve been in and out of studios like this for most of my life, and the teacher’s words “Pull up… Hold your backs… Feel the floor...” are the same as they always were. Except that in the 70s they were as often shouted as spoken. And if our limbs weren’t in the right place, teachers felt free to reposition them, sometimes forcibly. “You’re all gutless!” the school principal would snarl, as we balanced at the barre, legs quivering with strain.
Here, though, all is tranquil. Teachers don’t shout at students any more. But these are far from tranquil times in the British contemporary dance world. In April, a triumvirate of leading choreographers – Lloyd Newson, Akram Khan and Hofesh Shechter – issued a press release raising grave concerns about standards of training in the three main contemporary dance conservatoires. Specifically, Trinity Laban, Northern School of Contemporary Dance (NSCD) in Leeds, and London Contemporary Dance School (LCDS) in Euston. These publicly funded establishments, supposedly flagships of the government’s Music and Dance Scheme, produce about 150 graduates a year. And, apparently, they were failing... Keep reading on The Observer