Overview- ICDS

LCDT/LCDS

• LCDS- founded in 1966

• LCDT- founded in 1967

• Started when Martha Graham performed in London in 1954, which was seen by Robin Howard (a London businessman)

• Due to his disappointment when the Graham Company was not visiting the UK in 1962, he gathered support and pledged some of his own money to allow them to do so

• In 1963 he enabled British dancers to study Graham in New York

• In 1966, Howard designed to establish a school where modern dance could be taught and a theatre where it could be performed- LCDT (originally called London Contemporary Dance Group) and LCDS (originally called the Contemporary Dance Trust)

• Started out as a series of moveable classes until they found a permanent home at The Place

• Many of its earliest students has little dance training- includes Richard Alston, Siobhan Davies, Sally Potter, Jacky Langley and Fergus Early

• In the early days, a variety of styles were taught including Cunningham, Limon and Nikolais

• In 1967, Robert Cohan visited the trust and stayed as Director

• Due to his background in Graham technique, the LCDT and LCDS’ style was heavily influenced by Graham technique

• Despite the Graham influence, the LCDT did develop its own brand of poetic lyricism offset by dramatic intensity

• The company was mainly made up of dancers from the LCDS, however other dancers were supported

• Students at LCDS were encouraged to choreograph their own work, which resulted in many successful dancer-choreographers:

  • Richard Alston

  • Micha Bergese

  • Siobhan Davies

  • Darshan Sing Bhuller

  • Anthony van Laast

  • Jonathan Lunn

• The company moved from small scale theatres and halls to eventually large scale theatres/touring

• They has their first Sadlers Wells season in 1972

• There was critical and audience acclaim and significant financial support

• They made the public realise that dance was more than just ballet

• Young audiences responded well to their choreography, modern scores and exciting lighting and design

• Despite its success, the LCDT disbanded in 1994, partially due to the loss of Cohan from the position of Artistic Director in 1993, as well as the company being forces to focus on what generated income rather than challenging dance and creativity

• One of the characteristics of LCDS 2000-current is collaborations

• LCDS continues to develop dancers and choreographers that are working as part of the LCDS today

• They take students from across the UK, EU and around the world

Richard Alston- Strider

• Alston joined the LCDS in 1967, describing The Place at the time as “very erratically organised which allowed for a lot of freedom” and that there was a “great interest in alternative work back then”

• Due to this freedom Alston was one of the early students who were encouraged to create and experiment with his own style of choreography

• He eventually moved on from LCDT as he:

  • Was not particularly interested in the Graham techniques Despite

  • Wanted to take risks in his work (Which did not dit with LCDT’s aim to appeal to wider audiences)

  • There was too many ideas and students at The Place for it to function simple as a training centre for LCDT

• In 1972 he took three other dancers from The Place who he found interesting and who weren’t going to join the company and formed Strider

• Strider was the first independent company to deal with modern/post-modern dance

• To summarise the work of strider:

  • Alston’s approach was much more formal than the dramatic Graham-based style of LCDT

  • Was influences by a combination of Cunningham technique, ballet and T’ai Chi

  • Taking dance to unusual venues

  • Not all of the work was created by Alston- other company members contributed works

  • Some of the work was closer to performance art than dance

  • The company became interested in the work of Mary Fullerton and spent time learning about release and contact improvisation

  • Work that concentrated on basic principles of dance

  • Some works were improvised during the performance and some were site-specific

  • Strider only survived for 3 years but it was a formative influence in establishing an independent Modern Dance sector in Britain and contributing to the New Dance Movement

New dance/ballet makers

• A mini revolution that began in roughly the 1960s/70s

• Focussed on choreographic experiment and the attempt to alter the way people thought about dance

• Was never organised by a single group of people and never has a strictly defined aim

• Theresa Early- founded Ballet Makers which took the first steps in showing how dancers and choreographers could organise themselves independently of the major established companies at the time

  • She was not suited to being a professional classical dancer, so instead wanted to choreograph and dance in new ways, setting up the company with others who shared her drustrations

  • Worked on an open door policy- anyone could join

  • By the mid 1960s more classes were held in modern dance techniques

• By 1967, LCDT was in its formative stages and used the annual ballet-makers performance to present some of its work

• “The fact that it was a collective organisation gave people the freedom to create their own work was to prove an invaluable example for future groups to follow”

The most important philosophies the New Dance movement was built on were:

1. Dance takes many forms, all of which should be taken as seriously as baller

2. Dancers and choreographers must be able to produce and perform whatever kind of dance they want and should be free to work outside established companies

3. Dance is not just a highly specialised profession, it is a basic part of living and anyone should be encouraged to do it, no matter what age, shape or colour they are

4. Dance should not be divorced from the real world. Dancers should be encouraged to think about the politics and economics of their situation, and choreographers should not be scared of presenting work that makes some kind of statement about society

5. Dancers and choreographers should be given equal funding and artists working in other fields

Dartington College

• Important centre for activity in the contemporary dance scene based in Devon

• The work at this institution and by key practitioners was crucial in the birth and development of New Dance and styles of movement we still see within the ICDS 2000-current

• In the 1940s and 50s, Darlington had been associated with Europe an modern dance- Rudolph Laban and Kurt Jooss made their base there

• By 1963 there was an established course for modern dance mainly based on Graham technique

• Mary Fullerton was invited over from America in 1973, bringing frustrations she had encountered within her own training such as a competitive atmosphere, classes taught as repetition rather than personal exploration

• She offered classes that allowed students to discover their own style of moving

• She introduced release technique and contact improvisation to Britain, which were already popular in America

• Fulkerson developed her own choreography using improvisation, non-dancers, props, costumes and sections of spoken narrative

• Many of the choreographers that later were associated with New Dance were trained by or had a connection to Fulkerson

X6 Collective

• The X6 dance collective was formed by a small group of dancers including Ferguson Early

  The main reasons for starting it was:

  • To give practical help to those dancers and choreographers who were no longer in the protective environment of institutes like The Place

  • Finding space that was cheap, warm and large enough to rehearse/create in

  • Finding teachers with whom to take class and having a place in which to share and discover new ideas were continual problems for many independent artists

  • If new work was to be preformed, the additional problems of finding the dancers, of booking a suitable venue and of getting out advance publicity were even more difficult to solve

• The group moved into a well-lit room with a wooden floor in an unused dockland building at Butler’s Wharf

• The classes and workshops were open to anyone who wanted to attend and covered a wide range of movement techniques

• Performances by X6 were often experimental as a result of their small informal space, varied backgrounds and influences and their overtly political stance

• The fact that they were a collective presented a challenge to the dominant conservatoire model that had survived from ballet

• They created a non-hierarchical network of independent artists that today is a much more familiar model

• While by 1980 many artists had started to loose interest in X6’s ‘turgid politics’ or the lack of finished work there is little doubt that X6 had left an impact on British dance by showing that very different ways of making dance were possible

Dance Umbrella

• In the late 1970s there was enough dance activity happening in Britain to generate festivals or showcases to share the independent work

• There were three major dance festivals- ADMA, Dance at Darlington and Dance Umbrella

• The idea for Dance Umbrella mainly came from the arts council and arts administrators

• It was in 1977 that Noel Goodwin suggested that London needed a dance festival

• Val Bourne along with a colleague wad asked to write a proposal for DU

• Later Matthew Bourne became director for the festival until 2006

• The parts Council of Great Britain (ACGB) funded the festival

Key facts:

• Bourne “could not have foreseen the extent to which DU would be instrumental in establishing the buoyant dance culture that now exists throughout the country”

• Pressure had been building to recognise dance as an art form as equally deserving of funding and encouragement for experimental projects

• Several small companies from the UK were scheduled to appear- all funded by the Arts Council

• Bourne proposed that the festival would need venues suitable for professional theatrical companies- the Institute of Contemporary Arts and Riverside Studios gave their support

The first DU festival included:

• Richard Alston and dancers

• Fergus Early

• Extemporary Dance company

• Janet Smith and Robert North

• Four American soloists

• The first festival included films, seminars, workshops and exhibitions

The aims of the first festival were

• Give British artists an opportunity to present their works in professional venues

• Focus public attention on an area of work thought to be worthy of support

• To prove that the public was interested in seeing the work

• DU had been set up as a one off project but members of the newly found DU board fought to continue to fund the project- it was then proposed that it would be an annual festival

• The second festival was held in 1980 in 5 venues

• The American dancers were all Post-Cunningham dancers, which were real eye-openers

• UK companies were mainly newly established, lacking professional experience

• British performers used political statements/ pure dance experiment/ theatrically based work

• The DU still exists today with the mission to celebrate 21st century choreography

• Their aim is to entice audiences, nurture artists, innovate practice and stimulate interest in the power of the body in motion

• Since 1978, Dance Umbrella has been bringing outstanding contemporary dance to London, presenting more than 739 artists from 34 countries to over one million people

• DU has commissioned over 80 new works and presented at 72 different venues

Key practitioners:

Siobhan Davies – danced for LCDT, Second Stride and set up her own company in 1988

Lloyd Newson set up DV8 in 1986. Their work has dealt with complex and relevant issues that are social, political and sexual in nature.

Lea Anderson formed the Cholmondleys in 1984 – an all-female group. Movement often based on stylized everyday actions.

1987 - Bourne Creates Adventures in Motion Pictures. Creating witty work that explores issues, but perhaps with less anger/bite than some choreographers at this time.

The move to dance (Contemporary dance) being exposed on television. In 1986 Channel 4 commissioned a television crew to work with Ian Spink, Siobhan Davies and a small group of dancers in order to find new ways of filming dance. The project sparked others to follow, with choreographers re-working pieces for small screen or making new works specifically for film. E.g. DV8, The Cholmondleys.

Contextual, historical and social information

2000- UK forces intervene in Sierra Leone to protect and evacuate foreign citizens caught up in the civil war.

2001-Foot and Mouth crisis. Labour party win general election. Conservatoire for Dance and Drama, a national higher education institution, is established, the founding affiliates being the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts and the London Contemporary Dance School. PM Tony Blair offers strong support for US-led campaign against international terrorism.

2002-Over 50% of the UK population (well over 30,000,000 people) now have internet access

2003- In London, more than 2,000,000people demonstrate against the Iraq War, the largest demonstration in UK history.

Sales of the DVD format take the largest share of the UK home video market for the first time

2004- The population of England reaches fifty-one million

2005- A series of co-ordinated terrorist bombings strikes London's public transport system during the morning rush hour, killing more than fifty people and injuring hundreds. The Civil Partnership Act 2004 comes into force, granting same-sex couples similar legal rights to those of married heterosexuals.

First ever YouTube video was posted

2007- Gordon Brown succeeds Tony Blair as prime minister and Labour leader.

Smoking Ban in public places UK came in to force

2008-The government part-nationalises three leading UK banks with a 37-billion-pound rescue package. There is a ‘global credit crunch.’

2009-Britain withdraws bulk of its remaining troops in southern Iraq. The UK economy comes out of recession, after figures show it grew by 0.1% in the last quarter of 2009

2010-General election: Conservative Party wins most seats but fails to gain an absolute majority. Coalition is formed with Liberal Democrats. Large-scale public spending cuts aimed at reducing UK's budget deficit announced.

2011- Prince William marries Catherine Middleton at Westminster Abbey. Barack Obama announces Osama Bin Laden has been killed. The killing of a 29-year old man by police sparks widespread riots and looting in poorer areas of London, as well as in several other English cities.

2012- London hosts the Olympics and Paralympics. It is the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II marking her power for 60years.

2013- Prime Minister David Cameron proposes a referendum on whether to leave the European Union after the next election. Prince George was born in July. A soldier, Lee Rigby, is hacked to death in south London by two Islamic extremists.

2014- Voters in a referendum in Scotland reject independence, with 55% opting to remain part of the United Kingdom. The Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa begins.

2015- Conservative Party confounds polls by winning majority in general election for first time since 1992.

Princess Charlotte was born in May.

2016- Political crisis after voters in a referendum opt to leave the European Union. David Cameron resigns, succeeded as prime minister by his home secretary, Theresa May.

2017- Prime Minister Theresa May calls an early parliamentary election for June, seeking a larger majority to strengthen her hand in negotiating over Britain's exit from the European Union.

Terror Attacks – London Bridge, Manchester

Donald Trump inaugurated as 45th President of USA.

Grenfell Tower fire

Stylistic features

From understanding the history and development of Contemporary dance in Britain we have to find the characteristics of the ICDS from 2000-current. In some ways, we are finding the characteristics of ‘New Dance’ in Britain today. Many of the characteristics and concerns of New Dance can be seen or applied to the ICDS 2000-current.

Overview of the characteristics/concerns of New Dance:

Liberation:

 Challenged the established conventions and perceived restraints of Ballet and Modern Dance in the 60’s & 70’s

 This was in part driven by the work of the Post Modernists in America that some of the choreographers of the New Dance era had experienced e.g. Alston working with Merce Cunningham

Shift Towards Individuality:

 Particularly in movement choices – the eclecticism of dance language

 Juxaposition of structural devices & form

 Interaction of dance with the culture, economics and politics of its day

Body & Dance Language:

 Technical training Vs the untrained body

 Idiosyncratic movement – a personal movement style rather than a codified dance language

 Pedestrian movement – the work of Steve Paxton was of particular interest

 Use of gesture to imply meaning

 New ways of moving – ‘borrowing’ ideas from other cultures or from other movement disciplines e.g. T’ai Chi, Alexander Technique, Martial Art forms

 Fusion of different dance styles – two or more

 Contact Improvisation – ‘physical laws of mass, gravity, momentum, inertia demanding sensitivity, support and accommodation between two people”

 Freedom of Improvisation alone or through contact

Themes and Issues:

 Challenges to the establishment in terms of: Political themes, social themes, explicit sexual imagery, subverting the highly stylised gestures of Modern Dance.

 Autobiographical elements

NEW FORMS OF STAGING

• Non-theatrical venues

• Out of the theatre into public spaces

• Site-specific choreography

• Props, Sound & Lighting as important as the

choreography itself, with movement working

around the manipulation of props and set

MUSIC

• No single musical trend discernible in the work associated with New Dance or the Independent Contemporary Dance Scene, except a sense of unrestricted choice.

• Some choreographers have worked with silence and some have followed the example of Cunningham and Cage using music as an independent adjunct to the choreography – both elements developed independently.

• Some choreographers have choreographed directly to the music or developed the music and dance through the collaborative process.

• Eclectic mix of musical styles and use of sound.

Alternative Approaches to Movement & Choreography

• Some dancers and choreographers feel constricted by working inside ‘set’ techniques like ballet, Graham or Cunningham and finding their own movement languages.

• Fusion of different dance styles to create something new

• Eclectic mix of dance styles and other movement sources used within choreography

• Use of physical theatre movement sources: contact improvisation, use of pedestrian/every day gesture.

Cross-Over with Other Art Forms

• Acting

• Song

• Cabaret

• Live music

• Media & Film

• Technology

• Physical Theatre

Collaborations

• Works created as a result of a collaborative process between choreographer, visual artist & designers and composers.

Narrative & Politics

• Works that reflect, comment or seek to provoke and challenge the audience in relation to current social and political issues.

Embracing cultural similarities and differences

• Exploring cultural heritage, identify and diversity through movement vocabulary and thematic exploration.

Named practitioners:

• Jasmin Vardimon

• Hofesh Shechter

• Shobana Jeyasingh

• Matthew Bourne

• Akram Khan

Jasmin Vardimon:

Jasmin Vardimon is interested in acute observations of human behaviour and social constructions. Often her work is interested in politics and psychology, which probably stems from her upbringing in Kibbutz in Israel (like Hofesh Shechter) and her background as a psychological interviewer.

Why has she stayed in the UK to create her work? And how does she represent or contribute to the key characteristics of the ICDS in Britain 2000-current?

 “The dance community here is very versatile. The art form is varied. The English are very supportive of the variety. They want as wide a range as possible. It has created a very colourful texture,” she said, adding, “It’s a very multicultural place. There are a lot of influences. There are a lot of cultures and ways of thinking and behaving. That’s what I’m excited about as a creator, as an artist. Interpreting codes of behaviour.” 

Hofesh Schechter

Multicultural /national company. Range is important as his work explores the nature of all humanity.

His work often has a political meaning, but is open to interpretation.

Maybe it is inevitable that his work is political due to his background and birth in Israel / Middle East – the political tension and war in the country now has an impact on him as a person and on the work he creates.

Shobana Jeyasingh

Shobana Jeyasingh has been creating dynamic, fearless and enigmatic dance works for almost 30 years. Born in Chennai, India, she currently lives and works in London. Her acclaimed, highly individual work has been witnessed in all kinds of venues, including theatres, outdoor and indoor sites and on film. Her work taps into both the intellectual and physical power of dance, and is rooted in her particular vision of culture and society.

Shobana’s work is often enriched by specially commissioned music composed by an array of contemporary composers — from Michael Nyman to beat-boxer Shlomo. Her eclectic band of creative collaborators have included filmmakers, mathematicians, digital designers, writers, animators, as well as lighting and set designers.

Lavishly honoured and awarded, Shobana has also made a significant contribution to dance in the UK and internationally through her published writings, papers, panel presentations and broadcast interviews.

Matthew Bourne:

Matthew Bourne’s work is Didactic, meaning it is intended to teach, particularly through having a moral instruction as an ulterior motive. Often this is an element of children’s stories and Bourne re-works older ballets and stories. Bourne clearly wants to explore messages about authority, gender, class and sexuality.

Bourne has been the UK’s biggest dance export for the last 10 years and one reason for this is that he reaches/appeals to a wide audience. Despite there being adult themes within his work there is still the ‘fairy-tale’ element that appeals to younger audiences/families.

Akram Khan:

Mission statement (website):

Akram Khan takes human themes and works with others to take them to new and unexpected places – embracing and collaborating with other cultures and disciplines.

Akram Khan is one of the most celebrated and respected dance artists today. In just over fifteen years he has created a body of work that has contributed significantly to the arts in the UK and abroad. His reputation has been built on the success of imaginative, highly accessible and relevant productions such as DESH, iTMOi, Vertical Road, Gnosis and zero degrees. Khan’s work is recognised as being profoundly moving, in which his intelligently crafted storytelling is effortlessly intimate and epic. 

The development of the Independent Contemporary Dance Scene

Sadler’s Wells

• By the end of the 20th century it was clear that the theatre needed redefining

• Their then chief executive Ian Albert decided to apply for National Lottery Funding

• It was a 54 million redevelopment that resulted in the theatre being closed for 2 years

• The opening season in 1998 brought work from Pina Bausch, William Forsythe, and Rambert Dance Company

• On 7th March 2005 the new director Alistair Spaulding inaugurated a new chapter in the transformation of Sadler’s Wells to a contemporary dance house

• Two commissions were announced, one of which was a collaboration between Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui , Akram Khan, Antony Gormley and Nitrin Sauhney

• In four months, ticket sales had risen by 40% and audiences were as healthy as 78%