Oct 2018 | A NEW DANCE SPACE FOR MANCHESTER
To create a hothouse for dance and to make Manchester more of a dancing city, our Co-Artistic Directors, Kevin and Anthony, talk about the launch and vision for our new home.
We were delighted to officially launch our new dance space last Friday, when we hosted a celebratory event at our new home at Varna Street in Openshaw, Manchester. Based in a former primary school next door to Rogue Artists’ Studios, the move sees the old school hall now being used as a dance studio and the classrooms as office space, a greenroom and a training area.
At the launch event, the Company presented three short performances of excerpts from Trip, Push and Amaranthine, so guests could experience the feel of dance in the studio. Our Co-Artistic Directors, Kevin and Anthony also shared the Company’s vision for the space and its future.
Kevin said, “It’s amazing that after 10 years of Company Chameleon, we now have our own dance studio. The space opens up an array of possibilties for the Company and we’re already feeling and seeing the benefit of being able to do so much more in every way.”
Anthony explained, “The new space is already enriching our practice and choreographic work. We can now train, rehearse and research and daily, increasing depth with the gift of time and space. We can experiment with ideas, set, props, scale and sounds without the limitations and compromises we normally face with hired studios
Along with the new space opening up more creative and choreographic possibilities, it will also enable the Company to offer a regular programme of dance classes and workshops for the first time.
Kevin said, “We’ve been asked for years to run classes for kids, young adults, older adults, babies and toddlers, and we can now start doing all of these things. Not all at once, we will build the programme slowly over time, but our vision is to create a hothouse for dance with all sorts of classes taking place and all sorts of people using the space. From performance events, to contact jams, from classes for absolute beginners to classes for professional and practicing artists.”
“We whole heartedly believe in what dance can do and be,” said Anthony. “It transformed both mine and Kevin’s lives as young men, and this power has been reaffirmed over and over again as we’ve travelled the world working with people. This space gives us the opportunity to share this with even more people, on so many levels. It will help raise the visibility of dance and the way people perceive and experience it. In the process, we want to make Manchester more of a dancing city.”
Sign-up to our newsletter to find out more about our new workshop and classes programme at Varna Street. Further announcements later in the Autumn.
