In 1996 – 1997, activity continued in earnest under the new leadership of Brendan Keaney who came from his previous post as Dance Officer at Arts Council England.
The Meantime ’96 summer festival included Wild Child by Ludus Dance Company, billed as a ‘humorous yet challenging look at the child within us all’. Ludus worked with two schools within a week’s residency leading up to the performance and the young people performed alongside the company at gDA. On The House with its free day of dance tasters returned as well as Goat Island, a theatre, dance and live art performance company from Chicago with ‘How Dear to Me the Hour When Daylight Dies’. Adzido 12 brought the London premiere of Shango – God of Thunder and Juliana Brustik curated an Egyptian Cabaret along with Egyptian snacks and an opportunity at the end of the performances for the audience to get up and dance.
Flyers for meantime 96 and Adzido's Shango - God of Thunder
Night of Passion, gDA’s gay and lesbian cabaret night also returned (with audience members encouraged to hop on the free bus to The Albany to catch another show there the same evening) featuring artists including Bert Tyler Moore, Lorraine Bowen, Ursula Martinez and… (yes we blinked in amazement too)… Graham Norton!
Graham Norton performed at Greenwich Dance in the late 90s
1996 saw the opening of gDA’s Therapy Rooms offering craniosacral therapy, Alexander technique, dance movement therapy and sports massage. Other activities included a Healthier Dancer Roadshow in partnership with Dance UK and Laban covering stress management, nutrition, applied anatomy, injury prevention, warm up and cool downs. A Womens Week of Dance for all ages featured creative dance, Egyptian dance, salsa, contemporary, improvisation and jazz. June Gamble, working then with the Association of the African Diaspora, also curated a special week of professional class, which literature advertised would likely include artists such as Peter Badejo, Sheron Wray, Jeanefer Jean Charles and Claude Paul Henry.
In 1997 Edwards and Watton brought House of Delights – a giddy dance theatre fantasy, accompanied live by Haydn string quartets, to The Queens House and National Maritime Museum as part of Greenwich and Docklands International Festival.
A flyer for House of Delights
Sarah Trist offered How to Get Ahead in Touring – a one day course in partnership with The Place Dance Services. Gerri Morris offered Marketing for Dance as part of a collaboration with ITC and Lara Platman offered a course in Photoshop.
“One of the many ways Greenwich Dance supported me as an independent producer in the 1990s and early 2000s was to host the courses I ran on tour booking. The aim was to de-mystify the process for independent artists and other producers, to give tips on successful tour booking and share contacts. We even tried a bit of role play if I remember, with some taking the role of the tour booker, and some the role of the programmer. I know tour booking is not everyone’s favourite activity, but the courses got some people to be a bit less intimidated by it. Thank you Greenwich Dance for everything you did for me to help me in my career, and for the important role you continue to play in artist development.”
Sarah Trist
In addition to the popular line-up of teachers leading professional class which we listed in our last blog, new names appearing in 1996/1997 including Joan Skinner, Marie Chouinard, Dominique Dupuy, Jeanne Pierre Perreault, Wayne McGregor, Candoco Dance Company, Pushkala Gopal, Akshaya Dance Theatre, Amanda Britton, Shelley Baker, Fillip van Huffell, Carol Brown, Kirstie Simpson, Gaby Agis, Sushmita Gosh, Vidya Thirunarayan alongside class accompanists: Chris Benstead, Fiona Edwards, Stewart Fenwick, Annie Gillespie and Gary Hammond.
So many great memories about Greenwich Dance Agency. Starting in 1994 as Programme Manager, it was my first real proper job and I loved it!
I particularly remember working with Karen da Silva, who was the architect of the professional class programme. At the time the main daily class was at The Place near Euston and so for a lot of dancers who lived in South East London, it meant travelling at peak times into town. Karen wanted to offer an affordable, regular, great quality class, just after the peak travel threshold, so it was affordable and accessible to a whole community of dancers across south London.
One of the principles was to have the classes accompanied by live musicians – Chris Benstead, Fiona Edwards, Andy Cowton and Steve Blake – who really elevated the quality of the experience.
We also had amazing people teach class – Gill Clarke, Russell Maliphant, Lance Gries, Steve Paxton, Scott Clarke, David Steele, Erica Stanton, Trevor Waldron, Wendy Houston, Nigel Charnock, Duncan Mcfarland, Lauren Potter, Jamie Watton, Javier de Frutos and Yolande Snaith.
At one point we collaborated with Dance Umbrella, which was run by the legendary Val Bourne who was presenting American choreographer Elizabeth Streb. Elizabeth had been described as the Evel Knievel of contemporary dance, but her technique was also very accessible and she did incredible work in local schools who then performed at the Borough Halls alongside the main company show. It was the hottest ticket in town!
Karen and I met with Elizabeth at the local café in Greenwich train station to see if she would teach a professional class too. We were a bit intimidated as Elizabeth is a formidable creative force. But we put our best foot forward, explaining our philosophy at length, including the central principle of having live music. To which she replied ‘music is the true enemy of dance’. We didn’t quite know where to go from there – but needless to say we broke our live music rule and Elizabeth taught a spectacular class in complete silence. Almost two decades later I was at City Hall working with the Director of the Cultural Olympiad, Ruth Mackenzie dreaming up ideas for major commissions and Elizabeth came to mind. I tracked her down and she was delighted at the chance to think big for the Olympics. The eventual commission was called ‘One Extraordinary Day’ and company Streb took over the landscape of London – diving off millennium bridge, doing a breath taking walk down the front of City Hall, major set pieces in the historical City of London and Trafalgar Square and concluding with the dancers performing in the spokes of the London Eye. A stand out moment for the Cultural Olympiad and London, it made the front pages of all the newspapers – and all because of a connection made at Greenwich Dance Agency.
Justine Simons, Deputy Mayor of London for Culture and the Creative Industries, London
