My name is Khyle Eccles and I’m a strength and conditioning / performance enhancement coach for dancers, and I’m excited to have been asked to kick start this endeavour for Greenwich Dance: outdoor fitness classes for professional dancers in the grounds of their new home at Charlton House.
I’m super impressed that Greenwich Dance have taken this opportunity to support professional dancers beyond the studio, and invest in building a unique professional training community and culture. I’m ready!
To present myself in a nutshell:
I started in hip hop and break dance as a teenager, ventured into contemporary dance and dance theatre, and ended up at Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance (the transition from breakin’ to ballet was an interesting one). Since then I’ve spent the last ten years working as a freelance dancer with numerous makers on big and small scale productions across a variety of performance styles – aerial, contemporary, dance theatre, and stunts (the stunt work comes from working with Elizabeth Streb and her “extreme action company” in 2012, which saw me diving of 3 storey high platforms and hanging off the spokes of the London eye).
Many years ago I trained as a personal trainer, which led me to Strength and Conditioning, which led me to take my Dance Science Masters degree at Trinity Laban.
I now work for numerous training institutions and organisations – Trinity Laban, Urdang, Dance East, One Dance UK, Academy of Dramatic Arts Zagreb, Youth Music Theatre UK to provide Strength and conditioning and healthier performer education to support the growth and development of their students, dancers and companies.
I also keep my feet firmly rooted in contemporary dance theatre; teaching class and creating new work. I’m currently collaborating with Rachel Birch-Lawson on new work, ‘Unassailable Us’, set to be touring in 2019.
Because of this mixed professional profile, I tend to describe my job as being a “maker”. A maker of dance performance and dance performers. I love this combination and that I have the opportunity to creative along such a broad spectrum in the dance world!
The intention with the work that we’ll be doing in the grounds of Charlton House, is to take the opportunity to develop athletic ability to support technical capacity. It’s a “rain or shine” session, so it’s going to be interesting.
I’ll be looking at overall fitness, yes, but I’m hoping for it to be much more than that. From a body point of view, we want to develop tissue integrity, energy systems, recovery strategies, and overall work potential. We’re looking to achieve a supplementary training session that supports your work as a dance professional.
From a community point of view, it would be awesome to develop a training tribe. A tribe of like minded movers who can support and push each other to develop and improve their overall physical capacity.
Will it be glamorous? No! Will it be beneficial? Yes!
Let’s do this.
Dancers. Ready?
