Scottish Youth Dance Takes Over
This March both YDance and Go Dance are bringing together youth groups from across Scotland to dance. The Skinny looks at the importance of these events and chats to the Urbaniks Street School.
Dance is an art form that inherently lends itself to youth – not least because of the pressures it can put the body and the required flexibility and technique that is much, much harder to pick up in your middle ages, or even in your 20s. So much of the dance that hits our theatres, however, comes courtesy of seasoned professionals at the peak of their careers, so when not one but two organisations are giving these stages to youth groups, exposing them to new audiences and providing them with the chance to work and perform as if in one of these more established companies, it’s time for the dance world to sit up and pay attention.
YDance, or Scottish Youth Dance, bring their Destinations project to the Tramway stage for the first time in five years, after a previous residence at the MacRobert in Stirling. Meanwhile at the Theatre Royal, Go Dance return, bringing youth groups from all over Scotland to perform as part of a small festival. Each of these organisations offers these young dancers the chance to network, to perform and gives them a goal to aim for. Always supporting up and coming talent, The Skinny took the chance to talk to those involved in both events, and to find out more about the expansive youth dance scene in Scotland.
Routes: bringing youth dance groups together
Destinations is but one strand of YDance’s year and is part of the Routes programme, which aims to bring youth groups from all over Scotland together to share their work, collaborate and make new connections. For the Destinations day itself, 13 different youth groups will come together, spending the entire day rehearsing before performing in the evening for a live audience. “It’s a long day, but it goes really fast,” says Katrina Moohan, one of the members of the YDance team. It must be exhilarating and a little intimidating for the kids to perform as they may in a professional tour, with less than one full day to rehearse and prepare in the space.
“It gives them the opportunity to meet other youth dance groups and to learn about what’s going on in Scotland in terms of youth dance; what’s going on in different areas,” says Moohan. “You never know what opportunities are going to come up. In 2014 we had the Commonwealth dance festival which set up lots of exchange programmes for dancers to go abroad as well.”
This exposure to something new or different is key to continuing to improve, especially for those who go on to pursue dance as a career. This year’s YDance features many different styles, from the street dance of New Era to the Scottish Ballet Youth Exchange to the classical fusion of Ihayami Fusion’s Shakthi exploring the female energy.
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The same variety and energy can be found over at Go Dance at the Theatre Royal, spanning five nights. We spoke to Pauline Joseph of the Urbaniks dance school about their involvement in Go Dance and what the youth dance scene in Scotland looks like, outwith these festivals and performance opportunities.
“They love it. For us, Go Dance is a pinnacle point in our year,” she says of the young dancers coming to Go Dance. “It’s really a highlight of their year because a lot of our dancers are used to the competitive circuit and trying to achieve championship level. Go Dance is not to be judged, it’s to be viewed and watched and enjoyed and that’s what dance should be. It’s lovely to get back to dancing because you’ve created something for an audience, not just because you want to win.”
Beyond that, the opportunity to perform in professional theatre comes in a close second. “They’ll rarely in their lives got to perform in a theatre as brilliant as the Theatre Royal, to be part of something with many difference dance styles,” Joseph continues. “It’s culturally very developmental for our pupils to do something like that.” As with YDance, it is once again about networking and affording the opportunity, and the exposure that these dancers may not find elsewhere: “We don’t often get the opportunity to go to a big theatre and sit and watch dance, and they always learn something from it. It’s lovely to hear them come away and say, ‘I really loved that ballet and I didn’t expect to,’ and ‘that college piece – that’s the college I want to go to.’ You have to ask: would you have been exposed to that if it wasn’t for Go Dance? And the answer is probably no.”
Street dance and young performers
Despite extolling the joys of a break from the competitive circuit, the company increasingly excel – particularly at the UDO World Street Dance Championships, with their group The Honeys reigning as British champions and second in the world, while The U Crew are fourth in the world. Joseph puts it down to their ethos that, while you might have to tick boxes for judges, it's better to take risks. “Why do we have to do what the format says, that means everything will be the same forever?” She adds, in the words of her husband and the school’s artistic director Paul Joseph: “Know your foundations, know where the dance styles that you’re working on came from, know your techniques, but then artistically you have to go with your soul. I think it’s that combination, that we’re not just copying what everyone does. Artistically we break the mould a little bit. It was really nice for us to change the scene back in the early 90s so why not continue to do that?”
The leader of The Honeys is 16-year-old Honey Joseph, who is a key part of the family business. “She’s had a creative advantage: she was born into a dance family where mum and dad were dance teachers and choreographers, and we made our own music and we make our own productions. She’s seen that, she’s developed into it and therefore she’s been able to start her own creative path much earlier than others would,” Pauline says, though it’s clear that it is not just luck but also drive that has led to her success. “Honey first asked when she was just turning 13 – she said, ‘I would like to create a team dance, work with a group, I think I can do that.’ The first competition we ever did, there were 22 other dance teams in her age category alone and she came first. At 13 her choreography, her creation, her music choice beat them all. From then on she’s never looked back.”
Honey, and this ethos itself, is a shining example of what this youth scene in Scottish Dance can create. From schools like Urbaniks to YDance, Destinations and Go Dance, Scotland is giving its young performers incredible opportunities, and it’s raising a generation of talented and driven young performers. “Basically it’s just sharing the love of dance,” concludes Joseph. “Getting all these different walks of life together to share their love of dance – that’s the beauty of it.”
Destinations, YDance, Tramway, 5 Mar, 7:30pm.
Go Dance, Theatre Royal, 1-5 Mar, times vary.