Dance House: Creative Labs
Both Dance House in Glasgow and Edinburgh’s Dancebase are known for their wide range of classes and programmes. They also provide another service to the Scottish dance communities by offering space for choreographers to develop their work. Gareth K Vile speaks to Karen Wood, Creative Director at Dance House
Karen Wood’s programming at Dance House is based on clear principles. “I really wanted to rebuild the sense of the dance community in Glasgow, because it felt as if it had become fragmented.”
She approached this in three ways: by setting up workshops, aimed at introducing new techniques – “Each season has at least one training opportunity geared at professional dancers”; offering ‘Creative Labs’, week long residencies “to give artists space and time to explore ideas at their early stages”; and finally, “introducing the informal Friday Dance Cocktail – the sharing of work from the Creative Lab, a professional class and an opportunity for networking.”
Discussing February’s highlights, Karen pointed out the range of areas that Creative Labs support. “Black Swan Dance Theatre will hopefully be working towards next year’s Mental Health awareness festival – Emma Park is going to be exploring bi-polar disorder.”
If Black Swan engage with social issues, the following Lab demonstrates how art-forms cross-fertilise. “Anna Henson is an American at the art school doing the MFA. She took part in our dance for camera training and was hugely inspired and was keen to explore the techniques. She’s going to be working with a Glaswegian composer Kirsty Blackwood.”
After that, Sasha Kyle, a winner of the Directors’ Award at The Arches, will be working with dancers for her latest piece. The sharing at the end of each residency on a Friday afternoon offers the public a chance to see work-in-progress, and for the artists to receive informal feedback.