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Independent Dance

Independent Dance ID runs an international programme of classes, workshops, research labs, events and talks.

Independent Dance (ID) is the UK's leading artist development organisation for dance. Founded in 1984, it has been artist-led ever since, working responsively to support dance artists in all roles, of all physicalities, and at all stages of career. We work with an international community, with a particular focus on inclusive body-based research enriched by cross-disciplinary and diverse approaches

. Through our year-round programme, we offer paid work to on average 80 artists every year. Our public programme includes classes and workshops, research spaces, talks and exchanges, led by internationally-renowned artists and inviting artists and audiences to deepen enquiry and exchange ideas. ID receives funding from Arts Council England as a National Portfolio Organisation (NPO) as part of a consortium with Siobhan Davies Dance, whose building we are based in. In 2019-20, ID’s portion of this funding is £71,068, which covers most of our core operating costs; salaries of our four part-time staff, office rent and administrative overheads which we aim to keep to a minimum. In addition, we raise funds through trusts and foundations and through individual donations. Our artistic programme exists on an income-generating basis, with earnings from curating and delivering an extensive programme aiming to cover costs.

11/04/2025

📣 We are delighted to share that this year Independent Dance is offering bursary awards to support practitioners to undertake MA/MFA Creative Practice: Dance Professional, a course led by Trinity Laban in partnership with Independent Dance and Siobhan Davies Studios.

We are offering 6 bursary awards of £500 each for students undertaking study in the academic year 2025-26, thanks to the generous support of the Choreographers’ Gallery.

This bursary fund will be specifically distributed to students who have identified personal caring responsibilities, and where these commitments to caring are proving to be prohibitive to them undertaking this course. It will also be available to students that are travelling from outside of London or the UK, as a contribution towards travel and accommodation.

👉 To apply, please submit a short statement, indicating your eligibility for the bursary. This can be a written statement (maximum 500 words), audio or video statement (maximum 2 minutes). Of the eligible applications, six will be randomly selected, using a random number generator.

🔗 For further information on eligibility criteria and how to apply, check out bit.ly/ID_MABursary2025

📅 Applications close 23:59 on 28 May 2025.
All applicants will be informed of the outcome by 18 June 2025.⁠

📷 Photo: MA/MFA Creative Practice: Dance Professional, Embodied Practice module. Class with 'Funmi Adewole Elliot. Photo, Heni Hale.

[Image Description: A blue-toned photograph taken inside the brightly lit Roof Studio. It features students on the MA/MFA Creative Practice programme. Some sit in the foreground a portion, watching the others dance. Upon the lower portion of the image blue text on a pink background reads: Independent Dance MA/MFA Creative Practice: Dance Professional Bursary Awards 2025.]

03/04/2025

One of our key aims at ID is to do everything we can to keep the costs of classes as affordable as possible. This can be tricky, as we balance rising costs elsewhere, which includes balancing our commitment to paying artists an appropriate rate to deliver the classes. Each year we consider this very carefully and do our best. This year we are making what we hope will be a manageable increase from this coming term and we will continue to do our best to keep our programme as affordable as possible.

👉️ The cost of an individual class is rising from £8 to £9.

👉️ Class cards are now £70 for 10 classes - meaning the saving offered remains £20. Class cards can be used for Morning Classes and Monday Night Improvisation and are valid for one year from the date of purchase.⁠

Booking opens at 11am, 9 April and our programme for Morning Class and Monday Night Improvisation starts 28 April 2025.⁠

🔗 To purchase a class card, head to bit.ly/idclasscard

📨 Join our e-flyer list to be amongst the first to know about all things ID coming up: bit.ly/IDMailingList

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[Image Description: A landscape image is set in the roof studio at Siobhan Davies Studios and focuses on a participant's hands raised in the air.]

01/04/2025

🌸 We have now come to the end of the Spring class programme! Thank you to all the artists who have shared their practice:⁠
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Amy Voris, Jessica Lerner, Funmi' Adewole Elliott, Nathaniel Parchment⁠
Thomas Kampe, Caroline Scott, Gaby Agis, Mira Hirtz, Franzi Boehm, Francesca Matthys, Bakani Pick-Up, Isaac Ouro-Gnao, Eve Stainton, AD Kerton, Ben Ash, Rachel Gomme, Xan Dye, Savannah Theis, Shivaangee Agrawal, Yewande 103, Susan Kempster and Fernanda Muñoz-Newsome.⁠
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✨ We also want to thank all who supported our Spring programme, whether that be attending class, giving feedback, engaging in discussions, or sharing ID's programme with your communities. ⁠
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👉️ We are currently taking a break over the holidays and classes will return on 28 April 2025. Booking opens for the first half of the Summer class programme on 9 April 2025, 11am. ⁠
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📷️ Image credits: ⁠Amy Voris photo by Christian Kipp. Jessica Lerner photo by Tanya Syed. 'Funmi Adewole Elliott photo by David Lindsay. Nathaniel Parchment photo by Alessandro Sigismondi. Thomas Kampe photo by Christian Kipp. Caroline Scott photo by Sarah Mason.⁠ Gaby Agis photo by Derek Linzey. Mira Hirtz photo by Adele Watts. Franzi Boehm photo by Robin Beumier.⁠ Francesca Matthys photo by Bilal Singh.⁠ Isaac Ouro-Gnao photo by Ashley Karrell.⁠ Bakani Pick-Up photo by Abbie Jennings.⁠ Eve Stainton photo by Paul Blakemore.⁠ AD Kerton photo by Alina Usurelu.⁠ Ben Ash photo by Paula Puncher. Rachel Gomme photo by Sonia P Sanchez Lopez. Xan Dye photo by Henri T.⁠ Shivaangee Agrawal photo by Karol Wyszynski.⁠ Yewande 103. Susan Kempster, photo by Elena Fortin⁠⁠. Savvanah Theis, photo by Maja Renn. Fernanda Muñoz-Newsome photo by Stefan Korte.⁠
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[Image Descriptions: Four images each divided into 5 or 6 strips showing a mixture of colourful and black and white images of the Morning Class and Monday Improvisation Night artists.]

17/03/2025

Come as you are to Fernanda Muñoz-Newsome's morning class next week. Explore grounding into moving, and dropping into dancing through somatic enquiry and in practices of listening and actioning 🌱

📅 Monday 24 – Friday 28 March, 10am-12pm
📍 Venue: Siobhan Davies Studios, London, SE1 6ER
🎟️ £8 / £6 with a class card
🔗 More information and booking here via our website: independentdance.co.uk/event/morning-class-fernanda-munoz-newsome/2025-03-24/

Ground into presence through being and becoming, and dancing into awareness in solo and relational practices.

In the mix will be – guided movement explorations, tuning sensory information, moving and witnessing, infant movement development patterns and body work. Work with experiencing and tuning perception into doing and orienting to our body-minds, the space and others.

This is the last week of our Spring class programme, until we return for the Summer programme on 28 April. More information to follow in the next few weeks – sign up to our e-flyer to stay updated ✉️

📷️ Fernanda Muñoz-Newsome. Photo, Stefan Korte.

[Image Description: A naturally lit space, a disused swimming pool with no water in it. There are six people in paired configurations of sitting and laying. This image is cool toned.]

13/03/2025

Tomorrow's Morning Class will be led by Savannah Theis, who will share tools from her 'Symptom Scores' practice, exploring symptoms as creative 'dreaming' material ☁️

📅 Friday 14 March, 10am-12pm
📍 Venue: Siobhan Davies Studios
🎟️ £8 or £6 with a class card
Booking via the link below

‘Symptom Scores’ is an evolving research project, comprising movement workshops, collective sense-making processes, and experiments for participatory performance. Informed by a somatic and political lens, the project explores possibilities for experientially unfolding information within bodily symptoms and reflecting on patterns they hold for us individually and collectively. Underpinning this is the idea from Processwork, that symptoms have a social context and are not only our own but expressions of a wider field of experiences and relations.

🔗 To find out more about Savannah's class, head to our website: https://independentdance.co.uk/programme/category/classes/morning-classes/

📷️ Photo: Savannah Theis, Symptom Scores at Rote Fabrik Zürich. Photo Maja Renn.

13/03/2025

Susan Kempster leads Monday Night Improvisation next week with a focus on connection, flow, and instant composition through her ‘threading’ practice 🪢

📅 Monday 17 March, 6.30pm-8pm⁠
📍 Siobhan Davies Studios, SE1⁠
🎟️ £8 / £6 a class with a Class Card⁠ ⁠
🔗 Book your spot via bit.ly/ID_MNISusan

You are invited to explore holding hands throughout, weaving in and out to find flow, and later negotiating shifting dynamics. The session will build deep listening, presence, and responsiveness, encouraging a strong sense of human connection.

📨 If you are no longer able to attend class, it is helpful if you can let us know so we may pass the space on to someone else.

📷 Susan Kempster. Photo, Elena Fortin

[Image Description: Four dancers, one of which is Susan holding hands, intertwining and in a studio space].

12/03/2025

Scholarships are on offer from Trinity Laban for Postgraduate applicants studying MA/MFA Dance programmes:

🌀 Leverhulme Arts Scholarships
🌀 Audrey Wethered Scholarship
🌀 Lisa Ullman Trust Dance Scholarships

🔗 Find out more here: https://bit.ly/TLScholarships

The MA/MFA Creative Practice: Dance Professional is a pathway led by in partnership with Independent Dance and .⁠

This programme supports practitioners to develop their artistic practice in a stimulating environment of intellectual, collaborative and creative inquiry, and to:

👉 Reflect on their body of professional experience and their ongoing learning
👉 Engage in intensive research with renowned artists and a skilled peer group
👉 Deepen their practice as performers/makers/facilitators
👉 Develop their understanding of a range of research methodologies and 👉 Pursue their own area of artistic interest
👉 Become part of a growing international community of artists which continues to evolve beyond the programme
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Two core modules, Embodied Practice and Investigative Practice, are led by Independent Dance and held at Siobhan Davies Studios. They run as intensive 5-week blocks with the aim to make it more possible for students to continue professional commitments outside of the course during the rest of the year.

🔗 To find out more about the course, check out the link in our bio⁠ https://bit.ly/CreativePracticeMAMFA

📷 Photo credit: Unravelling by Emma Hoette, performers Kate Brown, Franzi Boehm, Lydia Swift, Loe D'Arcy, Emma Hoette. MA Creative Practice 2024.

[Image Description: a photograph of a dark studio space, lit by cool toned images of snowy mountains projected onto the walls. A group of about 4 dancers are on the right hand side of the image. They are camouflaged by the projections. Witnessing them are a small group of people sitting in silhouette.]
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10/03/2025

Morning Class next week is led by Yewande 103, ⁠with the invitation to hold one another in our watching and our changing. To allow the detail of dancing, the hum and thud of heartbeats, the gentle transformations and development of constellations both bodily and cosmic. 🌌
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📅 17-21 March, 10am -12pm⁠
📍 ⁠ , Siobhan Davies Studios, SE1
🎟️ £8 / £6 with a class card⁠
🔗 Book via bit.ly/ID_MCYewande103
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Drawing from the company’s new work ‘Many Lifetimes’, Yewande 103 founder - Alexandrina Yewande Hemsley, has invited the dance collaborators currently involved in the creative process to share elements from their own practices across this week. Central enquiries include into change, loss and bearing witness.

Teaching Artists across the week:
Monday 17th March - Alexandrina Yewande Hemsley
Tuesday 18th March - Rudzani Moleya
Wednesday 19th March - Greta Mendez and Rickay Hewitt-Martin
Thursday 20th March - Alice Tatge
Friday 21st March - Pierre Babbage

Each class will be relaxed in nature. Participants can come and go as they need and there will be places to sit, pause and rest within the roof studio.

✏️ Please bring writing materials, for example a notebook, tablet, voice memo tech etc.

📷 Photo Credit: Many Lifetimes, Yewande 103. Left to right: Alexandrina Hemsley, B, Rickay Hewitt-Martin, Pierre Babbage, Rudzani Moleya, Alice Tatge. Photo, Katarzyna Perlak.
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.mendez.16 .co
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[Image Description: Six artists dancing in a dance studio; reaching, bending and turning their bodies at different levels and planes. There are then 4 luminescent light boxes scattered from foreground to background in the order: orange, green, blue and furthest away white].

05/03/2025

Monday Night Improvisation with Shivaangee Agrawal next week will delve into rhythmic patterns, footwork and sound-making as you experience collective moving 👣

📅 Monday 10 March, 6.30pm-8pm⁠
📍 Siobhan Davies Studios, SE1⁠
🎟️ £8 / £6 a class with a Class Card⁠ ⁠
🔗 Book your spot here: bit.ly/ID_MNIShivaangee

This class invites you to pay close attention to the experience of moving together as a group, inspired by the spatial patterns that constitute different folk dances. Frameworks that begin in collective patterns will gradually unravel, allowing you to orient towards autonomy, personal curiosity and freedom. In this permissive space, expect lots of sound, music and noise.

📨 If you are no longer able to attend class, it is helpful if you can let us know so we may pass the space on to someone else. ⁠
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📷: Shivaangee Agrawal. Photo, Karol Wyszynski.

[Image Description: Among 3 shadowed bodies that pace quietly, a young woman sits splayed on the ground with her right arm raised in a symbol of defiance. Face turned in profile, her brown skin glows in the warm light].

03/03/2025

Xan Dye will lead Morning Class next week, ⁠with the offers of simple invitations for sensing, attuning and moving, exploring how rhythm and repetition can support self-regulation and collective release. 😌
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📅 10-14 March, 10am -12pm⁠
📍 ⁠ Siobhan Davies Studios, SE1
🎟️ £8 / £6 with a class card⁠
🔗 Book via bit.ly/IDMorningClasses
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The class will be a space to lean into pleasure, give permission for what feels needed and explore emergent desires. Xan is interested in muddying and shapeshifting through a multiplicity of experiences and expressions.
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📷 Xan Dye. Photo, Henri T.

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[Image Description: Landscape photo of Xan in the corner of a bright, white dance studio with a shiny black floor, with a mirror behind. They are pressing at floor level, pressing their back into the corner, head on the ground, hips elevated, weight distributed between a hand and a knee. They are wearing a white vest, greyish brown trousers cropped below the knee, black socks and black trainers. Their hair is dark brown, mostly buzz-cut with bleached blond tendrils around their face and neck].

27/02/2025

Rachel Gomme approaches movement through the material body interacting with and responding to the material world around us in Monday Night Improvisation next week 🌎⁠

You are invited to explore the self as embodied matter, participants will track the various textures, densities and flows of different body tissues, and how these emerge and interweave in movement. ⁠

🔗 To see the full Monday Night Improvisation programme, head to: bit.ly/IDMondayNightImprov

📅 Mondays, 6.30pm-8pm⁠
📍 Siobhan Davies Studios, SE1⁠
🎟️ £8 / £6 a class with a Class Card⁠ ⁠
⁠
📨 If you are no longer able to attend class it is helpful if you can let us know so we may pass the space on to someone else. ⁠
⁠
📷 Rachel Gomme. Photo, Sonia P Sanchez Lopez/Pulp & Pith⁠

[Image description: An image taken from below looks up at Rachel dancing in vivid red clothing. She stands on one leg with both arms outstretched palms facing outwards].
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25/02/2025

Ben Ash will lead Morning Class next week, with explorations of solo practice together, in clearly defined relational frames such as pairs, trios and scored group situations that arise, change and dissolve 🔬

📅 3-7 March, 10am -12pm⁠
📍 Siobhan Davies Studios, SE1
🎟️ £8 / £6 with a class card⁠
🔗 Book via bit.ly/IDMorningClasses

Themes for Ben's practice may include references drawn from Biodynamic Craniosacral therapy, embryological developmental movement motifs, embodied anatomy, physiology, philosophical koans and more.

📷: Ben Ash in ~ snakeskin in the wild ~ Photo, Paula Puncher

[Image Description: A black and white landscape image showing a dark silhouette of Ben behind an opaque sheet].

24/02/2025

🔎 Find out more about the MA/MFA Creative Practice: Dance Professional at the next Postgraduate Virtual Open Evening!⁠
⁠
Postgraduate Virtual Open Evening⁠
📅 19 March, 6pm-7.30pm (GMT)⁠
📍 Zoom, online⁠
⁠
👉️ To find out more and book, check out the link in our bio!⁠ ⁠
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This open evening is an opportunity to get to know what programmes are on offer, learn about its unique modules, speak with course leaders and see if it's the right fit for you. ⁠
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The MA/MFA Creative Practice: Dance Professional is a pathway that focuses on dance, and somatically informed movement research with contributions from leading artists of international renown.

The programme enables experienced practitioners from diverse creative disciplines and approaches to develop their artistic practice in a stimulating environment of intellectual enquiry and to explore the social, cultural and political relevance of movement and body-based creative practices.

Two core modules, Embodied Practice and Investigative Practice, are led by Independent Dance and held at Siobhan Davies Studios. ⁠
⁠
This programme MA/MFA Creative Practice: Dance Professional is led by in partnership with Independent Dance and .⁠
⁠
📷️ Siin Lee's presentation/performance for the Investigative Practice module in 2023. Photo, Nikki Tomlinson.⁠

[Image Description: A blue tinted, portrait image of two performers dancing outside of Siobhan Davies Studios on the central pavement island in the road.]

21/02/2025

Returning & Deepening: a solo dance-making workshop with Amy Voris.⁠
⁠
📅 1-2 March, 12.30- 5.30pm⁠
📍 Venue: ⁠
🎟️ £75 day ticket / £110-£150 two-day ticket⁠
⁠
🔗 To find out more and book, head to: https://bit.ly/ID_AVReturningDeepening

This two-day intensive workshop invites experienced movers to delve deeper into their solo movement practice through gently guided explorations, prompts for improvisation and open frameworks for returning to movement. ⁠

Explore the relationship between subtle sensations of the body's internal landscape and your evolving movement vocabulary while in the company of others.

[Image description: White text on a pink background reads: "I am curious about how 'staying with' something might cultivate the qualities of discernment, insight, surprise, transformation and tolerance of inner variation in the presence of the dancer-maker" – Amy Voris, Returning & Deepening: a solo dance-making workshop, 1-2 March 2025].

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20/02/2025

AD Kerton's Monday Night Improvisation next week will bring you the opportunity to experientially explore, through movement, the unique expressive qualities of different fluids within our bodies 🌀

📅 Mondays, 6.30pm-8pm⁠
📍 Siobhan Davies Studios, SE1
🎟️ £8 / £6 a class with a Class Card⁠ ⁠

👉️ This class is now sold out but you can join the waiting list to added to a pool of interested participants. All will be notified when a space becomes available for booking via our website. Spaces are available on a first-come first-served basis. ⁠
⁠
📨 If you are no longer able to attend class it is helpful if you can let us know so we may pass the space on to someone else. ⁠

🔗 To view the rest of our spring programme head to the link in our bio!⁠ bit.ly/IDClasses

📷: AD Kerton. Photo, Alina Usurelu.

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[Image Description: Colour photo shows AD, white AMAB, with shaved head and sweaty grey vest caught rapidly turning around, their left hand is raised in front of them and they are looking to the right out of frame].

17/02/2025

In Morning Class next week, Eve Stainton will offer movement practices that encourage a heightened sense of perception in the body, often working with time-based ideas; slowing things down and ‘eeking’ things out. ⏳⁠
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📅 24 -28 February, 10am -12pm⁠
📍 ⁠
🎟️ £8 / £6 with a class card⁠
🔗 Book via bit.ly/ID_MCEve
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Eve is interested in how movement can create atmospheres of suspense inside the body, and how suspense can be choreographed or constructed in between people and the room. Some of the class material will be linked to research from Eve’s project Impact Driver.⁠

📷: Eve Stainton performing in Impact Driver. Costume by Ella Boucht. Photo, Paul Blakemore.⁠
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14/02/2025

Join Independent Dance as a Trustee or Co-Chair! 📣

We are in search of passionate individuals who are enthusiastic about the arts and ID’s mission and have a commitment to inclusivity.

At ID, we are actively thinking outside the traditional leadership norms, as we ask ourselves – who gets to lead and who doesn’t. We believe leadership should look as diverse as the communities we serve. So, whether you’ve done this before or never thought about it, we want to hear from you.

What’s involved?
As a Trustee, you’ll be:

👉 Offering strategic support to help ID grow and evolve
👉 Sharing your specialist knowledge and networks to guide our work.
👉 Act as an advocate for ID and the role of dance in communities.
👉 Operate with integrity, honesty, and inclusivity.
👉 Dedicate time to attend meetings, collaborate with other Trustees, and engage with our work and more.

You don’t need previous trustee experience – just the passion and commitment to make a difference.

📅 Extended deadline to apply: Monday 24 February 2025, 12 noon

🔗 To view the recruitment pack in three formats (standard, plain text and audio) head to: bio bit.ly/IDVacancies

🗨️ If you have any questions or you’d like an informal chat, please do get in touch via [email protected]

📷: International Festival of Learning, A Gathering, Dance Intimacy and the Civic Talk & Discussion. Photo, Cheniece Warner.

[Image Description: A warmly lit room of artists, practitioners and enthusiasts engaging in group conversation at A Gathering, an event that was part of the International Festival of Learning 2022].

13/02/2025

📣 This March, Amy Voris leads a two-day workshop, Returning & Deepening: a solo dance-making workshop.⁠
⁠
📅 1-2 March, 12.30- 5.30pm⁠
📍 Venue: ⁠
🎟️ £75 day ticket / £110-£150 two-day ticket
⁠
🔗 To find out more and book: bit.ly/ID_AVReturningDeepening
⁠
This two-day intensive workshop invites experienced movers to delve deeper into their solo movement practice through gently guided explorations, prompts for improvisation and open frameworks for returning to movement.
⁠
You will be invited to explore the relationship between subtle sensations of the body’s internal landscape and your evolving movement vocabulary while in the company of others.⁠
⁠
📷 Amy Voris. Photo, Christian Kipp.⁠

[Image Description: Amy is sat in a white room with wooden floors, facing away from the camera. There is a window casting a large shadow across the image, she is silhouetted: hair tied back, right hand planted into the floor torso leaning into her right with her left leg stretched out to the left].

Address

Independent Dance, Siobhan Davies Studios, 85 St George's Road
London
SE16ER

Website

http://www.independentdance.co.uk/

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