Dance

The Venues
The Place
Venue
300 seats Tucked away in a small area of charming Victorian streets behind Euston Road this is a fascinating building in what seems like its own little world with two addresses (if you’re entering the back entrance, the address is 16 Flaxman Terrace, WC1). Although the architecture is part Edwardian and part modern, the artistic reputation is all contemporary. The Place is committed to performance and developing contemporary dance through training and claims its activities are ‘unmatched in their quality and ranges’. The main space, the 300-seat Robin Howard dance theatre, mounts performances with more than 200 companies, British and foreign, a year.
The Place, 17 Duke’s Rd, WC1 (020 7121 1100/ www.theplace.org.uk).

The Punters
The most ‘dance’ of all three venues – almost everyone has or has had a close involvement with dance, many are ex-dancers as well as designers and choreographers. Very chic and very stylish, the atmosphere is – as you would expect – civilised, but it is relaxed rather than self-congratulatory. The talk is of strained calves, dance gossip and a certain amount of snobbery. I hear one man talk with some glee about how ‘poor’ dance at the Barbican is. One question: why are there so few black people here?
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Amenities
A very good bar where ’70s soundtrack-funk bubbles away. On either side, double doors open to the Robin Howard dance theatre but this is a working environment too; there are eight studio spaces, classes, courses and the headquarters of the Richard Alston Dance Company.

Shechter on stage
When Shechter began his trilogy of performances here in March it was a homecoming of sorts and also enabled him to première the work in the most intimate of the three spaces. The cast – eight people for the opening piece ‘Uprising’ and ten for ‘In Your Rooms’ – were almost among the audience and it made for an exhilarating evening. Not surprisingly the first part of Shechter’s bill, the year-old ‘Uprising’ – in which he dances himself – was more focused and confident. Its use of mass movement is reminiscent of an R&B video but at a different level of ambition. Humorous as well as serious and influenced by popular culture without being populist, ‘In Your Rooms’ was less focused but it is the intention of the project that the work should progress. And, for all that slight confusion, there were parts that found moments of individual expressions within the group that moved the work from the engaging to the profound. A very promising beginning to the project.

Is it right for me?
The atmosphere is calculated to suggest, in an understated way, that everyone here is intellectual yet hip and the venue has an enviable reputation. Shechter was artist in residence here in 2005 and Alston, the creative director, is a hugely influential figure in British choreography. As he puts it, ‘The Place’s work in dance is vital: exhilarating, liberating, joyous and life changing.’ Inside the auditorium, the walls are black and seriousness hangs heavy in the air but there are Heath Robinson touches that maintain a recognisably English tone. A stagehand carries a pole with an oblong piece of black hardboard, which he leans against the wall so the Exit sign is covered during the performance.

Southbank centre
Venue
850 seats Queen Elizabeth Hall and the Purcell Room are the main venues but the rebirth of Southbank Centre is opening up new opportunities for dance. Under the leadership of director of dance and performance, Julia Carruthers, dance has increased its profile at the complex and, this summer, artists in residence Stan Won’t Dance, a physical theatre troupe as much as a dance company, will perform outside across the site. The Festival Hall reopens with Southbank associate artist Rafael Bonachela choreographing ‘Carmen Jones’. Then Klaus Obermaier’s ‘Rites’ – a reworking of Stravinsky’s ‘Rites of Spring’ for one dancer – with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and ‘virtual dancers’, viewed through 3D glasses, will open on June 26 and CandoCo will perform in the Hall’s ballroom. There is a sense of excitement about the place and contemporary dance is central to it.
Southbank Centre, SE1 (0871 663 2501/www.southbankcentre.co.uk)

The punters
Southbank Centre is good at blurring the borders between art forms and it goes out of its way to attract a diverse audience. The mix of audience also reflects the Southbank’s status as a national institution; the audience is often not pure dance but one that gets sucked in via events like the Meltdown series of gigs. This is not a ‘we are a dance audience’ audience.

Amenities
Myriad and spacious. Snack bar and expensive drinks bar in the main concourse at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, or take your drinks and food out on to the terrace where there a few – but not many– wooden benches and tables.

Schechter on stage
Shechter and his company’s appearance at Southbank Centre earlier this month should illustrate some of the problems implicit in fast-tracking. Although Shechter’s Queen Elizabeth Hall performance was naturally less intense than it was on the more constricted stage of the Robin Howard Theatre, as the dancers moved out into a larger space it also lacked some of the intensity of The Place performance and several passages seemed unfocused. However, the dancers grew in confidence over the evening and the addition of live music added new texture to the production (Hofesh plays drums in the band during ‘In Your Rooms’), ensuring a tumultuous reception.

Is it right for me?
Entering the main Queen Elizabeth Hall gives the visitor a strong sense of being at a cultural centre, the wide , L-shaped concourse full of people preparing for various events adds to a general feeling of being part of something larger than just going to see a dance performance. Because the complex is multi-arts, it offers unique opportunities for cross-art collaborations. There is a very strong south-Asian dance programme and, in the past, Akraam Khan and the London Sinfonieta have been residents. Talent spotting is central to Julia Carruthers’ vision and she has looked to Australia and Europe and – closer to home – Khan, who was nurtured here for three vital years. There are those who feel Hofesh could be the next Khan; he is generating a similar hum of expectation and, like Khan, brings an ethnic and cultural perspective to dance – although in Shechter’s case, Israeli rather than Asian.

Sadler's Wells
Venue
1500 seats Housed in Nicholas Hare Architects’ graceful glass and steel 1998 building, Sadler’s Wells has artfully stretched the definition of contemporary dance to get crowds in to big events like Stomp! and breakdance festivals alongside Akram Khan and Sylvie Guillem’s ‘Sacred Monsters’, ‘Push’ with Sylvie Guillem and Russell Maliphant and ‘zero degrees’, a collaboration which involved Akram Khan, Nitin Sawhney and Antony Gormley. ‘Our aim,’ says Sadler’s Wells, ‘is to produce work which combines both commercial success and the highest quality artistic standards.’

The approach is dictated by money. Sadler’s Wells receives a subsidy of 13 per cent per annum from Arts Council England; the rest of their annual income is self-generated, 70 per cent through ticket sales alone. They are obliged to put bums on seats.
Sadler’s Wells, Roseberry Avenue, EC1 (0844 412 4300/www.sadlerswells.com)

The punters
The necessity to produce work which is commercial means that Sadler’s Wells is not a venue for purists. It’s also more ethnically and socially diverse than, for example, The Place. But this can be because of the programming. The recent weekend of hip hop culture and dance attracted a larger than usual afro-Caribbean audience. ‘Sadler’s Wells audiences vary hugely according to the show they’ve come to,’
says a spokesperson, ‘whether it’s Breakin’ Convention or Matthew Bourne’s ‘Swan Lake’.’ The audience here is generally young and culturally aware.

Amenities
The theatre is the sixth on the site and takes 1,500 people, plus there’s the smaller 200-seat studio space, the Lillian Baylis Theatre, where more intimate and occasionally difficult works are performed (it is a key venue during Dance Umbrella). Hare’s interior – a three-storey, entirely glass-fronted space – is as impressive as his exterior and there is an excellent mezzanine restaurant as well as three bars to choose from (all of which open an hour and a half before each performance), in the light, airy and warm public space, plus a stage door café and bar. It’s a venue that puts the entire West End to shame.

Schechter on stage
We will see this September how Shechter takes to a venue that offers a chance to cross over commercially. Akram Khan and Sylvie Guillem’s recent revival of ‘Sacred Monsters’ laid down a marker for a successful dance event. It was also, it’s worth noting, a lot of fun. One of the most interesting challenges Shechter faces is that of space. All three stages are different sizes: The Place is the smallest, followed by Southbank Centre and then Sadler’s Wells. When he comes here, he’ll have to deal with mind-boggling amounts of it and a more mixed audience. It will give Shechter a chance to leapfrog forwards. Will he take it? Is it right for me?

Is it right for me?
The superlative performance space seems utterly modern but the stalls and circle maintain a sense of all the others that have stood on this spot before the present building. Sadler’s Wells may be looked down on by some dance purists who shudder at its inclination to put the commercial alongside the highbrow but an approach that began through necessity has developed into a unique programming policy. Sadler’s Wells should be saluted for the imagination with which it has brought dance to a wide audience without sacrificing a commitment to art. A delicate balancing act ingenuously done. This is the best entry-level venue for anyone new to contemporary dance. Go: eat, drink, watch and argue afterwards; you’ll have a great night.