International, experimental and local. Dance for all, off the beaten track.
Artist-led and run, at Wainsgate Chapel on a hilltop in the South Pennines of Yorkshire, UK.
A grass-roots programme where a local community and people from far and wide are warmly welcomed to encounter and participate in a diverse programme of dance.
Radical dance with a mug of tea and a slice of cake.
Wainsgate Dances trusts and supports dance artists to make the work they want to make; holds daily dance sessions for people of all ages; programmes top-quality, uncompromising performance and workshops, and hosts artists from around the world who offer dance activities for a wide range of participants.
Wainsgate Dances is recognised as a beacon for dance makers and audiences looking for rigorous and challenging encounters with dance in an open, welcoming and supportive environment.
What we’re doing is hopeful action. It happens because we believe that dance, and the artists who dedicate their lives to asking questions through it, have something to offer contemporary cultural life.
Dance can confront, challenge and exhilarate in directly physical ways; it has the potential to hold and suspend complexity, ambiguity and nuance.
We’re developing an alternative artist-led model of dance programming, undeterred by the challenges that the arts are currently facing, for artists who want to explore and make, and audiences and participants who want to engage with their work.
Charlie Morrissey and Rob Hopper initiated Wainsgate Dances in 2017 after getting involved in the running of Wainsgate Chapel and actively immersing themselves in the community life of the area. They sanded and varnished the floor in the Sunday School room, and started organising events.
Charlie’s artistic and teaching work nationally and internationally meant that there was a wide network of artists to call on. The programme has grown both through artist-to-artist conversations and relationships, and through active daily engagement with the local community.
Wainsgate Dances is led by Charlie Morrissey and Rob Hopper and co-run with a group of artists living locally who are committed to supporting and activating the programme.
Artists include Katye Coe; Charlie Ford; Lucy Suggate; Caroline Scott; Ben Wright; and many others including Richard Gregory and Renny O’Shea from Quarantine; Siobhan Davies who support, advise and advocate for the work we do.
