Foreword

A heartfelt welcome to this year’s Next Choreography Festival for the 2020 cohort of incredible choreographers Nancy May Roberts and I had the total pleasure of supporting. We started in the Siobhan Davies Dance rooftop studio in January - where the lights were able to change colour depending on the mood of the improvised movement scores we were working with. The shifts from cooling, slightly 90s nightclub-esque blues to warmer, trendy magentas and sunset oranges accompanied the space we had to meet and move together. It provided an amount of space which now seems vast.

I remember leaving London for the first time since lockdown measures and running in a green space with my arms out. I was experiencing a sense of openness and expansiveness which in the first few sessions with Next Choreography seemed essential to cultivate to best support participants to trust their improvisations, follow their interests, uncover together what mattered to them and voice that through their creative processes. In March, everything changed with participants, Nancy and I in our homes, scattered across the UK, Europe and the US.

Mindful of the disruption and the uncertainty, as well as the impacts on individual capacity to commit to the course, we asked the group if they wanted to continue the course online or postpone until next year. If online, we proposed keeping to the same meeting time but planning sessions that wouldn’t necessarily require attending at that exact time to best allow for flexible participation. We later - through the now alarmingly instinctual use of Zoom - recorded sessions also. We didn’t want pressure. I didn’t know if anyone would like to have continued in this unknown way. The group decided to continue online within an environment where we were each reflecting, personally, professionally and politically, on the value of connection.

The energy everyone has contributed to the group has been effervescent and honest. The support the group have nurtured for each other has been incredibly moving to witness session after session. The creativity and focus on exploring choreography and keeping choreography relevant to them as artists, at a time when our arts and cultural sector is being hollowed, has been incredible and I am so fortunate to have spent time with this group.

The work they present within this festival is a vibrant, glimmering snapshot; placing human, creative processes within the heart of the digital resources each participant - with the invaluable support from Siobhan Davies Dance - has had. It is work that sings through the challenges, compromises and uncertainties this pandemic has shaped our lives with.

As you roam through the map of work, I hope you find as much joy and pause for reflection with each artistic encounter as I have had meeting, facilitating and sharing space with this generation of artists.

With spirit,

Alexandrina