The class will consist of a short, improvised warm-up, followed each day by learning different choreography from Thick & Tight’s current repertoire. Each day, the work will focus in on dance’s link to classical music, where we will find the beauty and details of this connection. Monday’s class will now be led by company dancer Annie Edwards who will teach a section of ‘Ode to the Last Nightingale’, the solo created on her about birds and their loss of habitats. The week will continue with Daniel who will teach work from their award-winning show Natural Behaviour and their latest projects with the Philharmonia Orchestra and Manchester Collective. Expect to learn very different works each day, some very theatrical in style, some more abstract or based in mime.
Though broad in style, the classes should be accessible to a range of abilities and ages, as the material will be taught steadily with a focus on what the work is, the movement’s connection to the music and how to interpret the material rather than a pressure to perfect the movement.
Daniel Hay-Gordon (he/him) is a dancer, choreographer and filmmaker and one half of dance theatre company Thick & Tight, which he established with co-director and fellow Rambert graduate El Perry back in 2012.
As Thick & Tight, Hay-Gordon and Perry take influence from the historical, the political and the artistic to create a mix of dance, mime, theatre and drag performances. They are committed to engaging with people from a range of backgrounds, with particular focus on the LGBTQI+ and learning-disabled communities. Having started out in small-scale and queer spaces, Thick & Tight have gone on to work at Barbican, Lowry, Sadler’s Wells, Southbank, BAC, ROH, among others.
Outside of T&T, Dan works with other companies as a choreographer and movement director including among others The Globe, Royal Ballet, Hollywood Bowl and Staatsoper Berlin.
Dan is particularly interested in dance’s relationship to music and poetry, and dance as a performance art.
Annie Edwards (she/her) is a London-based dance artist from Brighton. Since graduating from London Contemporary Dance school, her career has spanned international performing (Candoco Dance Company, Boy Blue ent, ZooNation) as well as independent research and facilitation. Most recently she performed a solo in Thick and Tight’s award winning show Natural Behaviour, and is currently co-leading a research collective championing accessibility in higher dance education in Frankfurt.
Stylistically her influences include contemporary dance, House, and floor work, which form the basis of her principal focus on improvisation practices. She enjoys moving sensitively- with joy and presence. Her approach to movement is rooted in disabled embodiment and works with revealing our bodies information as a way to know ourselves expansively.
Independent Dance is resident at Siobhan Davies Studios. To find out more about accessibility and the amenities available within the building please see here.
If you have any questions about the accessibility of our programme and would like to discuss any specific access requirements, please feel free to reach out to us via email info@independentdance.co.uk or by phone on 0207 091 9650, to speak to a member of the Independent Dance team.
During class, all participants are welcome to take breaks, observe, exit and enter the space as they wish. Lounge areas are available on the first and ground floors of the building. Yoga mats, blocks, cushions and ear defenders are available for use. We also welcome you being in contact if you would like to discuss the option of bringing your access support worker. Please speak to a member of the ID team if you require any assistance.
Prices for classes are kept very low and are subsidised by ID in order to support artists to attend. To keep admin manageable for our small team, we don’t offer refunds if you cancel or can’t attend a class, and we can’t transfer your booking to a different class/event. We hope this is understandable. If a class is cancelled or changed by ID however, we do offer refunds/transfers to everyone who has booked.