Tag: RAD Q&A

People often tell cancer patients to rest, but is that always the best advice?

There’s more and more evidence to prove that’s the complete opposite of what you should do. You should be as active as possible. Some in the medical world are not always on board with that. One lady I’ve been teaching was told to rest for seven months after very tricky surgery. She got diabetes and was quite poorly as a result. There’s still a lot of education to be done. 

When I got my diagnosis, I was reluctant to admit how active I was, because I didn’t want them to tell me to stop. I didn’t want to tell my surgeon that I was running a half marathon a few days before my surgery, but she said: that’s fantastic, well done! 

When did you start to connect your recovery with dance?

I carried on working throughout all my treatments. We had ballet exams at my school in London, so I did that all through chemotherapy. In front of the children, I would wear different coloured wigs, which they loved. I was very active – dancing, running. That joy of dance and moving my body helped me massively, and I realised that I was faring a lot better than friends I’d made in chemo. They were suffering and there’s me turning up with my running numbers still on from a race!

Afterwards, I thought I would like to do something to help other people dance safely. Dance is such a fun thing: you can just put some music on and have a boogie in your kitchen – the endorphins you feel are priceless. I approached a cancer training programme, and told them about my dream of getting everybody dancing. Training to be a Cancer Exercise Specialist was the best thing I could have done – I learned so much. 

What do you have to consider when teaching dance to cancer patients?

There’s lots to consider, but generally, cancer patients are only seen as a medium risk. There are some limitations, and a range of unique issues for every single person, because each cancer is quite different. In breast cancer, there’s often damage to the shoulder after surgery, so we do a big warm up for the shoulders. If people have had their lymph nodes removed, it can cause lack of mobility, so we do stretches in order to move more freely.

Is the effect on mental wellbeing as important as the physical benefits?

I think the wellbeing effect is actually the most beneficial. The overwhelming response I hear is that it’s brought people some joy in a dark part of their lives. Some have even said they always dreamt about dancing but never would have had the guts to go to a normal adult class. There’s a sense of unity – people don’t feel judged or intimidated, they feel empowered. We laugh a lot, especially when I get things wrong – like most people who go through cancer treatment, I suffer from cancer related cognitive impairment, also known as chemo brain. If I forget what I’m doing, the class corrects me – we giggle because we’re all going through it together. My assistant, Poppy Barnes, is also an RAD teacher. She’s incredible, and she gets every bit perfect.

Has working with the RAD been important?

To be at the Royal Academy of Dance is a real treat for everybody, because it’s not in a cancer setting. When the dancers come into the building they feel so special. It’s very inspiring. 

Where did the name Fireflies come from?

My dance school is called Fireflies. We promote better mental health through dance, so when it came to the adults, I thought: this is perfect, because you can find so much light, even in a dark situation. One of our ladies got a firefly tattoo on her ankle, and she’s trying to get us all to do it!

Was ballet always part of your life?

Yes. I was poor growing up, but my mum took me to dance three times a week, which was my light in the darkness. I was very shy, but I would go to dance and felt I could do anything. My teacher was strict but very kind to me, and I’ll never forget that.

Do you feel your life divides into before and after your diagnosis?

Very much. It feels like a new you is born the day that you get the diagnosis. Not necessarily a worse you, but a different you.

When I got cancer, I just thought it has to be for some good. I couldn’t just go back to my old life, I had to do something. Recently, I got a secondary cancer diagnosis but I’m still dancing. The hospital told me about a treatment trial called the FAIM trial. So, obviously, we were all dancing to the music from Fame in my class before I went into the hospital wearing my leg warmers! I’ll just keep going, keep dancing, keep smiling. It makes a massive difference. 

Were you daunted when you were appointed to lead Rambert School in 2015? 

The school is 103 years old – we celebrated our centenary in 2020, and like the RAD spent a whole year cancelling events during lockdown! I have great respect for our history and tradition, but you can’t live in the past,. There’s a tremendous temptation, when you are offered a big role, to chuck everything away so that you can put your own stamp on it. But it’s important to look at what you’ve got and respect the things that work. 

Why is the collaboration with the RAD on Rambert Grades significant?

The RAD was a big part of my training. I did my advanced exam at Battersea – I can still remember the terror going up in the lift! And I remember reading Dance Gazette when I was 13 or 14. The RAD has evolved but still has a very clear progressive structure and an amazing reputation. People trust it. 

Contemporary dance is very accessible, inclusive and creative, and Rambert Grades is a completely different system and way of looking at dance. It has solos by Hofesh Shechter and Alesandra Seutin, both cutting edge choreographers. And it has a creative improvisational strand from the earliest years, so it’s about learning and trusting your own creativity. The two systems sit side by side – a student will learn so much from the structure of the RAD ballet syllabus, but also about having confidence in their own ability to express something. We just started talking and found we were aligned in lots of ways. It was a conversation that ended up with this partnership.

How does this breadth of training benefit a dancer?

Nobody these days trains in just one discipline. That broader perspective is vital. For dancers and for all young people, using your imagination, building confidence in your ideas and having a sense of individual expression is vital.

Why did Rambert School move to genderless teaching?

We had been mulling it over for a while. The world changes, and we have students who identify as non-binary. Our students have a voice and we listen to them. But what made it happen fast was covid. It was purely practical: suddenly, our students had to be in small groups or ‘bubbles’, and it made sense for these to be household bubbles, which were mixed gender. It worked really well, and after covid there was no appetite to go back to male/female training. Our students only perform the classical repertory for internal assessment. I only insist that they take it seriously and that it has to be safe. It has worked incredibly well. We love it, we’ll never look back. I always wanted to do the double tours when I was a dancer, I could never understand why they were male steps. I was never particularly fairy-like!

You will be a judge for The Fonteyn this year – what will you be looking for?

Every dancer is different, and I value that fact. Of course, classical ballet is key, but I like to look for expressivity and individuality in a dancer – that extra sparkle. Competitions are hard – how can there be winners or losers when there are so many talented people out there? I have learned to trust my instincts. 

What advice would you have for the Fonteyn candidates?

I’m a great believer in flow. When you get into the zone, as athletes call it, nothing else really matters. If you can get into a flow state you’ll enjoy the performance and probably perform your best. Visualise yourself rehearsing and getting ready to go on for the competition. Visualise everything about it. Imagine something going wrong, but that you managed to overcome it. Try not to let that voice of negativity in your head gnaw away – tell yourself, I’ve rehearsed this, I know I can perform well. 

What is the best advice you have received?

I started as a dancer and then was a teacher for a long time. Now I have the privilege to be the Director of Rambert School, with a totally different set of priorities. But two things that have stuck with me came from [the choreographer and teacher] Robert Cohan. He was a guru who had many wise words. I remember him talking about the creative process and saying that all you have to do is not get in the way. That sense of stepping back and accepting that it’s not all about you is really important. 

And a number of people have taken this from Bob: he said, Teach what you know, not what you don’t know. And teach with love. Because when you teach everything you know, your students will begin to learn and question themselves, and through their questioning, you’ll learn more. 

How can an arts organisation be a ‘Good Neighbour’ to its local community?

Being a good neighbour as a cultural institution is about using the skills, assets, knowledge, privileges and partnerships that you have and sharing them with the people closest to you in the community you operate in. It is about being part of a place and investing in it so you contribute to making it better for everyone, not just yourself. It is about being generous, opening a door and letting people in. 

In essence, it is about taking on mutual stewardship of an area along with all its other members, supporting a collective and co-created approach to making projects happen that honour everyone together.

What do you hope the RAD can do for the local community in Wandsworth – and how can working with the community enrich the RAD’s work?

I hope the RAD can open the door wide to let people in, sharing what it has with others.

This isn’t so much what the RAD can do by itself, but what everyone can do together! It is about creating models of collective action and setting a shared vision and plan to collectively bring more to the Wandsworth area and ensure that everyone benefits. Working together on projects that investigate and celebrate identity in the area, we can learn from each other and get closer as citizens. 

By working with the community and giving energy and support to it, the RAD will create a framework of trust and mutual respect. In return, it will hopefully be seen as an important part of the community’s assets and a place that is open to everyone – a home. Dance (as with many other art forms) can often be seen as not for everyone. But as trust and mutual respect build, people will be more interested in learning more and trying some of the classes and programmes that the RAD has to offer. 

This is truly about creating a home for dance that is reflective of the needs of the community.

How do you ensure that this work takes root and continues to develop?

We will establish an Arts Action Group in Wandsworth to make decisions with us around the projects they want to see and how to support them. This ‘asset based community development’ model of working honours local people as experts. The group’s members could include leaders of tenant and resident groups, the head teacher at the local school, someone who has run the corner shop for 30 years, the lollipop person – community leaders. 

Together we will commission projects: some quick and light, some longer and deeper that allow us to collectively co-create and co-produce work and forge stronger partnerships through doing so. It will allow the RAD to get to know its new neighbours and partners and for everyone to learn how to work together: how to fundraise, commission and produce community projects for everyone. As the group continues to create together, ambitions will rise and projects will get deeper and more risk taking. 

Key to the commitment to the Good Neighbour Programme is the fact that the RAD will hire a new team member in to support the work so there is one representative from RAD at the table for all community-facing work – ensuring that the partnerships, knowledge and networks are continually kept and held.

What led you to found Take A Part?

I started out on a project in a community in Plymouth called Efford. They were going through a regeneration process and wanted to bring in some creative projects to support engagement. Through a huge amount of trial and error, some tears and a few arguments, I came to understand that more people engage in and have ownership over projects if they asked for them. So I started asking. That was in 2009 and I haven’t looked back since!

Have you ever taken dance classes?

You know, I never have. Maybe this is my time!