Leading Deptford a merry dance

The architects of Tate Modern have plans to brighten up one of south London's dreariest backwaters

by Deyan Sudjic in The Observer

more...

The current Laban Centre in New Cross is one of the most important Contemporary Dance schools in Europe. The premises have a quirky charm and one seminar room in a converted church is delightful. But another of the lecture rooms has no windows and is ventilated via a dance studio next door. Post-modernism and semiotics become even harder in such an environment.

[This message has been edited by Stuart Sweeney (edited July 03, 2001).]

<small>[ 31 January 2003, 09:53 AM: Message edited by: Stuart Sweeney ]</small>

DRAMATIC BUILDING IS ABOUT TO EMERGE AT DEPTFORD CREEK IN LONDON
By CHARLES BATCHELOR in The Financial Times

A striking dance centre being built in a run-down part of south-east London will emerge from its scaffolding within the next few days, when workers start fitting the cladding materials designed to give the centre a distinctive look.

A polycarbonate skin in shades of green and purple will filter coloured light into the Laban Centre's dance studios by day and ensure that at night the centre shimmers in a haze of light above the waters of Deptford Creek.

The £22m centre will provide practice and teaching space for 400 contemporary dance students from 38 countries when it opens next September.

now only available to subscribers:

click for more

<small>[ 19 January 2003, 01:22 PM: Message edited by: Stuart Sweeney ]</small>

And how do people get to Deptford in terms of transport?

<P>Come October I'll be here for the third year of my Dance Studies course<P><B>New Laban Centre Brings Colour & Light To Deptford</B><BR>from londondance.com<P><BR>The unique coloured facade of the eagerly awaited new Laban Centre London in Deptford designed by Tate Modern architects Herzog & de Meuron and international artist Micheal Craig-Martin is nearing completion, allowing a first glimpse of how the spectacular new dance Centre will look when finished. Work has begun to fit the revolutionary coloured polycarbonate cladding to the building's exterior, cloaking the huge 7800 square metre structure in semi-transparent shades of lime, turquoise and magenta, punctuated at intervals by large clear windows. <P><A HREF="http://www.londondance.com/Content.asp?Level=2&SubSection=416" TARGET=_blank><B>click for more</B></A><BR>

Emma, it's a little late in the day to respond to your query from 6 months ago. The DLR is the recommended route I believe. I'm surprised that divine Deptford is not on your usual jet-set circuit.

I actually went past the building the other day on my way to Greenwich. When will the move be implemented?

Good space is hard to find
Special introductory rates available at new state-of-the-art Laban theatre. From londondance.com

This Autumn Laban Centre London, one of Europe’s leading Centres for dance artist training, is moving to a spectacular new state-of-the-art building at Deptford Creekside. At the heart of the new Centre, designed by Herzog & de Meuron - the architects behind Tate Modern, is a 300 seat theatre. From November 2002 the theatre is available to artists and companies from across the performing arts to hire for research and development, rehearsal and production purposes. For further information and to discuss requirements please contact Stephen Munn, Head of Theatre Programme on 020 8692 4070 or email s.munn@laban.co.uk.

click for more

It's a well kept secret, but London's Laban Centre is the largest dance academy in Europe. The new building will be officially opened in February and details of the various events are now available. Students have been going there since October and it is a remarkable building with beautiful studios and a superb library.

With both London Contemporary Dance School and now the Laban Centre rehoused in splendid buildings, London has two of the leading modern/contemporary dance schools in the world.

LABAN CENTRE

Saturday 8 February 2003
12 noon - late
Laban Open House. Laban Centre, Creekside, Deptford, SE8.
A day of free dance workshops, live music, and dance and theatre performances to celebrate the opening of Laban - a new venue for South East London.
The day will include: FREE Dance Workshops for children, young people and adults, FREE dance, music and theatre performances, children's activities, classes for dance teachers, Pilates and massage, Laban Café open all day for tasty food and drink, visual arts exhibitions, and access to Laban's unique library.

In the evening from 6pm
The new Laban bar will be the focal point of the evenings activities. Live music from composer/DJ Jules Maxwell will provide the backdrop to a relaxed and friendly atmosphere.
Live performance at 9:00pm from comedy duo New Art Club performing their hit piece 'this is modern', will end Laban Open House with laughter.

Monday 17 - Saturday 22 February 2003
Launch of Laban Theatre
We celebrate the opening of our new building with a special week of double-bills by the UK's leading contemporary dance artists.

Monday 17 - Tuesday 18 February 2003, 7:30pm £12.00 / £7.00 (concession)
Charles Linehan and Akram Khan

Wednesday 19 - Thursday 20 February 2003, 7:30pm, £12.00 / £7.00 (concession)
Rosemary Butcher and Jonathan Burrows Group

Friday 21 - Saturday 22 February 2003, 7:30pm, £12.00 / £7.00 (concession)
Wendy Houstoun and Russell Maliphant

To book tickets call the Laban Theatre box office on 020 8469 9500.

All activities take place at
Laban
Creekside, London, SE8 3DZ
Tel 020 8691 8600 Fax: 020 8691 8400
Email info@laban.org <mailto:info@laban.org>
www.laban.org <http://www.laban.org>
www.transitionsdancecompany.org <http://www.transitionsdancecompany.org>

Laraine Fisher
Arts Press Manager

<small>[ 19 January 2003, 01:24 PM: Message edited by: Stuart Sweeney ]</small>

Crescent and correct
The Laban Centre London SE8. You don't need much cash to create an arts centre in rundown Deptford - just a lot of strong ideas. By Deyan Sudjic for The Observer


Deptford Creek is not somewhere that comes readily to mind as an obvious place to build an institution dedicated to contemporary dance. The Laban Centre, standing on the edge of the creek's tidal mud, is surrounded by decaying blocks of grim council flats.

Scrap-dealers pick a living from piles of discarded junk barricaded by abandoned buses in barbed-wire compounds patrolled by feral dogs. Despite distant glimpses of the baroque cupolas of Greenwich and the masts of the Cutty Sark, this is as bleak as London gets.

But it is precisely this difficult context that has brought the Laban Centre here. Dedicated to teaching young dancers and to bringing dance to a wider audience, the Laban had outgrown its makeshift home in a converted church a few miles away. It wanted a purpose-built centre that would help boost its profile in London's dance world.

click for more

Just for the record, the Laban Centre has been renamed - Laban.

Here is the new logo:

<img src="http://www.criticaldance.com/links/laban.gif" alt="" />

<small>[ 26 January 2003, 07:15 PM: Message edited by: Stuart Sweeney ]</small>

Give us a swirl
It shimmers, it pirouettes, it changes colour... and it certainly brightens up Deptford. Jonathan Glancey for The Guardian admires London's new centre for dance

Can you imagine a building dancing? Perhaps, deep in starlit winter, the candy-coloured Baroque churches of Bavaria waltz through the night. But modern buildings are surely much primmer, more static things. At a stretch, it might be possible to imagine a starchy Modern Movement villa practising a few tentative Pilates movements, but a jig for joy? Never.

Down in the oozy depths of Deptford Creek in the London borough of Lewisham is a brand new building that all but dances. Appropriately, it is home to one of the world's most distinguished dance conservatoires. Laban - the terse name of the contemporary dance school founded by Rudolf Laban, a Hungarian refugee, soon after the second world war - is a remarkable building designed for an equally remarkable institution.

click for more

Brilliant step forward
The architects responsible for Tate Modern have produced a spectacular centre for the world's largest contemporary dance school. Giles Worsley reports for The Daily Telegraph


Deptford on a grey, drizzly January day. Railway viaducts cut their way confidently across a lost landscape of derelict Victorian buildings, charmless council blocks, unkempt streets and light-industrial sheds like ancient aqueducts across the detritus of outer Rome.

Despite their solidity, it is hard not to be depressed, particularly as the rain catches your face on a water-strewn pedestrian bridge over Deptford Creek.

Then, shimmering above the water, the muted colours of Laban appear, subtle shades of magenta, blue and lime-green glowing even on the greyest of afternoons. You blink, look again, half-astonished that something so ethereal could be found in such down-at-heel surroundings and then smile, the rain forgotten.

click for more

<img src="http://www.cam.ac.uk/societies/dance/images/transpic.jpg" alt="" />
<small>Transitions Dance Company features in the Laban Opening Week</small>

Here's a more detailed Press Release for the Opening Week:

<big>Laban opens</big>

The new Laban building on Deptford Creekside will officially open on 4, 5 and 6 February 2003 (by invitation only)with a programme of special events including live dance performance, film and specially choreographed tours. The Rt Hon Tessa Jowell MP, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport will officially declare the building open on Wednesday 5 February 2003.

Guests to the opening celebrations (attendance at these events is by invitation only) will be led towards the building by fire landscaping created by Walk the Plank. Once inside, tours of the new building, specially choreographed by Protein Dance (Artistic Directors Luca Silvestrini and Bettina Strickler were once Laban students), will showcase some of the activities which take place at Laban.

Three new films will be shown throughout the evening from: Laban ex-student Mark Murphy – a montage of historical memories and images from Mark’s past film work in both theatre and dance; Luis España – a film documenting the development of the new building from its life as a rubbish tip to Laban’s spectacular new home; and Laban ex-student Darren Johnston: a short audio/visual montage looking at the evolution of the building through the atmospheric perception of a choreographer.

Four dance companies, each with their own unique relationship with Laban, will perform in the new Bonnie Bird Theatre. Transitions Dance Company, Laban’s Graduate Performance company, will perform ‘Brightside’ choreographed by Henri

Oguike in 2002 especially for the company; and CandoCo Dance Company will perform Fin Walker’s ‘Shadow’, a work performed by 6 dancers. CandoCo has been supported by Laban since 1991 when Laban provided the company with their first office. William Forsythe’s ‘Duo’ will be performed by Ballett Frankfurt dancers Allison Brown and Jill Johnson. William Forsythe is a Laban honorary fellow and a choreographer whose work develops and expands Rudolf Laban’s movement principles. Finally, The Cholmondeleys and The Featherstonehaughs will perform a selection of original choreography by Lea Anderson with a special ingredient!

The above events will take place on each evening, the official opening by Tessa Jowell MP takes place on 5 February with accompanying addresses delivered by Sir Walter Bodmer (Chair, Laban Board of Directors), Gerry Robinson (Chair, Arts Council of England) and Michael Ward (Chief Executive, London Development Agency).

***********************************

Laban Open House
Saturday 8 February 2003, from 12 noon until late
To celebrate the opening of our new building we are throwing open our doors for a special FREE family fun day and social evening. Laban Open House is a day of free dance workshops and performances. This is the first opportunity for members of the public to look around the new building as well as try some of Laban’s activities and learn more about Laban and our partners.
Further information from 020 8691 8600.

**********************************

Here is a summary of the performances in the theatre with more detailed programme notes underneath:

Laban Theatre Launch
Monday 17 – Saturday 22 February 2003
Box office – 020 8469 9500
Laban celebrates the opening of the new building with a special week of double-bills by the UK’s leading contemporary dance artists and a new audio/visual installation from Darren Johnston.

Monday 17 - Tuesday 18 February 2003, 7:30pm
Akram Khan Company and Charles Linehan Company

Wednesday 19 – Thursday 20 February 2003, 7:30pm
Rosemary Butcher Company and Jonathan Burrows

Friday 21 – Saturday 22 February 2003, 7:30pm
Wendy Houstoun and Russell Maliphant Company

Monday 17 February – Saturday 22 February 2003, From 6:45pm
Darren Johnston in collaboration with Michael McNicholas
sector 4 – a new installation



Laban – celebrating the opening of South East London’s newest venue

Laban is a new venue for South East London and Laban Theatre is a new programme of contemporary dance, music and physical theatre performances by professional artists and companies, students and the community.

The new Laban building on Deptford Creekside opens in February 2003. At the heart of the building, designed by the renowned Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron, is the 300-seat Bonnie Bird theatre, purpose built for contemporary dance with state-of-the-art facilities.

Laban, Bonnie Bird Theatre
Creekside
London
SE8 3DZ

Box Office 020 8469 9500 Open Monday – Saturday 10am – 8pm
www.laban.org

Laban Theatre Launch
Monday 17 – Saturday 22 February 2003
Laban celebrates the opening of the new building with a special week of double-bills by the UK’s leading contemporary dance artists and a new audio/visual installation from Darren Johnston.

Monday 17 - Tuesday 18 February 2003, 7:30pm
Akram Khan Company and Charles Linehan Company
£12.00 / £7.00 (concession)

Akram Khan Company Kaash
Akram Khan teams up with the celebrated talents of visual artist Anish Kapoor (set design) and composer Nitin Sawhney to present his company’s first full-length work. "Hindu Gods, black holes, Indian time cycles, tablas, creation and destruction" are the starting points for ‘Kaash’.

Charles Linehan Company Grand Junction
First performed in Autumn 2002, ‘Grand Junction’ unites dancers Greig Cooke and Andreja Rauch in a duet with music by Nye Parry, Kimmo Pohjonen and Julian Swales; and lighting design by Mikki Kunttu.

Wednesday 19 – Thursday 20 February 2003, 7:30pm
Rosemary Butcher Company and Jonathan Burrows
£12.00 / £7.00 (concession)

Rosemary Butcher Company Sketches in Grey
A new collection of ideas presented in collaboration with dancer Elena Gianotti, with sound by Cathy Lane.
(This is a change from the previously published programme of ‘Still-Slow-Divided’.)

Jonathan Burrows Singing
‘Singing’ has only been seen once before in London, in a one-off performance at Greenwich Dance Agency. Made in 1998 from a movement score given to him by the French choreographer Daniel Larrieu, ‘Singing’ is a duet for Jonathan Burrows and former Royal Ballet dancer Lynne Bristow. The piece is set to music by Jonathan Burrows’ long-standing collaborator Matteo Fargion, and has lighting designed by Michael Hulls.

Friday 21 – Saturday 22 February 2003, 7:30pm
Wendy Houstoun and Russell Maliphant Company
£12.00 / £7.00 (concession)

Wendy Houstoun The 48 Almost Love Lyrics
**Premiere**
In her new solo Wendy Houstoun becomes a forensic dancer as she pieces together scattered fragments, channelling the cacophony that surrounds us into a compelling evening of dark humour. Accompanied by John Aroky’s loud/quiet music.

Russell Maliphant Sheer
Russell Maliphant Company presents ‘Sheer’, a duet with original music by Sarah Sarhandi and lighting design by Michael Hulls. ‘Sheer’ won the Time Out Live Outstanding Collaboration Award in 2002 and the People's Choice Award at the 2001 Festival International de Nouvelle Danse in Montreal. The duet is a continuation of Russell Maliphant's exploration of light and movement, and was co-commissioned by The Swan, High Wycombe, Swindon Dance, theatre Nationale Sceaux and Dance Umbrella, London.

Monday 17 February – Saturday 22 February 2003, From 6:45pm
Darren Johnston in collaboration with Michael McNicholas sector 4
Laban Theatre Foyer

A new audio / visual installation exploring the broad possibilities of virtual choreographic performance, and an added bonus for everyone coming to any of the performances during Laban Theatre launch. Co-produced by Laban.

Music at Laban - celebrating the relationship between dance and music.

Thursday 6 March 2003, 7:30pm
Smith Quartet
£10.00 / £7.00 (concessions)
Renowned for their collaborations with dance artists such as Shobana Jeyasingh, Siobhan Davies and Ultima Vez. This evening’s programme will see the Smith Quartet perform works by Reich, Webern, Glass, Volans and Nyman.

Friday 7 March 2003, 7:30pm
Trinity College Of Music String Ensemble
£8.00 / £6.00 (concessions)
An evening of music which has been used for dance, including: John Adams’s ‘Shaker Loops’, (used by Siobhan Davies), and Michael Torke’s ‘December’ (used by Glen Tetley).

Saturday 8 March 2003, 8:00pm
byte – electronic music
£3.00
A fusion of artistic ideas sourced from electronic music. Visual installations, sound-scapes, live music, DJ sets + special guests.

Wednesday 12 March 2003, 7:30pm
Home Ties: Matthew Westerby, Anne Gilpin, Carmen Vilches and Stephanie Schober
£8.00 / £6.00 (concessions)
An evening of new work from emerging choreographers who have one thing in common - all are graduates of Laban.

Wednesday 19 – Thursday 20 March 2003, 7:30pm
Henri Oguike Dance Company
£12.00 / £7.00 (concessions)
The **London Premiere** of Henri Oguike’s new work and Laban co-commission, ‘Dido & Aeneas’; plus ‘Front Line’, ‘F.P.S (Frames Per Second)’ and the ‘New Work’.

Thursday 24 and Friday 25 April 2003, 7:30pm
Jasmin Vardimon Dance Company
£12.00 / £7.00 (concessions)
**Premiere**
Jasmin Vardimon’s new work, and Laban co-commission, ‘Lullaby’ (working title) focuses on our relationship with illness and hospitalisation.


Travel information
Trains from Charing Cross, Waterloo East or London Bridge Stations to either Deptford or Greenwich, then a 10 minute walk

Docklands Light Railway (DLR) to Cutty Sark, Greenwich or Deptford Bridge, then a 10 minute walk

Bus numbers 47, 53, 89, 177, 180, 188, 199 and 225 all stop near Laban

<small>[ 01 February 2003, 09:27 AM: Message edited by: Stuart Sweeney ]</small>

Laban Centre open house
By Judith Mackrell for The Guardian

The new Bonnie Bird Theatre, housed in the new Laban dance centre, opened its doors to the public last night. Like its original incarnation in New Cross, the Bonnie Bird auditorium seats 300, and its scale has the feel of a neighbourhood theatre rather than a major venue.
But what a neighbourhood it promises to be. Though you approach Laban through industrial wasteland (the regeneration of the surrounding Creekside area looks barely under way) the newly built centre makes you gasp with pleasure. The glow from its walls is serene and thrilling and you feel drawn towards this building by the expectation of something wonderful happening inside.

The theatre certainly managed to lure a strong line-up of dancers and choreographers for its inaugural performance on Wednesday. A film by Mark Murphy greeted us in the upper foyer, while a promenade performance orchestrated by Protein Dance took us on a tour of the building. Artful groups of dancers framed the light, reflecting courtyards, or faked fitness freakery in the centre's fabulously equipped studios.

click for more

*******************************************

Dancing down to Deptford
A run-down area of south London is not where you would expect to find an exciting new dance centre, especially one that even finds room for pop art. Jay Merrick reports for The Guardian

Sometimes, architecture enters the Twilight Zone, complete with an appropriate tracking-shot opening and Rod Serling's deadpan voiceover to set the scene. The walk from Greenwich Docklands Light Railway station to the just-opened Laban dance centre turns out to be an amble into this unexpected territory.

It goes like this: right into Creek Road, Deptford, past the Up the Creek Comedy Club, the Lord Hood pub, and then over the Deptford Creek bridge. To the right, over a new low-rise office development, towards the buildings of Canary Wharf, two miles away, and the mish-mash of apartment blocks with their clashing palettes of brickwork, fiddly fenestration details and escape stairs concealed so elaborately that they become a major, rather than a disguised, feature of the building.

click for more

*******************************************

Eight years after the revolution started, modern dance arrives in its £22m home
By Terry Kirby for The Independent

The idea of men dressed up as swans was what did it. When the corps de ballet of Matthew Bourne's radical version of Swan Lake hit the stage at Sadler's Wells in November 1995, a line of bare-chested male dancers, their thighs clad in layers of white feathers, a pivotal image in the history of dance was presented.

Bourne bought a contemporary dance sensibility to a hallowed staple of the classical repertoire, gave it an extra bit of Broadway-style musical swing and won over audiences and critics alike. His production netted dozens of awards and is still regularly performed around the world.

Almost at a stroke, Bourne took modern dance out of the relatively obscure corners of the arts pages and the fringe venues and made it popular and happening.

And last night, Tessa Jowell the Culture Secretary, and the great and good of the arts world gathered in Deptford Creek, south London, to launch the biggest step forward in British contemporary dance.

click for more

Dancing about architecture
By Edwin Heathcote fir The Financial Times


Frank Zappa, in one of his frequent tirades against music critics, once said that "writing about music is like dancing about architecture". Good, but not that good. Dancing and architecture both rely on the movements and the "being" (as Heidegger would say) of the body in space. They do share significant characteristics, one of which is that both are notoriously difficult to represent in two dimensions. Architectural drawings, even if they can be read as a medium in their own right, are poor substitutes for buildings, while dance is so quintessentially four-dimensional (the body moving through space and time) that even film has real difficulty capturing its nuances. The director of the Laban Centre in London, Dr Marion North, went so far as to describe dance to me as "the architecture of the body".

One man, however, devised a system of notation for dance, of translating phenomenally complex choreographic vocabulary on to the page (Zappa's music, writing, and dance on one page, only the architecture to come).

click for more

****************************************

Getting a jump start
By Debra Craine for The Times


THE SETTING IS unprepossessing. A former council rubbish dump in a junk-strewn wasteland on a muddy tidal creek in one of the most depressed and decayed areas of London. But £22 million and a lot of ingenuity have turned the two-acre site on Deptford Creekside into one of the most impressive cultural projects in Britain. And even more impressive is the fact that it’s all about dance.

This is the new home of the Laban centre, a kind of university for contemporary dance and a centre for academic research which, according to its own publicity, is now “the largest purpose-built contemporary dance space in the world”. Thanks to the Swiss architects Herzog and de Meuron — the same people behind Tate Modern — Laban has a signature building with 13 studios and a 300-seat theatre, while London has a high-profile arts institution to spark regeneration in Lewisham.

click for more

*****************************************

Dance centre's new rainbow rooms cast artistic light on an inner-city site
By Marcus Binney for The Times


ONE of the best things great architecture can do is to transform an entire area of inner- city decay. Frank Gehry achieved it in place of derelict railway sidings at Bilbao. Now Herzog & de Meuron, architects of Tate Modern, have waved their wand over the sheds and wharfs of Deptford Creek in southeast London. The locals like the result so much they have christened it the rainbow building.

Architects in general are so impressed by this luminous new landmark on a two-acre site that a flood of planning applications for buildings using the same transparent cladding is on the way. The new Laban Centre — opened yesterday by Tessa Jowell, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport — is the starting point of a trend and is a focus for the regeneration of Deptford. The magic lies in the way the building glows. This is not the brash colour of neon or illuminated box fascias but a mysterious colour from within the skin.

click for more