Memory in Motion is a multi-strand archive project born out of a collaboration between Scottish Dance Theatre and Queen Margaret University, led by researcher Dr Andy Henry. The project has involved building a working archive, digitising materials, conducting oral history interviews, and gathering the fragments, memories and images that shape the company’s story. To mark Scottish Dance Theatre’s 40th anniversary, the project includes a touring exhibition and the planned publication of a book tracing the people, places and artistic journeys that have shaped the company across four decades.

This exhibition marks 40 years of Scottish Dance Theatre by asking what remains after the performance has passed. Dance disappears in the moment of its making, yet its traces continue to move: through photographs, programmes, reviews, recordings, remembered gestures, shared stories and the lives of those who encountered it. This exhibition gathers those traces together. It does not present the company’s history as a single line from past to present, but as something layered, fragmentary and alive: a history carried through people, places, performances, relationships and memories that continue to shape what Scottish Dance Theatre is becoming.

Timeline

1986 — Dundee Rep Dance Company is founded by Royston Maldoom OBE as a professional company with a community focus. 
1988 — Tamara McLorg becomes Artistic Director and expands the company’s scale and ambition. 
1991 — The company receives a Digital Dance Award for new choreography. 
1995–96 — Neville Campbell takes over and the company is renamed Scottish Dance Theatre. 
1997 — Janet Smith MBE becomes Artistic Director, initiating a major period of growth. 
2003 — Scottish Dance Theatre wins the Critics’ Circle National Dance Award for Outstanding Company Repertoire. 
2004 — A new £1m+ purpose-built dance studio opens at Dundee Rep. 
2005 — Scottish Dance Theatre wins a Herald Angel Award at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. 
2007–2012 — Inclusive dance practice becomes central through the creation of Angels of Incidence and N.Q.R. and Caroline Bowditch and Marc Brew’s roles asDance Agent for Change and Associate Director. 
2012 — Fleur Darkin becomes Artistic Director, expanding the company’s international touring and commissioning profile. 
2016 — Scottish Dance Theatre celebrates 30 years with extensive international tours, including participation in the Brazil Olympics cultural programme. 
2017 — Velvet Petal wins Summerhall’s Lustrum Award. 
2019 — Former company dancer Joan Clevillé becomes Artistic Director. 
2020–2021 — The company responds to the COVID-19 pandemic by developing new civic, digital and site-responsive works, including Every Map has a Scale and The Life and Times. these bones, this flesh, this skin receives the Classical:NEXT Innovation Award. 
2026 — Scottish Dance Theatre celebrates 40 years with the commissioning of new works by Scotland-based and international choreographers, the creation of an intergenerational piece in collaboration with community participants and the launch of the Memory in Motion archive project. The company receives the UK National Dance Award for Best Mid-Scale Company.