Making Together
Co-created projects have carried this value into many forms: promenade encounters, large-scale gatherings, films, outdoor scores and community casts. From SisGo and LOOPING: Scotland Overdub to Threaded Fine, Every Map has a Scale and RECollect, the company has repeatedly invited participants and audiences to become part of the choreographic event.
We choreographed with the communities, not on.
– John Anderson, Dundee Rep Dance Company, Dancer
Participation has never sat at the edge of Scottish Dance Theatre’s work. From its origins as both a community and professional company to its current Engage programme, the company has treated dance as something made with people: a shared practice through which bodies, stories, places and generations meet, move and shape one another.
Learning Together
Through classes, workshops, creative sessions and residencies, participation becomes a regular practice rather than a special event. Weekly activity, school and community projects and artist development opportunities at home and on tour create routes into dance for people of different ages, abilities and experiences.
Taking Dance to People
At times, and especially during the challenging period of the COVID-19 pandemic, Scottish Dance Theatre has taken dance beyond the stage and into streets, libraries, parks, museums, gardens and digital spaces Every Map has a Scale, Where Are You, Dundee?, PRESENT and storage for future sunsets show a company responding to place, crisis and everyday life by bringing performance closer to where people already are.
