Hi Everyone,
This is my 1stfirst post in the CELF Group and I am really happy I found this community on Hive, since My life happened in the arts and culture sector completely.
For the ones that don't know me, I am Petra and I am an independent dance artist and tap dancer based in London.
Today I want to introduce Chisenhale Dance Space to you, which is an artist lead organisation based in Mile End, London.
I have been a member for about almost three years, but half of it happened during covid.
I started coming here at least 10 years ago, for my own rehearsals, and I instantly loved it. One of the Member benefits is that you get reduced hire rates, and sometimes you get free studio space.
We also have regular meetings, where we speak about artist development, funding opportunities and generally try to keep up a community, we recently had an anti racism training and regular awareness trainings during the week.
I think these meetings are great, especially because as a dancer you often don't have many opportunities for interaction with other dancers that is not necessarily linked to pressure.
Please read my bio from the membership page here:
Petra Is an independent dance artist and tap dancer based in London. She started her career as a freelance dancer, working on BBC1, The One Show; Sky1 Luie Spence’s Show-Business; Ellen Kent Production, AIDA as well as various music videos, corporate and live events, before making the jump to creating and producing her own work. Her first outings as a creator, dancer, producer include “Charlie: My message to Humanity”, developed and performed during a one month residency at Lake Studios Berlin, and the solo theatre quadruple bill “Solo Roulette” at the Blue Elephant Theatre, which she produced, and for which she created the spoken word and dance piece “Deliver Me”. Petra’s frequent collaboration with visual- and multi media artists, and a love for improvisation have led her to extensively perform in improvised multi media events, arts galleries, exhibitions, and live installation. She is resident dancer at Resonance Performances at The Vortex Jazz club and regularly works with artists such as Patrick Faure, Aurelie Freoua, Gwendolyn Kassenaar and Ley Loosh. Petra was the first Tap Dancer named in Jazzwise Magazine’s Rising Jazz Artists. As a tap dancer, she mainly performs in jazz, avant grade and improvised music venues. Not willing to let the Lockdown in 2020 stop her, Petra started making experimental films and her first short film Depth Perception, commissioned by ESB, Louder than Words was shown at the Tate Lates. She has also performed in various online shows including Resonances Online (Vortex Jazz Club) Congregate Online (soul city arts), and started the video podcast: TO BE AN ARTIST (YouTube). Instagram: @petrahallerdancer
source: I wrote this myself, when I submitted the article to Chisenhale, however the website is: https://www.chisenhaledancespace.co.uk/membership-2/members/page/4/
This picture is from my own archive shot by Chris Freeman, and it is the same picture as on the Chisenhale Website.
There are two studios without any mirrors in them, one is called Research Studio, which is a little cheaper and I usually prefer it, because it has Marley floors year round, and I prefer to dance on Marley, the other one is called Performance Studio. You can also rent it out for ticketed shows, and they have full lighting etc. It is hard to sell out though if you don't have a big following, and you need to sell at least 75 per cent of the tickets in order to break even with rental and technician costs.
Here are some pictures I took when I rehearsed here last time, and I was lucky enough to get the space for free.
let me know If you know any place near you, that offers something similar, since I am always on the outlook for opportunities to connect with other dance communities.
Here is a video I posted a few weeks back on d.tube that was recorded in the performance space.