Who uses Echo Echo Dance Studio?

It’s been a busy start to autumn for Echo Echo. Our weekly dance projects and classes have plenty of new participants and some familiar faces. All with one common purpose: to dance and move.

Echo Echo Dance Studio has been booked solidly throughout 2010. Earlier in the year when the company was touring Ripple Affect, preparing for The Chess Piece, and continuing its wide range of education programmes, we could easily have programmed two or more dance studios.

The past few weeks has seen another surge in studio bookings with rehearsals starting from 9am most days and going on until after 8pm. In fact until past midnight a few times this week! People who aren’t familiar with the company may wonder, who is using the space?

The Echo Echo team has expanded over the last two years to include local emerging dance artists, University of Ulster Dance graduates, and trainee placements. Currently up to 12 people meet regularly at our company team meetings, this is additional to our independent Board of 7 people. Since Steve Batts took up the full-time position of Artistic Director last year (he had previously carried this post out voluntarily for many years), developing the company ensemble has been a top priority.

For young emerging artists, and particularly dancers, it is difficult to make the step from being a participant or student to taking oneself seriously as a professional artist. There remains a ‘cultural cringe’ towards risky, innovative work in all artforms here, particularly dance and movement practice. There is a lack of participation and audience for many artforms locally despite the best efforts of many people and organisations, competition with the cultural vacuum of TV talent shows and binge drinking. There are financial risks and young people are often advised not to choose the arts or 'creative industries' as a viable career option. Often the best local talent forms part of the cultural ‘brain drain’ to the UK and further afield.

Echo Echo Dance Studio is making a difference here. It allows Echo Echo to support dance artists who wish to live here, both emerging and established, by providing space to research, develop and create new work, to practice and rehearse, to show and perform. The company provides additional support by mentoring and guiding young artists, and by providing an insight into arts administration, funding, PR and career orientation.

We are currently seeing the fruits of this with the company ensemble. Local dancers making a serious commitment to their artform, spending many hours alone or with other artists working in the studio, developing and creating new performance pieces. Most of this time is unpaid, voluntary time that gets little recognition outside the company, but it is a valuable investment by these individuals in themselves as artists and people, and in Echo Echo as a company.

Upcoming performances by some of the company will include participation in Belfast Festival Trilogy event, performance at the Playhouse ICAN conference, Free Flight at Crescent Arts Centre on 30 October, Interactions (featuring a range of performances by the ensemble) at Waterside Theatre on 17 November. An extensive range of performance and touring is in development for 2011.

Echo Echo’s professional and artistic programme is symbiotically related to its education and participation programme. This is unusual among many dance companies, particularly in England for example, who focus on performance, and often consider dance education as a later and not integral part of a dancers practice and career.

Our company ensemble participate fully in teaching and education projects for all ages and abilities, at Echo Echo Dance Studio and in outreach projects in schools and organisations throughout the northwest and further afield.

Currently projects taking place in the Studio include classes for toddlers aged from 1 year old (with their parents) to children’s classes (5-7's fully booked this term), youth dance projects, several regular adult classes and weekend workshops, and partnership projects with organisations like Autism NI, WEA, and many local schools to name but a few happening just now.

Other regular activities in the studio include a range of yoga classes for different ability levels with local yoga teachers. Participation in yoga and other movement forms including pilates and tai chi has grown significantly recently and over 120 people now come through our doors for yoga each week.

In addition to all of this Echo Echo runs an extensive outreach dance and movement programme. The company has worked with over 20 schools throughout the province over the last 2 years. Projects include extended schools programmes, creative weeks, integrated education weeks and performance work, often specifically related to the Revised Curriculum.

Other outreach partnership projects with organisations including Downs Syndrome Association, Cedar Foundation, Derry Travellers Association, Open Arts and Glasgowbury, to name but a few, have received excellent feedback. The company is developing new projects and partnerships all the time.

Echo Echo Dance Studio allows our artistic team space to develop, prepare and rehearse for every one of these outreach programmes, and a place to come back, review and improve our practice.

From April 2009 to March 2010, the total number of attendances to Echo Echo activity at the Dance Studio and in the community was in excess of 20,000 people.

Echo Echo is a registered charity and without core funding from Arts Council NI, and project funding from other key supporters, the Echo Echo Dance Studio would simply not be viable; many fewer people would take part in dance activity here; and the artistic development of the company ensemble, that is crucial to creating innovative art and inspiring audiences and participants, would be greatly hindered.

I am urging supporters of the arts to sign the petition at I Value the Arts, your voice is important.

If you are interested in finding out more about Echo Echo please get in touch, we would love to hear from you.

Ailbe Beirne

Company Manager