It was a most unusual sight. In a Dundee college, students were taking a morning break. But they weren’t sitting hunched around tables, focussing on mobiles or lolling back in plastic chairs. Instead, they were – many of them – lying on the floor on their backs, or draped over seating in languid, yet elegant poses.
The explanation is simple. I had come to the Scottish School of Contemporary Dance, and was talking to Thomas Small, a professional dancer who is spending a year there as Choreographer in Residence.
Tommy said a heated floor was why students were lying on the ground, but I doubted whether anyone but a dancer would respond in quite that way. Perhaps it was also to do with the relaxed atmosphere in this modern, light-filled and highly individual building, The Space. Designed specifically for the School, it was opened by the Queen in 2000.
As soon as you go through the door, it is clear performance is the ultimate goal. To your left are the front of house stage doors, leading into a 200-seater theatre. To your right, a reception area which doubles as a Box Office sales point. “There’s a huge emphasis on performance here, that you don’t really get at other Schools”, according to Tommy. “By the time students leave, they are very comfortable on the stage”.
A memory stirred, of being directly below the balcony where we are sitting, and enjoying a production here. We the audience sat huddled on the floor, viewing a humorous performance on the balcony above involving glove puppets. The building, with its quirky layout, lends itself to such “site specific” events. Audiences progress from place to place, viewing dance pieces that are tailor-made for the hallway, corridor, balcony, or even (the night I went), the ladies’ toilets!
Dundee-born Tommy remembers the days before The Space was built: he graduated from the Foundation Course at Dundee College in 1996. Having had no formal dance training, a single dance performance at the College had inspired him to apply. “I was quite surprised to get in!” he remembered. In common with other Scots who wanted to take dance further, a move South of the Border followed, in Tommy’s case to The Place in Euston, London.
Now, after eight years spent teaching and establishing his own dance company, Smallpetitklein, opening up dance to boys is one of Tommy’s passions. “One of the things I want to do this year is to get boys doing dance.” Dance, he feels, has plenty to offer them: “It involves a lot of energy, and it’s very physical”.
As part of his community-based work, Tommy will be going into local primary schools, taking classes for boys with the help of male SSCD students. “We’ll be saying, ‘This is what you can achieve, this is the benchmark’.” Three or four boys from each school will be selected to work intensively on a project with Tommy, possibly to be performed at The Space. The ultimate goal is more long-term, however. “I definitely don’t want to set up something that will stop when I leave”, he said. He dreams of seeing one of these boys going on to study at The Space and forging a career in dance.
Dundee’s most well-known landmark is the RRS Discovery, which sailed almost to the South Pole at the turn of the last century. Another highlight of Tommy’s Residency will be seeing – albeit briefly – a piece of contemporary dance performed on the decks of the century-old ship. Or perhaps more of a highlight will be the fact that around 150 people, aged five to 70-plus, will be taking part in the Day (7th June) consisting of a Promenade Performance in the nearby Discovery Point Museum.
Dances will be themed around ship-building, exploration, adventure and the sea. The audience, standing in the atrium, will look down to see dance in the courtyard below, and, as the climax of the Day, over to where the ship is moored nearby.
“We wanted to do this because the Discovery is a big focal point in Dundee. Hopefully, people will come across dance by chance!”
What about Tommy’s own choreography? What is his personal style? “My work is always very fast – very physical and athletic”, he explained. “It uses a lot of muscles, and extremes of the body. For instance, if there is a lunge in a piece, I want it to go to the depth of the body and then jump up really high”.
He has developed his own movement vocabulary over the past eight years. It entails a lot of intricate details – “I have these things like butterflies and birds that come from small gestural movements – a lot of movement of the upper body and head”.
“In lots of dance the legs feature heavily – in classical ballet it’s all about legs. But I’m very interested in the torso and how it can move, how it affects the rest of the body, such as the arms”.
He is also interested in exploring human relationships through dance. To this end, the heart often features in his choreography, for instance through gestures that signify the heart coming out of the body.
I asked Tommy about why there can be a wary attitude towards contemporary dance. He agreed that it’s often because people don’t feel they know what it is. “They can be slightly afraid of it – there’s the awful ‘I’m going to be a tree’ stereotype. Some of it is like this – but there are so many different forms of contemporary dance, now”.
“These days, contemporary dance can be absolutely anything. Voice might be used; actions might be used. It’s quite similar to watching a play, a film or a concert – the way you connect with what you’re watching. It has the same emotional aspect, the same energy”.
As we talked, it was hard to keep up with what Tommy was saying – he enthuses at an “allegro” pace. It all bodes well for the boys’ project in primary schools. I have a feeling that if I came back to The Space in ten years’ time, I would find quite a few more male dancers.
