Dance Community | Southbank Centre

Watch Candoco Dance Company Founder Celeste Dandeker talk about the company’s new programme of works by Hofesh Shechter and Nigel Charnock. See the show on Tuesday 24 and Wednesday 25 February at Queen Elizabeth Hall.

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We interviewed Thomas Noone about his forthcoming show at the Purcell Room at Queen Elizabeth Hall on 5 & 6 February.

Southbank Centre: You were born in the UK and trained at Rambert School. This is your UK premiere, here at Southbank Centre, even though you’ve been going for eight years – how do you feel?

It’s an odd (but exciting) feeling to go back to the UK, and obviously my mother is delighted. I’ve been away so long I have begun to feel like a foreigner every time I come back to England. As I have spent my entire career (14 years now) outside the UK, I also don’t feel that I belong to the UK dance scene.

I’m both nervous and curious to see how we are received, and also interested to see if anyone perceives anything inherently ‘English’ in what I do. Mind you I love that the dance that we receive from England in Spain is always the result of an interesting cultural mix – Akram Khan, Hofesch Shechter – and that’s what has always been good about the UK.

SBC: How did you end up living in Barcelona? What’s the dance world like over there?

The dance world here is tough (like everywhere I suppose) and the funding is well below other European cities, and the infrastructures are very basic. When I arrived in 1997 it was particularly difficult but luckily we had a big turn around in 2005 in Catalunya with a huge increase in arts funding. The Mercat de les Flors became a space dedicated to dance and the movement arts for example, and this made a great difference.

Despite all this Barcelona has always been a creative place, there is spontaneity and generally I very much enjoy it.

As to how I got here, I must admit that it wasn’t purely for the art. When I was working for Itzik Galili in Amsterdam I happened to fall for a Spanish dancer, Nuria Martinez, who worked for the Dutch National Ballet and who was also of my colleagues’ (Guy Weizman) landlady. When she decided that she’d had enough of grey skies and cold summers and decided to come back to Barcelona I followed her… and here I am 12 years later. She is my dance partner in the piece Fútil.

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