The Place

The Place is a school for dance development that is leading the way in dance training, creation and performance. Its one of Europe’s most innovative dance spaces, where artists from all over the world come to push creative boundaries, to experiment and to perform outstanding new work for audiences who expect to be surprised, inspired and delighted. The Place also has a 280 seat theatre, an extensive range of classes, courses and participatory opportunities for adults and young people, and professional development programmes for artists. The theatre holds over 200 performances a year, including festivals and special events.
I went along to The Place to see the performance done by Protein «May Contain Food». This performance runs from Thu 21 Apr to Sat 7 May but touring after this. The whole performance was very interesting all about food. First of all you enter a big room full of tables around the side all decorated differently some was done up with dried pasta laying across the table, some full of vegetables, some full of feathers laying across table etc. The table I chose was full of fast food wrappers and containers I don’t like fast food but it looked more colourful and fun compared to the other tables. Also the main lead was the waitor for our table as the performance is all about waitors/​waitresses, family/​friends and food. They dance and sing about food teaching us about where food comes from, how we should appreciate food, how are life if revolved around food etc. Throughout we got tastings like a tomato and we had to roll it across our face, feel it, look at it, hear it etc to appreciate it. This was a fun unique way though with a very artist performance played out by the cast. I particularly liked the part when they was singing about meat they acted like animals, funny. Has to be seen to understand whole concept of performance.

Contemporary dance is often overshadowed by its more mainstream, less dysfuctional cousin, ballet. Much like contemporary art, its definitions and boundaries are indefinable because they are still evolving, which makdes for great entertainment if you get it, and bafflement if you don’t. For those that do «get it“or want to «get it“check this space out. This is more than just a performance space, this is an institution devoted to contemporary dance: it’s a school, a library, a café, and a theatre. It’s also home to the acclaimed Richard Alston Company. Most importantly, it’s inexpensive, and its heavy rotation of events means that you can be entertained by dance for less money than a cinema ticket. For those willing to think outside the current dance box that is exploding, this is definately worth a peek.

LCDS has an exchange program with the University of Hawaii at Manoa — they send one student to UHM per year, and UHM sends one to LCDS. As someone who studied ballet most of her life, I was really intimidated about classes at LCDS… contemporary dance usually equals modern dance and modern dance and I… well, let’s just say we don’t get along very well.
But since LCDS has a strong ballet curriculum, I was right at home amongst the contemporary ballet dancers. LCDS also offers classes in Kathak and Bharatanatyam (Indian cultural dances), which is nice for those who don’t want to study just classical Western dance, and they require several hours of technique a day — not for the faint of heart.
For those who are NOT on exchange, there is a full curriculum as well as a graduate program. Definitely a pretty awesome program based out of one of London’s top notch dance facilities.

The Place is the number one spot for contemporary dance class and shows in London.
With no membership fees and it costing only £4 for the advanced level classes in the morning, The Place is outstanding value. All classes are taught by company members on a weekly basis. This makes Monday the best day to start so you don’t get left behind in routines. Most teachers teach one routine throughout the week adding sections daily.
The changing rooms and showers are very clean and tidy. The studios are large and airy with sprung floors.
There really is no better place to go to learn contemporary dance anywhere in London.
If you are a beginner they hold workshops and courses throughout the year. Check the website for more details.

The Place is a dance school which runs full-​time courses, classes/​workshops for the public and stages shows in its own theatre. The Place Café is the canteen primarily there for the students but is joyously also open to the public.
The Place Café serves pleasantly surprisingly tasty food for what is essentially a school canteen. The main advantage of this is that the prices are also those of a school canteen, so you can pick up a decent bit of lunch for a price your bank balance will appreciate.
There’s a range of sandwiches (toasted, ciabatta, panini…) and a serve-​yourself salad bar as well as a selection of hot food and homemade cakes and snacks. As a bonus you get one hour free wireless access with any purchase from the café. Free internet = yum.
It does get very busy around lunch time when all the students descend upon it in a leg-​warmer clad mass, which can make it difficult to find a seat. Another potential downside is that the presence of all these nubile young dancers can make you feel a bit of an unfit porker, on the upside, it feels a bit like being in the movie ‘Fame’.