X6 Collective was a very important movement in the history and context of contemporary dance in Britain. The Collective was the pivotal force behind many independently run artist projects and started many artists off on their journey to becoming successful dance practitioners including Siobhan Davies and Richard Alston. This is especially useful for dance teachers that are preparing students for Level 2 and 3 dance exams including GCSE and A Level Dance.
A collective of experienced artists founded X6 Dance Space in March 1976. Members included Emilyn Claid, Maedée Duprès, Fergus Early, Jacky Lansley and Mary Prestidge. The space was at Butlers Wharf in the Bermondsey Docklands amongst a community of artists who had been working there since 1973. It was situated at the top of ‘X’ Block, an old tea warehouse where the facilities were minimal and beyond the essentials for dance (there was never any toilet facilities). The Collective had the vision that X6 would set the procedure for many other dance artist led spaces and would lead to the equivalent to the artists’ lofts in New York.
Alternative contemporary dance practice
During its four years of existence, X6 held a pivotal position in dance practice. It became the London centre that specialised in alternative dance practice, the radical end of the independent dance scene. It had strong links with Dartington College of Arts, becoming the performance venue for many of its graduates alongside many other recognised art and dance institutions such as Cycles Dance Company, Arts Council’s Dance Theatre Sub-Committee and the Association of Dance and Mine Artists (ADMA).
New Dance Magazine
X6 Collective established alternative classes and workshops and began to develop unique programmes of presentations, often allowing artists to present work that was never shown anywhere else. Within months of the collective opening a large-scale ‘happening’, radical summer school and a conference on experimental dance was also organised. This was closely followed by the first publication of the New Dance Magazine, a magazine that continued to be an influential publication on alternative dance in Britain for many years.
Philosophy and organisation
When X6 Collective was first founded in 1976, there was a crucial philosophical emphasis agreed amongst its members. The emphasis was to examine what art can be as a form of media in relation to a new fundamental concern for the individual, the person participating in art. The Collective didn’t just address the question of relationships between the performer and the audience, but also the new questions regarding how choreographers and dancers train and make work, how dancers bodies are used and what representations dancers are expected to address in their work. This therefore meant that much of the performances put on at X6 appeared unfinished and experimental with less emphasis on a finished product. This practice kept some choreographers away like Rosemary Butcher who stated ‘people didn’t work long enough at things’. However many other choreographers sought to find the security to experiment and find their own practice within the safety and support of the Collective. This ensured the value of X6 Collective as a support organisation for artists and a driving force towards the development of New Dance in Britain.
The end
X6 Dance Space was forced to close in September 1980 along with many other artist studios in the area in order to make way for the docklands property developers. The Arts Council of Britain voiced its dismay in the closure of the space however it was agreed amongst the artists that the Collective had done its job and was now holding back individual expression. Many artists thought that although the organisation had once been a support hub for dance, the structure of the Collective was now hindering their development as individual artists. It was agreed that X6 Collective would not continue its practice in another space. However, one of its founding members, Fergus Early, continued to support the development of experimental work in a new space, which is now called Chisenhale Dance Space. Early has since made community dance the main focus of his work and is still based in Chisenhale.
Source
- Jordan, Stephanie (1992) Striding Out: Aspects of Contemporary and New Dance in Britain, Dance Books: London
- Bremser, Martha (1999) Fifty Contemporary Choreographers, Routledge: London
- Sikes, Richard (1984) ‘But is it dance…?’, Dance Magazine, June, 50-53
Amy Watson - Amy-Louise is Artistic Director of the dance theatre company 90 Degree Rotations and has a PGCE in Dance Teaching.
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