Meeting at Chisenhale Dance Space in the 1980s

Abstract

Analysing historical records and oral histories, this short text offers an account of the early years of Chisenhale Dance Space through the lens of its meeting practices. Chisenhale Dance Space is an artist-led organisation founded in 1980 as a centre for new, experimental, and independent artistic practice and community activity. Its members included the X6 Collective (1976-1980): the founders of New Dance magazine (1977-1988) and the eponymously named artistic movement, New Dance. Chisenhale Dance Space was a continuation of the pioneering ideas and approaches to dance and performance as established by the X6 Collective. In exploring Chisenhale’s early history – its organisational approach, artistic work and geographic location – this text considers the anti-establishment and radical potential engendered in the act of meeting that was central to Chisenhale’s activities. Henri Lefebvre’s (1974) theorisation of space is used as a framework to explore the relationship between Chisenhale’s practices, specifically the act of meeting, and the spaces that are produced through these relations. The text argues for the importance of acts of meeting in supporting alternative and independent approaches to artistic practice and organisation whilst emphasizing that it is where and how these acts take place that is crucial.