Dance has become part of my identity

WHILE other dancers looked inward, concentrating on the flow of their body, correcting their pointe and extending their jeté, as a child Adrienne Hart’s thoughts inevitably turned to the choreographer’s vision, how a work came to unfold, how she fitted in to a larger design.

Never one to commandeer attention as a dancer, her insatiable curiosity and fascination with imagery, composition and narrative at Swindon Dance singled her out as a born choreographer, though she would not make the leap fully until she turned 31.

“From the age of 12 I could never think just about myself performing, I thought about the collective, the whole scene, how it would work on stage as a whole entity,” says the founder and artistic director of Neon Dance. “Other dancers had a more individual approach, thinking about themselves as performers. I had a sense even back then that choreography or directing would suit me. It was always there”

A shy and reserved child, Adrienne’s first taste of dance was at Swindon Dance’s toddler classes which her mother hoped would encourage her to come out of her shell.

Before long she was learning tap and ballet. A precocious ballerina, at the age of 10, a year before any of her peers, she enrolled in Swindon Dance’s advanced training programme, the Youth Dance Academy. There, she found renewed purpose when she discovered contemporary dance at the age of 11.

“Dance became part of my identity,” beams the 33-year-old from Royal Wootton Bassett, who now splits her time between Berlin and the South West.

“It becomes part of your make-up. The Youth Academy made me think about it as a career. It made it real and concrete. They introduced us to professional dancers and brought in choreographers like Wayne McGregor, who is associate at Sadler’s Wells, who would work with us. It bridged that gap between what you do in a community setting and the professionals that we saw on stage. The experience was invaluable.”

Although dance remained her sole focus at this early stage, glimmers of who she would one day become were visible in the way she picked apart in her mind every element of a choreography, marvelling at the melding of movement, light and sound to create a unique performance.

“When you see the work that they produce you learn the ethos that goes behind it, how you support other performers and the company mentality,” she adds with a broad smile. “That’s what really interested me.”

At the age of 17 she auditioned for a place at three of the most renowned dance institutions in the country: London Contemporary Dance School, Rambert and Northern School of Contemporary Dance. From the moment she stepped into LCDS for her audition, she was swept away in the buzz of dancers and choreographers blowing in from the theatre next door. She knew this was the place for her. She got a scholarship and enrolled in 1999.

Determined not to let any opportunity pass her by for the sake of good grades, she spurned easier dance tutorials she would have flown through in favour of challenging but stimulating creative modules.

“I could have played by the rules but I wanted to take risks,” she shrugs.

“Everyone expected me to do more dancey options. Instead I took all the improvisation and choreography modules. I really struggled with it at first actually.

“If you don’t take the risks in an environment where you can fail where else are you going to do it? You can’t with a paying audience. The experience I had during these three years really set me up for where I am today.”

It is this risk-taking thrust that has dictated her every decision since graduating in 2002.

She soon got work as dancer with companies in the South West and Scotland. But resolving to find a vehicle to experiment with form and develop her own style as a choreographer, she launched Neon Dance, a project-based company. She approached Swindon Dance founder Marie McCluskey who offered her rehearsal space. Her first piece was a solo.

“It was not a masterpiece but it was my first exploration of merging dance with other art forms,” she recalls with a hint of self-deprecation. “I worked with a filmmaker, Alice Powell, a film was projected on a screen and I interacted with it.”

All the while she performed with Gelede Dance in Oxford, intermittently working on her own grant-funded projects and commissions for European companies under the Neon umbrella.

Over the past ten years Adrienne has worked in Russia, Norway, Germany and most recently Kosovo, choreographing the tragic comedy War In Times of Love by Jeton Neziraj.

“I asked for little pots of money from many different places and it enabled me to make the productions I wanted to make and step up each time,” explains Adrienne, who is associate artist at Pavilion Dance in Bournemouth.

Two years ago she made the jump to full-time choreographer and artistic director and applied for a more substantial Arts Council grant to launch Neon on the international stage.

She teamed up with producer Felicity Alwell and has now completed her first full-length cross media performance, Empathy, featuring a troupe of five dancers and inspired by Cambridge professor Simon Baron Cohen’s (the brother of actor Sasha) work Zero Degrees of Empathy. A multi-layered exploration and collaboration on every level, the piece – which started touring earlier this year – combines a striking laser light show, original choreography and music.

“Neon was just me for a long time. We were stepping up the work but the business side and infrastructure were non-existent to support it.

“Now we have it in place, it’s allowed me to be focused fully on the work and it’s allowed the creative side to really function. Neon is about doing things differently, creating work which is exciting and involve people.

“For me it’s about collaborating, with the dancers, with a lighting designer – their role is not to be told what to do, they are artists with a lot to contribute. This coming together of different minds is at the heart of my practice. Through that process you achieve things you couldn’t have alone. You let go of your ego.”

In her element and armed with a clear vision for Neon, Adrienne has picked up the pace and is currently working on two new productions.

While she dreams of seeing Neon recognised internationally as a key player, she is heeding her forebears’ words of wisdom, the pioneers of contemporaries like Martha Graham who shaped and left their indelible mark on the art form.

“She says it takes 10 years to fully master something,” she smiles. “It’s about getting your head down for me at this stage and working. There are moments when everything comes together – the light, the music, the choreography – and that’s when I get excited.

“I feel that I’ve still got a lot to learn but things are clear in my own mind now about what I want to achieve.”

Empathy will appear at Wiltshire Music Centre on March 20 and Salisbury Arts Centre on March 29. To find out more or to book go to www.neondance.org.