Our third Juncture festival of contemporary dance, curated by artist Gillie Kleiman, is over. We did it!

And by ‘we’, we mean you – a huge number of audience members, performers, collaborators, people who work at venues in Leeds, technical staff, funding organisations, donors to our ‘Spirit of Juncture’ fundraising campaign, people who lent us things and volunteers – every bit as much as the Yorkshire Dance team.

Bringing together a number of works where the role of professional performer is given to someone else, Juncture gathered artists, participants and their shared work into conversation about what happens when the dancing is handed over, Juncture featured 8 performances, 6 workshops, 4 talks, 2 film screenings, 1 pot-luck dinner, 1 karaoke party, 1 opening event, 60 smashed eggs and one thing that no one, still, knows quite what to call…

We’re very pleased that initial evaluation findings indicate that:
• The curatorial proposal made was extremely strong
• The standard of work was high and provided and excellent provocation around dance as a form
• The artistic programme in connection with the talks provided a great platform for new knowledge generation and reflection

With an audience of 827 from across the UK, Juncture also featured 57 non-professional dancers recruited to take part in four dance works, the UK premiere of Fitzgerald and Stapleton’s MINE and one new commission, Sarah Lindström’s film, Dancing On My Own.

If you missed it, you can still get a flavour of Juncture by checking out the blog, mostly written by three dance students from Leeds Beckett University who were embedded in the festival as temporary members of the Marketing team.

We’ve loved creating a Juncture community in Leeds for the third time and we’re already making plans for 2019 and 2021, so watch this space…

Here are just a few of the comments we received in the days after the event:

“Juncture is a very important and unique addition to the landscape of dance in the UK. I particularly admire how focused Gillie Kleiman’s curation of the festival was – I find it really valuable, as an artist, to be able to see a body of works brought together for a festival around a single, highly relevant subject that connects contemporary dance practice very strongly and directly with urgent contemporary issues. Though such a format is very established in visual arts, it is a relatively new and very important and valuable development in contemporary dance in the UK. This type and scale of festival, with the high quality of work in it, that looks towards the future with intelligence and creativity, is exactly what the UK dance ecology needs more of.”
Matthias Sperling, artist

“So different to anything I have ever done, it has built my confidence so much.”
Participant performer (collaborator)

“Fantastic experience working alongside an innovative artist and skilful facilitator. Wish there was a second performance!”
Participant performer (collaborator)

“The politics talk was really important for me. As a young dance artist (that doesn’t have a clue what I’m doing) it’s so valuable to have events like this where I can explore, participate, watch, learn and talk.”
Artist