Dance Ecology
Discover Dance is a partnership between Hull New Theatre, Hull Truck, Freedom Festival. Back To Ours and Hull Dance led by Hull City Council’s Arts Development Team. Discover Dance is a one-stop shop to find out about dance performances and events.
Whilst you’re here, why not explore the rest of the Hull Dance site to find out more about us.
Theatres
Hull Truck Theatre
Hull Truck Theatre is a pioneering theatre space with a unique northern voice, locally rooted, global in outlook, inspiring artists, audiences and communities to reach their greatest potential. Our core values are inclusion, innovation and integrity.
We’re open to all genres/styles of dance. In the past, we have typically programmed circus and contemporary dance - usually as part of city-wide programmes like Freedom Festival. We believe movement and dance can deepen an audience's connection and enjoyment of a work.
We produce/present inspiring work reflecting the diversity of modern Britain, provide resources, spaces and support to grow people and ideas. Without our supportive audiences, generous funders, talented artists, passionate participants and dedicated staff, we wouldn’t have kept our place at the heart of Hull’s creative core for half a century.
Through working with schools and local communities we engage thousands of young people, disabled groups and adults, offering opportunities to participate in the arts, whether the first step into a career, a way to build confidence and meet people, or part of a rounded education. Our ground-breaking Community Dialogues programme builds on long-term partnerships within Hull’s local communities, addressing inequalities in accessing the arts.
For more information see our link.
Address
50 Ferensway, Hull, HU2 8LB
Hull City Hall
Step into the majestic Hull City Hall, where top-class entertainment has reigned for over a century.
The venue has a capacity of 1,300 and has showcased an amazing array of dance events, contemporary live music, headline comedy acts, the world’s leading orchestras, celebrities, adventurers, drama, musicals, opera and even a bit of wrestling thrown into the ring. All have entertained packed houses under the backdrop of one of the largest working organs in the country.
Our exciting and dynamic dance events attract the very best companies from around the world ensuring a rich and varied programme, that caters for all ages and tastes, from specially created children’s shows, classical and comedic ballet, to cutting-edge dance.
Our second performance space - The Mortimer Suite - has a stunning atrium and beautiful domed ceiling providing a glorious backdrop for private events including workshops, weddings, ceremonies, and banquets.
Hull City Hall continues to attract the biggest star names and entertainment to the city, as well as, hosting community and business events such as conferences, fairs, degree ceremonies, school concerts, awards, talent shows, exhibitions and private celebrations. Find out more through our website.
Address
Queen Victoria Square, Carr Ln, Hull, HU1 3RQ
Phone: 01482 300306
Hull New Theatre
Hull New Theatre is a receiving venue attracting international touring companies and delivering the best large-scale productions in the world of entertainment. A £16m refurbishment project was completed in 2017 allowing the theatre to stage spectacular dance productions in a wide variety of styles including ballet, commercial and contemporary dance. Hull New Theatre hosts regular visits from Northern Ballet, Matthew Bourne & Raymond Gubbay’s traditional ballet. Recently, the venue has launched a partnership with McNicol Ballet Collective to be an associate dance company and is a proud member of the Dance Consortium. The revamped venue features improved access facilities, ensuring the theatre is an inclusive place for everyone to enjoy. The revamp includes a level entrance and accessible foyer, an increased number of wheelchair spaces in the stalls, dedicated changing places, toilets and lifts providing access to various floors. It also boasts new flexible performance spaces allowing us to give a voice to emerging talent and to work more closely with world-class artistic partners.
Since its beginnings in 1939, the theatre continues to stand proud and is a testament to the theatre’s founder Peppino Santangelo’s dream of ‘playing for the people’. To find out more about us please see our website.
Address
Kingston Square, Hull, HU1 3HF
Programmers
Back to Ours
Engaging, innovating, connecting and surprising! Back to Ours brings outstanding arts and cultural experiences right to people’s doorsteps in neighbourhoods across Hull. Using the city’s high streets, schools, community centres, clubs, shopping centres, pubs and more, we support the commissioning, production, creation and touring of new, original and inspirational work. We engage local people as audiences, participants, creators and commissioners, and bring the arts to life in familiar settings as they’ve never been seen before.
We’re all about engaging new audiences in the arts, so we’re interested in work that captures, resonates, asks questions, excites and/or gives people a good night out. We’re not genre-specific within dance-if it engages and excites, we’re here for it and always open to chat about new ideas.
In the past, we've programmed Avant Garde Dance’s Fagin’s Twist as part of a half-term festival and worked with a local dance school in our site-specific punk pop circus opera Back to Bransholme. We also run weekly movement classes in our Bransholme Chat Shop. Overall we’re about giving opportunities to see and participate in exciting work and supporting local artists.
Please see our website for more details about what we offer.
Address
Bransholme Chat, North Point Shopping Centre, Bransholme, HU7 4EE
Freedom Festival
Freedom Festival is a large-scale international festival, creating an ever-changing stage for artists and performers worldwide in a diverse range of spaces in Hull.
Freedom prides itself on the variety and quality of all work presented. We’re a colourful chameleon showcasing talent and wonder, offering ticketed and free theatre, dance, contemporary circus, sideshows, audio walks, music and art exhibitions, alongside digital programmes of films, podcasts and talks online.
Since 2007, we’ve presented dance ranging from spectacular aerial dance work to multiple contemporary dance performances with award-winning UK artists such as Motionhouse, Company Chameleon and Joseph Tsoonga company to ground-breaking international dance companies such as Liquid Loft, Hurrycan and Cie Dyptik. We’ve produced multiple participatory dance works featuring members of our local communities including RISE working with Southpaw Dance.
We encourage everyone to get involved and be a part of the festival with its drop-in, drop-out feel as we work hard to seek the most exciting, innovative and meaningful artists across all programmes we deliver. Hull audiences are amongst the most enthusiastic, brave and generous audiences in the world and deserve the most exciting work we can bring to the city, no matter where it’s from…
See our link below.
Address
Room 905, Floor 9, K2 Tower, 44 Bond Street, Hull, HU1 3EN
Spaces
Napa
The Northern Academy of Performing Arts is a pioneering arts charity providing excellent, affordable training for all ages with a vision to change lives through performing arts activities in Hull and the East Riding.
From our home in the iconic 1904 Art School adjacent to Hull Paragon Station, we provide a wide range of weekly classes delivered by professional teaching staff in dance, acting and musical theatre. NAPA offers ballet, tap, modern, acrobatic arts, commercial and contemporary dance classes starting at ages 2 to adults. In addition, our educational outreach programme supplies training in primary schools across the region reaching over 2000 pupils. We also run a full-time level 3 Performing and Production Arts course in collaboration with Wilberforce College and UAL.
NAPA is proud of its professional standards and caring ethos, believing in and investing in the creativity and confidence of our students. Go to our website to find class timetables, enrolment details, info on the team etc.
Address
50 Anlaby Road, Hull, HU1 2PD
The Late Night Circus
The Late Night Circus is a safe space for creativity, expression and performance. We offer a place for professional development, peer support and a fun place for hobbyists. Our core values are sharing skills, spreading kindness and personal growth. Circus is for everyone no matter your skill set, we all start somewhere.
Our classes range from aerial hoop, silks, trapeze, acro, stretch, pole, circus skills, contemporary, heels and practice sessions. In all of our classes, we want to create a welcoming space for everyone that encourages self-love and creativity. The TLNC makes circus accessible for professionals and hobbyists alike.
At TLNC we believe circus should be inclusive to everybody which is why we set up a scheme like the Oli Fund. The Oli Fund is a scheme that offers to cover the costs of classes and travel for those from low-income households. If you wish to be considered for a scheme please send us an email. Equally, if you'd like to donate to a scheme please get in touch. You can find all of our info via our website link.
Address
3 Dansom Lane South, Hull, HU8 7LB
Artists
Critical Fish
The Critical Fish is a Hull-based, artist-led project. Although predominantly a visual arts organisation, The Critical Fish can support Hull-based dance artists through the organisation's online free multidisciplinary Creatives Directory.
The Directory is a listing platform self-managed by its users to help producers and organisations find freelancers they need for projects, productions and more. It’s also a valuable networking platform for finding other creatives in the city who can support or collaborate. Artists of all disciplines have found paid work or the right people they need for a project idea through the Directory, so get yourself listed and join an ever-growing community of professional creative practitioners!
Although we are committed to providing opportunities for artists, we believe that culture is common property and want everyone to feel comfortable getting involved! This is why we create space for critical, creative, collaborative and experimental writing about art and visual culture, holding a forum for debate, connecting artists, writers, organisations and audiences through online and in-real-life cultural conversations.
Please see our website to find out more about what we do.
Check out what’s on at www.visithull.org/culture-hull/whats-on