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It’s time for some good news. The narrative in the arts (and everywhere else) in the 2020s is so often one of cuts, closures and belt-tightening. But in one corner of east London, there still flickers a spirit of 2012 (remember the halcyon days of 2012?!). Opposite the London Stadium in Stratford’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park a string of new cultural venues is coming to life. Students buzz around the London College of Fashion; there’s the V&A East museum and BBC music studios both set to open in 2026; and at the end of the row, just across from Zaha Hadid’s London Aquatics Centre, is the brand new Sadler’s Wells East, a dedicated dance theatre opening its doors in February.
A sister venue to the original Sadler’s Wells theatre in Islington, this is the biggest thing to happen for dance in the capital for a long while, certainly in terms of visibility. More than 20 million people visited the park last year, and millions more will now pass the O’Donnell and Tuomey-designed building’s striking sawtooth roof, the neon sign above its door announcing “You Are Welcome”, hoping to entice them into the beautiful space inside, with its rows of glowing bulbs hanging above the bar, six studios upstairs and a 550-seat auditorium.
The theatre is a product of great timing. In 2013, Sadler’s Wells’ artistic director Sir Alistair Spalding said publicly that he had ambitions for a new mid-scale venue, and within a year they were on board with this major Olympic legacy project, named Olympicopolis by then-mayor Boris Johnson, later rebooted as East Bank by Sadiq Khan. In the decade since its inception, we’ve had Brexit, Covid, the rocketing costs of materials, and Spalding is honest: without the Olympics, the backing of the London Legacy Development Corporation and two successive mayors, it wouldn’t have happened.
This is the fourth Sadler’s Wells stage, after the original site, with its 1,500-capacity main stage and 180-seat Lilian Baylis studio, and the more populist Peacock theatre in London’s West End. It’ll mean a significant boost in the amount of dance on stage in London, 49% more shows a year for Sadler’s to sell. Now the question is, can they fill the seats?
“Yeah, yeah, I’m sure,” says Spalding, unflustered at the prospect. “We’re full at Sadler’s Wells so there’s a head of steam.” Ticket sales at the existing Sadler’s venues have more than bounced back after Covid. “What was really clear was that people wanted to come back and enjoy something, in the room together.” In 2023/24, audiences in the Islington theatre were up 30% on the previous year and there has been a consistent rise in numbers year-on-year, bar the Covid blip. Spalding can’t exactly explain why the auditorium keeps getting fuller, but “There is something in the ether about dance,” he says. “People are really getting into it. That’s definitely changed over the last 15-20 years.”
When Spalding took over at Sadler’s Wells in 2004, it was mostly a receiving house, hosting visiting companies. Since then it’s become a contemporary dance juggernaut and a prime force shaping dance culture. Its early associate artists, including Wayne McGregor, Akram Khan, Matthew Bourne and Hofesh Shechter, are the biggest names in their field. This month sees Sadler’s launch the Rose International Dance prize, aiming to be a Turner/Booker prize equivalent with a £40,000 prize.
Back in 2005 Spalding said he wanted Sadler’s Wells to be the equivalent of the National Theatre for dance. Have they got there? “I think it’s got there, yeah,” he says. “But we’re still not part of the establishment really.”
The mood is very “build it and they will come”. The new theatre will host UK and international companies who haven’t had a place to perform in London before, and excitingly will traverse every type of dance: ballet, contemporary, hip-hop, south Asian and plenty of things that don’t fit into a neat category. The opening season starts with a party, Our Mighty Groove, an immersive performance inspired by choreographer Vicki Igbokwe-Ozoagu’s own epiphany on the dancefloors of the New York club scene. “I walked in a shy girl; I left feeling like Janet Jackson,” she tells me. “I want everyone to feel that.”
The season continues with an eclectic range of artists. You can see Eve Stainton’s piece Impact Driver, which features live welding; Danish choreographer Mette Ingvartsen turning the theatre into a skatepark; and Benji Reid’s brilliant Find Your Eyes, a combination of choreography and live photography.
Major international choreographers have influenced the design of the building: William Forsythe suggested the studio lighting; Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker said the seating in the auditorium should be curved rather than straight, to make more of a sense of togetherness. But there’s also a real focus on the local audience and surrounding community. For all the shiny towers being constructed in this part of London, the borough of Newham is still one of the city’s most deprived. Sadler’s has already been working with local schools and community groups here for the last seven years and the new venue has a large L-shaped foyer with a stage where community groups will perform, and half the tickets in the theatre will be sold for under £25.
Sadler’s Wells East will house the UK’s first hip-hop school, Academy Breakin’ Convention, where 16- to 19-year-olds can study for a BTec in the elements of hip-hop: popping, breaking, social dance, emceeing, music production, DJing and graffiti. It’s also home to the Rose Choreographic School, aping the influential PARTS school in Belgium, where working artists can develop their practice under the eye of choreographers including Forsythe and Trajal Harrell.
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Sadler’s Wells looks to be heading towards a monopoly on all things dance. Is that healthy? “I think that’s not healthy, actually,” admits Spalding. “But it feels like there’s a thriving scene across London now.” It does seem that way talking to major venues. At the Royal Ballet, who perform in Covent Garden’s 2,256-seat Royal Opera House, audiences are regularly sold out or at 90+% capacity, with ticket sales beyond pre-Covid levels, and significant new audiences coming through the door (prices start at £7). The Southbank Centre has boosted its dance and performance offering with the arrival of programmer Aaron Wright in 2023. He points to sold out shows from choreographer Holly Blakey and French collective (La)Horde – both of whom have connections with the fashion and pop music worlds and brought in a young crowd.
auditorium. Photograph: Picture Plane Ltd/Picture Plane
“In terms of dance audiences, it feels like there’s a real appetite in London.” says Wright. “People want more, and people are keen to come and see new companies.” Eddie Nixon, artistic director of The Place, a smaller theatre home to upcoming and experimental artists, says their audience numbers are the highest they’ve ever been. Figures for Arts Council-funded National Portfolio Organisations across England also show attendance in 2023/24 exceeding pre-Covid levels. But the success of these large, well-funded institutions obscures the picture that many independent dance artists are struggling.
Outside the capital, for those without regular core funding – where local government grants have often been slashed – the picture is much more precarious. Choreographer Richard Chappell, whose company is based in Exeter, says artists in his world are “stretched to emotional and practical breaking point”. Even though the demand for his work from audiences and venues is “exceptionally high”, he says, and they’re proactive at fundraising, the company currently only has enough money to get through to July. “I champion the great work that these brilliant institutions are doing, but the difference between the experience I have in their spaces versus the experience with the artists and community groups and audiences we work with, it’s like a different country.”
But even those in straitened circumstances say audience enthusiasm for dance is at a high, without having a concrete reason why. Wright acknowledges that social media has been powerful for marketing such a visual art form. “When we have a good trailer, the day we put it out we see instant ticket boosts,” he says. Nixon agrees, but also sees dance as an escape from the always-online life: “I think people want to be taken away from digital communication, to escape from that mode of watching the world into something kinaesthetic that’s about beating hearts and moments of being present.”
Spalding has his own theories. “Dance audiences are very determined and dedicated,” he says. “Some people get it and some people don’t. But when you come in and enjoy it, you want more and more. People get slightly addicted to it. They start saying, ‘I don’t want to go to see theatre any more. Dance is my thing.’”
