Articulating Dance
Passions can get buried

Emphasis in this new approach to mentoring is on encouraging people to remember fundamental things about why they started to dance, perform or choreograph in the first place, passions that can get buried in the daily struggle to keep on working.
Dancers or choreographers have the opportunity to reflect for a moment on their own practice and focus on what is at the heart of their work and how best to access their particular energy and clarity of purpose. In other words what is the thing the choreographer needs to make and can make?
This approach to mentoring is based upon asking questions. The mentor assumes nothing but only asks questions. The participant in turn is encouraged to “say the stupid thought” in response. By this process the participant sweeps away long held and cherished illusions and arrives at new and more grounded perspectives on what they’re trying to do.
For both choreographer and performer the process encourages new ways to communicate with each other and so helps break down the hierarchies that can get in the way when we work. Thoughts that have come up in the sessions will resonate onwards through the following months and enrich future performances and projects.
The point of this work is not to change the way the artist thinks but rather to help them follow more strongly their own heart.



Jonathan Burrows
Jonathan Burrows was born in 1960. He danced with the Royal Ballet for 13 years, rising to the rank of soloist, before leaving in 1991 to pursue his own choreography. After touring with his own company for some years he decided in 2001 to concentrate on one to one collaborations with other artists, who would share the conception, making, performing and administrating of the work.

His first collaboration was "Weak Dance Strong Questions" (2001), made with the theatre maker and performer Jan Ritsema, which toured to 14 countries. This was followed by a series of duets with Matteo Fargion, beginning in 2002 with "Both Sitting Duet", followed by "The Quiet Dance" (2005), "Speaking Dance" (2006). "Cheap Lecture" (2009) and "The Cow Piece" (2009). The two men have now given over 200 performances across 28 countries. "Both Sitting Duet" won a 2004 New York Dance and Performance 'Bessie' Award, and "Cheap Lecture" was chosen for the 2009 Het Theaterfestival in Belgium. In 2010 he also made "Dogheart", with the dancer Chrysa Parkinson. Other high profile commissions include Sylvie Guillem and William Forsythe's Ballet Frankfurt, and in 2008 he was Associate Director for Peter Handke's The Hour We Knew Nothing Of Each Other at the National Theatre, London.

Burrows has been an Associate Artist at Kunstencentrum Vooruit in Gent, Belgium (1992- 2002), London's South Bank Centre (1998/9) and Kaaitheater Brussels (2008 -). In 2002 he received an award from the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts In New York, in recognition for his ongoing contributions to contemporary dance. He is a visiting member of faculty at P.A.R.T.S., and is also Visiting Professor at Royal Holloway, University Of London, Hamburg University and the Free University Berlin. He holds an Honorary Doctorate from Royal Holloway University of London. 'A Choreographer's Handbook' (2010) by Jonathan Burrows is available from Routledge Publishing.