CYCC Dance

Curve Young Dance Company is for young performers who want to develop their contemporary dance technique, choreography, and performance skills. This group is by Curve Associate Dance Artist Mel Knott, along with guest teachers and professional dancers.

We welcome dancers with experience in any dance styles or those with performing experience who want to extend their dance skills.

As part of the company, you will create different projects throughout the year, devising your own pieces and performing on both traditional stages and in site-specific venues and festivals around the city.

What will I get from joining CYCC Dance?

There will be performance opportunities in the Curve Studio and during the Summer term, plus potential opportunities at other city festivals and events.

Dancers will also get:

  • Improved contemporary dance skills, using contemporary dance as a foundation to develop technique, choreography and expressive skills before drawing on different styles of dance.
  • Regular opportunities to work collaboratively with other dancers and the director of the company, with dancers’ voices and creative development embedded within the artistic responses.
  • Skills in using a range of structures and choreographic devices to communicate ideas through dance to an audience.
  • Opportunities to work with Curve’s Technical, Stage Management and Wardrobe teams on productions, giving experience of backstage professional theatre practices.
  • At least two workshops from visiting dance professionals in addition to the weekly classes. These are confirmed each year in conjunction with the dance companies performing at Curve.
  • Access to information and workshops with the East Midlands Centre for Advanced Training (CAT) in Dance. CYCC Dance is a satellite company for all Leicestershire dancers in the CAT programme, providing them with a midweek training provision.
  • Opportunities to watch a full range of professional dance productions from companies and choreographers visiting Curve (some additional ticket costs may apply).
  • Advice and support on how to take your dance career to the next stage.

Applications to join this year’s CYCC Dance groups are now closed. To stay up-to-date with the latest news and sign up to our mailing list, click here.

CYC Dance in action during lockdown

Each week during lockdown Curve Young Dance Company have been meeting on Thursday evenings as they usually do, transferring the Curve studios into the virtual Zoom room! In between sessions on technique and developing creative ideas they have been set tasks to do at home. These films feature some of our company dancers who have been able to engage whilst in lockdown.

CYC Dance Enhance: ...the pulse remains

This piece from CYC Dance Enhance is inspired by Gary Clarke Company’s Wasteland. It takes repertoire from this work, reimagined into the dancer’s home spaces, and particularly draws upon the repetitive pulse and individual euphoria from the rave culture as a reference to keep moving wherever we are.

Read CYC Dance Enhance member Connor Cropley’s blog on digital dancing through lockdown here.

“What a fantastic film you have made. It was great to see some of the movements from the show and how you had creatively worked with it. You all look fantastic! And I LOVED your costume choices too. I showed the rest of the company and everyone was blown away by your work. I feel very privileged that you worked with Wasteland as it is a piece of work close to my heart.” – Gary Clarke

…the pulse remains has already been showcased in the National Youth Dance Platform UDance Digital led by One Dance UK and is due to be showcased in a youth dance festival curated by Flexus Dance Collective on 6 Aug, alongside and incredible line-up of 22 youth dance companies, including CYC Dance Elevate’s piece Watching Me: Waiting Days!.

Choreographed by Mel Knott, Laura Bryan and the dancers

CYC Dance Elevate: Watching Me: Waiting Days!

This is a screen piece re-imagined from our work Watching Me: Watching You: Who?, which was created for the Leicestershire Youth Dance Platform, Mass Movement 2020. Our CYC Dance Elevate group members were inspired by Gogglebox (Channel 4) and our obsession with watching people who are watching people! It originally had moving sofas on stage, and so some of the company worked with the same movement material at home, adapting to their own sofas, spaces and surroundings, and the final work has an essence of the time passing by during the lockdown months of 2020.

Read CYC Dance Elevate member Grace Richardson’s blog on keep creative with CYC during lockdown here.