East London Dance’s Annual Review 2021-22

20 April 2023

Download the full review here or you view an Issuu published version here.

Introduction from the Annual Review

We’re really proud to be writing this as the joint Creative Director and CEO of East London Dance. ELD is an organisation that we both have a long history with and it’s an honour to be in post.

We joined the organisation in October 2021, a remarkable time in its history, where the dream of a new home was about to become a reality, coupled with a global pandemic, huge political and social upheavals and funding cuts. Despite this extremely challenging situation, we are so grateful to have joined at this time; with all bets off, all systems, ideas and processes were thrown up in the air, giving us an exciting opportunity to work with the team to refine and advance the mission of the organisation.

Over 33 years ago the founding energy of this organisation was directed at discovering, nurturing, growing and showcasing east London talent, create opportunities and connecting this homegrown talent to the sector. And this has continued, as the ELD that we joined had provided incredible support to staff and our communities during the pandemic and, as the world reopened, was considering how to continue to do this, all whilst opening the doors to its new home the Talent House for the first time.

We’re so proud of this world-class building for dance and music, which you’ll read more about in this review. We have had so much incredible support and investment to realise the dream of the Talent House, but we’d especially want to mark the outstanding contributions from Polly Risbridger, Ben Cooper-Melchiors and Moira Sinclair and the Board, who made the capital project the success it has become. If you haven’t visited us yet, please do, we’d love to welcome you.

And now the real work has begun, to bring our spaces and programmes to life and invest in the next generation of talent and their sustainable careers, whilst placing wellbeing at the heart of creativity.

East London Dance at the Talent House will be a home for our communities, a place to gather, learn and create. We will be there for the lifetime of our communities, not just one-off experiences, and will commit to the support of un-amplified voices and artforms, from black, Asian, global majority and working-class communities. At the time of writing, we have already welcomed 4435 people across 10,000 visits to the building in our first 11 months.

With our building partner UD Music, we have created a beautiful and inspiring building for dance and music. A building that provides us the opportunities to be a pioneering dance and music hub for the communities, artists and producers of east London. The future starts here!

Tia Hassan & Kate Scanlan Joint Creative Director & CEO East London Dance

You can read or download a PDF version of the full report by clicking on the below cover image, or you can read an Issuu published version of the full report here.