Shall We Dance?

It’s never too late to learn, as NICOLA SWANBOROUGH discovered when she joined one of NOCTURN’s adult contemporary dance classes for beginners

I CAN’T really explain my need to dance. It’s definitely not born out of any innate talent that has lain dormant and unfulfilled since childhood. I think dance entered my DNA on the disco floors of the Seventies and Eighties when as long as the music was loud and the lights were low, I could dance into and through the night.

As it turns out NOCTURN’s adult classes delivered by Artistic Director John Darvell are as far from disco dancing as you are likely to get. “We pride ourselves in providing just the right mix of fun, high quality dance teaching and hard work,” says John.

OK, so occasionally we dance with the lights on dim and sometimes we even dance with our eyes shut, but there’s no rhythmic hips or pulsating torsos. Nor is there a bass-driven beat. The cocktail here is one of direction and space, micro moves and lunges. The music is a backdrop and incidental. It’s about creativity and discovery and exploring an inner dance I certainly never realised existed.

Contemporary dance is a response to many other dance forms, from the highly technical turned out performance of ballet to the fall and recovery of modern dance. But while rhythm and speed can appear unpredictable and chaotic, it has an underlying technique seated deep within the core.