Weekly · barefoot · no training assumed
Contemporary Dance Classes in Blackpool
Contemporary dance classes in Blackpool, for anyone who wants an hour that isn't about being sharp, loud or on the beat. This is weight, breath and the floor: falling and recovering, travelling across a room, moving in a way that comes out of the body rather than being stuck on the front of it. Barefoot, unhurried, and taught to people with no background in it whatsoever. £10 a class, £32 for a block of four.
Finding your way in
Tell us you're interested; the contemporary evening comes back.
Contemporary has its own slot on the weekly timetable, town centre as always. We'd rather email you a night and an address that are definitely right than leave a timetable sitting on a page going quietly out of date, so ask and you'll usually hear back the same day.
- One class £10 · four weeks £32
- Absolute beginners and returning dancers in the same room
- Bare feet or socks — nothing to buy beforehand
The essentials
- Where Blackpool town centre studio
- When Weekly, evening — sent by reply
- Length One hour
- Level Beginners upward
- Ages 17 – 75
- Partner Not needed
The quiet one
An hour that doesn't shout.
The opposite of everything outside the door
There is a certain comedy in running the least showy dance style in Britain a few streets from a mile of light bulbs. Blackpool does spectacle better than anywhere, and this class is the room where none of that applies: no counts barked over a chart track, no sequins, nobody trying to look like anybody. Contemporary asks a different question — where is your weight, and what happens if you let it go? Everything else on the Blackpool timetable teaches you to perform. This one mostly teaches you to notice.
Technically it grew out of ballet and modern dance and then set about arguing with both, which is why the shapes are less fixed and the floor gets used constantly. Practically, it means rolling, spiralling, swinging an arm and following it, and learning to fall in a way that doesn't hurt. Flexibility isn't a requirement and there's no leg height to reach; the class works with whatever range you turn up with. A good number of the people in it are in their forties and fifties, dancing for the first time since school, and finding that the body remembers more than expected.
Roughly how the hour goes
It opens on the floor — breathing, rolling, waking the spine up — before anything gets asked of the legs. Then standing work and swings, then travelling across the room in small groups, then a phrase that gets extended each week until a block's worth of material runs end to end. People who want cleaner lines under it often take ballet alongside, and couples who'd rather have something loose and personal than a formal box step have used it as groundwork for a wedding first dance. There's no expectation that you keep coming forever, either: a block is four weeks long and stops there, and people wander off over the summer and turn up again in October without anybody making a thing of it.
Across four weeks
Week one you'll think about it. Week four you won't.
A block usually moves in this order. Usually — the teacher will happily spend an extra week on the floor if the room needs one.
Weight and breath
Standing, leaning, falling slightly and catching it. Learning that momentum will do half the work if you stop fighting it.
Down to the floor
Getting to the ground and back up without bracing on your hands — the roll, the spiral, the bit everybody films.
Travelling
Crossing the room in small groups, joining movements together so nothing stops between them.
The phrase
All of it as one continuous run to music, repeated until you can stop counting and just let it happen.
Why people stay
What contemporary does to a week.
Nobody signs up for this list. It arrives anyway.
- Mobility through the spine, hips and shoulders
- Strength earned slowly, without a single machine
- Knowing where your body is without checking a mirror
- Balance that quietly improves how you walk on ice
- An hour where nothing has to be achieved
- A way to move a mood out of your chest
- Room to be bad at something in good company
- Sleep that arrives more easily on a class night
Before you come
Contemporary in Blackpool, without the mystique.
Ten straight answers for anybody weighing up a contemporary dance class in Blackpool.
IWhat does contemporary dance actually involve?
Weight, momentum and a great deal of floor. It came out of ballet and modern dance and then loosened everything they insisted on, so the movement swings, spirals and drops rather than holding fixed positions. It looks free; underneath it there is real technique.
IIDo I need ballet behind me first?
No. It helps in the way that reading music helps a guitarist — useful, not required. The class starts from how a body already moves, and plenty of people here have never stood at a barre in their lives.
IIIDo I have to be flexible?
Not remotely. Nothing in the hour depends on getting a leg above hip height, and the phrases are set so they read properly at any range. Flexibility tends to improve as a side effect, which is a much less miserable way to get it.
IVWhat should I wear, and what about shoes?
Leggings or joggers and a fitted top — loose clothing gets in the way once you're rolling. It's danced barefoot, or in grippy socks if you'd rather, and knee pads are worth it if your knees are fussy. We don't lend or sell shoes, kit or props, so bring your own.
VWill my knees and back cope with the floorwork?
The descents are taught as technique rather than something to survive — where to place the weight so the joints aren't taking the impact. Tell the teacher about anything that grumbles and you'll be given a version that suits. Sitting a section out is never a problem.
VIIs there improvisation? I'd rather not make things up.
A little, usually in the warm-up, and always with a specific task rather than an open floor and a hopeful look. Most of the hour is set choreography learned by everybody at once. Nobody is ever asked to invent something alone while the room watches.
VIIWhat gets played in the class?
Piano and strings a lot of the time, some ambient and electronic, occasionally a song with words if it fits the phrase. It varies by block and by teacher, and there's no set list — the music is chosen for the movement, not the other way round.
VIIIHow much do the classes cost?
It's £10 to walk in for a single session, or £32 if you take four weeks at once — eight pounds saved across the block. That's the whole cost: no membership, no registration fee, nothing charged between classes.
IXWhereabouts does contemporary run?
A studio in the middle of Blackpool with enough floor to travel across, a few minutes from the tram. The street goes out with your timetable rather than on this page, because the room we use can change from one term to the next.
XAm I too old to start this?
Almost certainly not — the register runs up to seventy-five and contemporary is kinder to an older body than most styles, since there's no jumping to land badly from. Come once on the drop-in and judge it for yourself rather than taking our word for it.