Promising to give the winner an air of prestigiousness and the benefit of relative financial security, the fifth edition of The Place Prize is drawing to a close. The initial applications, over 200 of them, have now been boiled down to four - over the course of nine days, they will compete for the main jury prize (£25'000), and audience prizes, given to the piece with the highest score on each night (£1'000 each).

The driving force behind the competition is The Place, an iconic dance venue with fingers in most aspects of dance development - it’s home to London Contemporary Dance School and Richard Alston Dance Company, presents a programme of over 200 performances per year, and is involved in many participatory and community projects. Here, we get a tour of the venue’s structure and core values from its Chief Executive Kenneth Olumuyiwa Tharp OBE, before talking to Director of Theatre and Artist Development, Eddie Nixon, about The Place Prize and the upcoming competition finals. 

Run-Riot: How do you go on about setting up a season at The Place? How many people collaborate on this endeavor, and how long in advance do you tend to do it?
Kenneth Olumuyiwa Tharp: There’s no one-size fits all answer to that question because of the huge range of work we present. Our theatre programme includes open application platforms such as our annual Resolution! season, which will celebrate its 25th anniversary next year. This year audiences enjoyed 81 new works across six weeks - three world premieres a night! Many of today’s top names in dance first showcased their work in Resolution!. Applications for Resolution! will close in mid-September for a platform that begins in January [read more here]. Other seasons have a longer lead in, where our theatre team is planning a good year ahead. We also have curated seasons such as Spring Loaded, presenting some of the most up-and-coming UK artists. We also present international work and last autumn’s Currency season adopted a bold new format in which our audience could see a brief studio encounter between a UK artist and an international one, have a communal dining experience in our café to share ideas and then watch the main show in the theatre. It was great to see audiences engage in a different way and we like to try new things alongside the established models.

Our School (London Contemporary Dance School) has regular platforms throughout the year showcasing the work of our Undergraduate and Postgraduate students and Richard Alston Dance Company usually have an annual ‘At Home’ season, when they’re not busy touring the UK and internationally. Some events such as our youth platforms Fresh and Refresh are the result of many people’s efforts across The Place. Fresh for example, which showcases bite-sized samples of some of the best youth and professional work in the same evening is a brilliant example of what we can do as a result of the unique mix of things we have under one roof. We’re also commissioning more work especially for younger audiences and families. Our recent Questions and Dancers was produced and commissioned by The Place, Sadler’s Wells and Company of Angels and co-commissioned by Dance East.

Run-Riot: The Place puts emphasis on ‘shaping where dance goes next’ - this includes allowing artists time and space to take risks and develop. How do you balance this artistic policy with the economical pressures, especially in the current financial climate?
Kenneth Olumuyiwa Tharp: That’s a good question. When Place Patron Tony Hall (Lord Hall of Birkenhead) - who has just started his tenure as Director General at the BBC - was CEO at the Royal Opera House, he often spoke of the need to take risks, especially in hard times. If you fail to do that you lose your raison d’être. Or as another Place Patron, Sir Ken Robinson says: If you don’t dare to do anything wrong, you’ll never do anything new. I think they are both absolutely right. The advantage for us is that The Place has been taking risks since it started in 1969. As a result, whilst we look to attract new audiences, we also have a very loyal following of audience members who have bought into the idea of coming to things where they don’t know what to expect. For them I suspect that liking something is not as important as the fact that their understanding of dance is constantly being expanded and challenged by artists who are taking the art form in new directions. It also helps that our ticket prices are very competitive and we don’t charge booking fees and this probably helps our audience feel more comfortable about taking risks and encourages them to become regular attendees.

Run-Riot: Can you tell us more about how the school and the theatre that make up The Place come together? Is there any crossover between the work done in one, and the work staged or commissioned in the other?
Kenneth Olumuyiwa Tharp: Another great question. One of the things that makes The Place special is the incredible range and quality of activity that takes place under one roof and the energy that creates.

The Place has what one might call five pillars of activity: our Theatre and Artist Development programme, Richard Alston Dance Company, London Contemporary Dance School, recreational and prevocational dance classes for adults and young people, and our Creative Teaching and Learning work that is like the glue that underpins everything we do. In some ways you could say that all our work is about artist development. By that I mean that we think of a person as an artist-in-the-making the moment they walk through our door, whether they are aged five or sixty-five. 

In short, The Place is somewhere where people - learn about dance, learn to dance, learn to make dance, learn to love dance.

There is huge synergy and connection between the different strands of our work. It doesn’t happen by accident, but through conscious endeavour.

In fact, in the five and a half years I have been here in my Chief Executive role, one of the most important drivers has been for us to develop a stronger sense of shared purpose, to work more holistically and synergistically, creating greater coherence and connectivity across all our work and thereby adding greater value. This may not always be visible from the outside, but it’s very important to me that more and more we’re seeing programmed activity that is the direct product of joined-up thinking across The Place. This is particularly important when it comes to professional development, by joining the dots across our work we are able to offer any one artist a whole range of complementary opportunities to grow and develop across the breadth of our work. And for students at our school, the fact that they are in daily contact with many of the professional artists who inhabit our spaces is of huge benefit to their training and at the same time offers opportunities to professional artists that also benefit them.

Everyone here is on a journey – audiences, students, artists, staff. We’re constantly thinking about how best to help the whole range of people we come into contact with continue successfully on their journey, thinking about what kind of support or intervention they may need and work hard to create the best conditions for dance and dance artists to thrive. I often think we’re like gardeners, maintaining a precious ecosystem. It takes commitment, perseverance and imagination. Sustainability and progression are very much in the forefront of our thinking and particularly in such challenging economic times we are having to work even harder to ensure that we can still offer the best opportunities to both our artists (of all ages) and to audiences. It’s a challenge, but at the same time it’s what makes working here at The Place so exciting for all of us. Things never stand still.

Run-Riot: Where does the Place Prize fit within the repertoire and curating practice of The Place?
Kenneth Olumuyiwa Tharp: The Place Prize, sponsored by Bloomberg, is a competition open to any UK based professional choreographer. Over five editions we’ve seen 92 commissioned works and well over one million pounds invested in new dance. We sometimes say that The Place Prize is like a cross between X Factor and the Turner Prize. From 16 cutting edge new dances, three are selected to go through to the finals by an expert panel of judges and the fourth piece is chosen by the audience, with the piece that wins the highest percentage of the audience vote going through. It’s a reminder for artists that the audience really matter and audiences enjoy an active engagement with the work. Perhaps the most important thing about the Prize is not who wins (though who wouldn’t want to win!), but the fact that the exposure and profile of being involved has helped so many artists – the ‘losers’ if you like – to boost their careers and help them take the next step. The Place Prize has seen well known names compete alongside newcomers and that’s exciting for artists and audiences.

Run-Riot: What can we expect from this year’s finals?
Eddie Nixon: You’ll see four great, original new dance works. They’re all very different: funny, nostalgic, sad, apocalyptic, rebellious and cathartic.

Run-Riot: In its initial stage The Place Prize is open to all dance professionals, whether they are established or emerging. What do you think this open access approach brings to the competition?
Eddie Nixon: There are always some surprises. Choreographers are brought to the public’s attention for the first time. Even at the application stage we are coming across dozens of artists whose work we didn’t know before.

Run-Riot: The Place Prize is a true competition - the work is judged publically by the audience, alongside the jury; the stages in the process are marked as semifinals and finals and the work is presented over several days, fighting for the attention of all those involved. Is there a specific atmosphere that comes with this setting?  Do you think this context is reflected in the pieces in any way?
Eddie Nixon: The atmosphere is very buzzy. Because the voting encourages debate and disagreement the audience becomes very involved. The very nature of The Place Prize, as an art competition, is also uncomfortable for some people and that encourages discussion too. The more we can get the conversation going the better.

I think artists make the piece they want to make. If, in realising their idea, they are aware of the role of the audience then that is no bad thing.

Run-Riot: Any competition is by default winner-oriented, but The Place has always put strong emphasis on dance development, and allowing the artists space, time and conditions in which to take risk. How do you think these two elements are reconciled within The Place Prize?
Eddie Nixon: We commission the ideas we think are interesting and sometimes risky and then give the artist the resources and support they need to make them. It’s about creating new work, first and foremost, and the feedback from the choreographers on the process of making it here at The Place is overwhelmingly positive. The competition is about performance and what other people think of your work. Of course, that’s always the case for artists at the end of the process of creating a piece, but the competition exaggerates this.

Run-Riot: The Place Prize commissions all the shortlisted choreographers, who then go on to devise a new piece for the semifinals. How do you approach this veritable repertoire that’s created in the process of getting to the award winner? Are these pieces likely to continue their lives outside the competition?
Eddie Nixon: It can throw up quite a range of different works and that’s exciting. Nearly all of them go on to be performed again, whether here at The Place or elsewhere. Quite a few get developed into longer works, as happened with Lost Dog’s winning piece last time. I believe there is one piece from the 2004 edition that is still being performed.

Run-Riot: What kind of audience do you think is attracted to the finals and semi-finals? Do you think the event reaches out to a wider group of people than contemporary dance might generally be able to?
Eddie Nixon: That’s the idea. The notion of a competition attracts new people to dance. I think this is partly because they like the idea of being able to voice their opinions and express their tastes.

Run-Riot: In previous years the audience and the jury often gave the same pieces their vote - Lost Dog, Nina Rajarani and Rafael Bonachela, all came out of the competition with the main as well as a good chunk of the audience prize money. Does this consensus between the public and the professionals surprise you in any way?
Eddie Nixon: It doesn’t surprise me at all. I watch hundreds of performances each year and ultimately a brilliant work of art is universally recognisable. Somehow it resonates with everyone.

Run-Riot: Former Place Prize winners have come from diverse backgrounds and experiences: they include Bharatanatyam artist Nina Rajarani, Rafael Bonachela, who worked with Kylie Minogue and former Royal Ballet dancer Adam Linder. Can you tell us more about how winning the prize has shaped or influenced winners’ careers?
Eddie Nixon: They’re all doing really different things but are all now very successful. The Place Prize was never meant to create a blueprint for a career. It just opens up new opportunities.

Run-Riot: The sheer number of video applications submitted for the open call probably allows for a good insight into the general preoccupations in contemporary dance. Have you noticed any significant changes or trends emerging over the years?
Eddie Nixon: The quality of videos gets better. But no – there are over 200 entries and pretty much every contemporary genre is well represented.

The Place Prize

17th - 20th, 22nd - 27th April 2013

The Place

Tickets and Info: The Place