Linden Dance Company

Tell us about your company

Linden Dance Company, led by Midlands-based artists Christopher Radford and Sara Macqueen, is a performance company rooted in Contemporary and Afro-fusion movement styles with a focus on positive physical and psychological wellbeing. Their work and practices advocates a ‘human first, dancer second’ to prioritise and support all who engage with the company.

Linden are Associate Artists of 2Faced Dance Company and have been supported by Arts Connect and Arts Council England to continue researching, developing, and facilitating high-quality dance experiences for professional artists, audiences and young people that champions physical athleticism and emotional wellness. Linden has been commissioned by DanceXchange, Creative Academies Network, Birmingham International Dance Festival, Birmingham Dance Network and Agitart Festival, Barcelona to create socially engaged performance work. Linden collaborate with both psychologists and physical trainers outside of the dance sector to continue innovating practices and breaking down barriers people may face in accessing the arts.

Linden are passionate about providing safe and supportive experiences in the community and for young people. Linden runs a vibrant outreach strand including Linden Youth, a youth dance company delivering high quality dance experiences to ages 11 – 21 years, partnerships with local primary and secondary schools and commissions with various youth organisations and conservatoires.

Tell us about your proposed work/project

We will be entering a creation period for our work Unconsciously You (working title), an outdoor Afro-Contemporary multidisciplinary dance duet exploring unconscious bias, challenging biases on gender and race through explosive, dynamic physicality and spoken word. The themes are drawn from our lived experiences, as a black male and white female living in the UK. The piece uses large boxes as set that explores the idea of ‘load’ and ‘the weight that we carry’ and provides exciting opportunity for working at height and scale. The movement language is drawn from Linden Dance’s ethos of championing cultural identity and positively channelling athletic training for body and mind.

What do you think are the benefits of working with FABRIC in a Midlands context?

Connectivity, cross region collaboration and the opportunity to pave a new way of working with arts organisations, creating more opportunities for artists and communities.