The Monthly talks to Dancer, Choreographer and Community Dance Practitioner, Royston Maldoom – Part 2 – Community Dance

You are well known for using a community arts approach to dance. How did you develop that approach?

I became involved in community arts by default, when I was living in Scotland at the end of the 70’s I visited an Arts Centre in Dundee and I saw a notice advertising a ‘creative’ adult dance class and enquired what it was referring to. I was told that there were 4 women and one man who met once a week with a dance teacher, but as she was pregnant the classes were suspended temporarily as they could not find a replacement teacher. The friend I was with blurted out.,”‘you could do that Royston, you are a choreographer” and before I could think of a response, I found myself volunteering.

I had no idea what creative dance with non professionals meant and my first classes make me blush when I look back on them. I simply taught ballet and contemporary dance exercises with no thought about their relevance: no consideration of injuries, pregnancy or age. Regardless, I did make choreography and more and more people signed up, so many, that within a couple of months I had many participants who gave informal performances to friends in the studio. Soon I had several classes on the go and quickly learned how to tailor my classes to make use of and develop material based on participant’s natural body movement.

I also saw, to my amazement, the effect it had on ordinary, non professional participants in terms of physical and emotional development, self assurance and social cohesion, and I saw that through art I could make a difference to people’s lives. That is how I began a commitment to dance with anyone, everywhere, any time; in prisons with street-kids, the marginalised and traumatised, school refusers and this took me to over 35 countries worldwide. I learned and honed my methodology in Peru, China, Bosnia, South Africa, Gaza and more. Many of them led to in-country developments that continue to this day, led by people who were part of my first projects

You have worked all over the world. Is there any particular project or projects which stand out in your career?

Of all my projects the most memorable were those in Peru, the first foreign country I worked in and which I have revisited many times since the early 70’s as a visiting choreographer. It maybe because because it was my first real engagement as a professional choreographer.

The second has to be Gaza, where I worked with a theatre group who brought light to children and adults living under brutal Zionist occupation. I discovered what true resilience is, and in three visits, made friends with wonderful people. I also worked several times on large scale performances in the Occupied West Bank.

What are you working on at the moment?

What next? I’m pretty much retired finally at age 81, but have a project with refugees in Lesbos in October. I still give occasional workshops to aspiring young dance artists. I sometimes a lecture or talk and I am focussing on my archive material in case it is useful to those following a Community, or Professional, dance career.