Friday began with the last minute push to get the centre ready for opening. A small number of local guests including the Mayor, local councillors and those involved with the design and build had been invited to what was essentially a soft launch – there is still some snagging to be resolved but we wanted to ‘get up and at ‘em’ on the basis that if you don’t draw a line somewhere, then the opening deadline just keeps shifting. It’s also true that until you use a building you don’t truly know what works and what doesn’t.
The launch was attended by around 100 people with speeches and a delightful small performance in the foyer by Shake – a local Street Dance group. In the Ocean Room we showed three more pieces: Shake again, the premiere of section of Gregory Maqoma’s Desert Crossings – a collaboration with State of Emergency – then a screening of Jane Mason and Becky Edmund’s film of reminiscences by local people about dancing at the Pavilion Theatre.
Pat Lewis’s poignant descriptions of Lindy Hopping with American airmen when she was eight and the realisation on camera that they never returned from the next day’s mission brought a tear to both her and our eyes. Dance memories living on in the body.
The next day we opened the doors for two days of free classes and three free performances – two inside in the Ocean Room and one out on the terraces, which we are realising is a mini South Bank. Architects have an expression, which is, I believe, ‘paths of desire’ about how people use a space in the way they want or need to – not how the designer plans. This is certainly true of Pavilion Dance. The path along the Lower Gardens leads straight to our front entrance and people will sit on the steps to watch dance on the West terrace not the South as we had thought previously. Dancers will also fling wide the doors of the Seafront Studio to enjoy the breeze (and then passers-by can look in on the class too) but might this be an H and S nightmare.
And so we are learning all the time: people sit on window sills, take buggies into the studios, don’t take their shoes off don’t read notices which actually, you know, is all fine! It’s a space for people to feel comfortable and at home in – not a museum. We were all on a sharp learning curve in terms of customer care: what was obvious to us – signage, etc. was not clear to others and so we learned the hard way.
All the staff and volunteers did a magnificent job. We ran classes in Waacking, Parkour, Beginners’ Ballroom, Reggaeton, Basic Ballet, Persian Dance, Appalachian Clog, Yoga and Krumping among others: most had between 15 and 25 people taking part. Nest week we launch a programme of 60 such classes.
We showed performances by local groups in Street, Tap Contemporary, African, Butoh, and another Showing of Desert Crossings (my six year old grand-daughter said she enjoyed the Butoh best as it was ‘scary’)
There were a few tears, we locked ourselves out of the keypad coded doors, we ate too many sandwiches, blew up hundreds of balloons, the downstairs loo flooded and an elderly visitor was nearly felled by a banner carried off by a strong gust of wind blowing in off the sea – well caught Jenny!. But more than two thousand people either came to a class, watched a show or just had a look around.
Monday morning was our annual appraisal with Arts Council. All I can say to them, the DCMS, and the Treasury is ‘If Pavilion Dance isn’t ‘Great Art for Everyone’ – then I don’t know what is!
And it’s also terrific value for money.
