Anaish Parmar (BA Hons) talks about his day to day life in year 2 at London Contemporary Dance School:
"The reputation of London Contemporary Dance School is very high, many of the choreographers I admire trained here so I knew I would receive good training. It’s great to be a part of The Place, I’ve met a lot of people from different departments and I’ve worked for a few of them. It’s such a nice building, really supportive and has a great atmosphere. I’m always happy to come to school, even when I’m really aching. It’s quite a grueling experience, 8.45am starts are not fun but my year group has a really good camaraderie. We spend time together outside of school, and at school we are always pushing each other to improve. There is a real mix of cultures and experiences here, some people are technically stronger than others but we don’t resent people for it, we applaud it. Everyone has experienced different styles and we all feed off each other because we are all learning to move in a different way. Everyone’s an individual here, the School doesn’t churn out robots! I performed for HRH the Duke of York this year, it was the first time the whole year group performed together in the same piece; it was hard work but fun. I’ve worked with some choreographers during my second year which have included Jan de Schynkel (Nederlands Dans Theater), Rachel Krische and Anna Williams (Random Dance).
I was looking forward to my second year because there are even more choreographic opportunities than in the first year; I created two pieces for student platforms including one that was performed by my company, Pork Pie Dance Theatre at the new Choreographic Showcase at Laban, a showcase for conservatoires. I’m looking forward to choreographing a piece for Collaborations (a performance project with students from Wimbledon School of Art and Guildhall School of Music) in my third year and touring with LC3, the performance company. We get to perform, travel and get a taste of working in a company. The tour will include some large, full company repertoire pieces by Richard Alston and Merce Cunningham alongside some of our own choreographic work. I’m going to choreograph a piece in my own time as this could be an opportunity to show it.
Life at LCDS is great, but it’s hard work and if you’re not going to put the work in, you’re not going to get anything out."
Anaish Parmar