Motionhouse is a British dance-circus company based in Royal Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, England.

History

Motionhouse was founded in 1988. The company has produced 18 full-length, mid-scale touring productions and a series of dance performances throughout the United Kingdom. It also provides community education programs, as well as outreach and community work to promote more accessible dance education.

Motionhouse has three festival works in its repertoire: Cascade, Underground, and Chaser, which are widely performed across the United Kingdom and Europe. These works generally require fewer dancers than the company's theatre productions, are smaller and therefore easier to tour, and are shorter, lasting between fifteen and twenty-five minutes. As a result, the company can perform at multiple festivals simultaneously.

Motionhouse won the Audience Award in the National Dance Awards 2005. The company's 2005 production Perfect won critical acclaim and was included on the GCSE syllabus for dance in England and Wales. Its 2008 production, Underground, won the Audience Prize at the 2009 MiramirO Festival in Ghent, Belgium.

2009: Scattered

Scattered, Motionhouse's 18th theatre production, premiered in October 2009 at the Warwick Arts Centre. During its first year of touring, the production opened the Sibiu International Theatre Festival in Romania, where it was described by the festival director as the "revelation of the festival". Scattered completed its first international tour in 2011 and was later performed in Macau, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Belgium, and Portugal, and on two tours of the United States and five tours of the United Kingdom. During this time, Motionhouse was represented by IMG Artists in the U.S., Asia–Pacific, and Europe.

2011: Waiting Game and Traction

In 2011, Motionhouse collaborated with several JCB excavator operators to create two new pieces for their Machine Dance collection: Waiting Game and Traction. Waiting Game, featuring two dancers and a JCB excavator, premiered on 3 March 2011.

Traction premiered in November 2011. It was commissioned by the Bull Ring shopping centre in Birmingham to celebrate a new development in the complex. The performance featured six dancers and three JCB excavators.

2012: The Voyage

In 2012, Motionhouse was commissioned to produce an outdoor event as part of the London 2012 Festival in the West Midlands to commemorate the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The company created The Voyage in partnership with Legs on the Wall, an Australian physical theatre company, and the Birmingham Hippodrome. The Voyage was performed on a 50-foot (15 m) replica of a cruise liner in Victoria Square, Birmingham, from 21 June to 24 June 2012. The event featured professional dancers and aerialists, as well as an amateur choir, live musicians, and more than 140 community performers.

In the lead-up to The Voyage, Motionhouse ran a participatory project called Quest, which gave young people from the West Midlands the opportunity to take part in the London 2012 celebrations. Beginning in March 2012, Motionhouse worked with eight community groups, whose members later performed in the production.

Funding

Motionhouse is a National Portfolio Organisation of Arts Council England and receives support from Warwick District Council. Following the 2010 Comprehensive Spending Review by the coalition government, the company's funding was reduced from approximately £270,000 to £250,000.

On 30 March 2011, Arts Council England announced a further reduction in funding of around 11% for Motionhouse, while four other West Midlands-based dance organisations received significant increases.

Productions

References

External links

Motionhouse

• Films of Motionhouse performances