Hi, I’m Emily Alden, a dancer and choreographer based in Cornwall in the South West of the UK. I work across dance and theatre, live and digital formats and communities. I was a recipient of a Developing Your Creative Practice grant in 2018 and subsequently, supported by an Arts Council Project Grant, began to make a new live touring work which was interrupted by Covid.

My pathway through dance in 30secs…(some of these overlap in timescale)

3-year undergraduate degree in Contemporary Dance at Bretton Hall College of Arts in Yorkshire
Performed in Scheggia (Karine Ponties) at the Gulbenkian Studio, Newcastle with Dance City
Performed in Road to the Beach (Motionhouse Dance Theatre) Watergate Bay, Cornwall
Photographic collaborations begin with a dance fashion shoot on Dartmoor
Rural touring, 10 years, 8 shows, 100’s of education workshops
Performing, teaching & making work in Londonderry and Belfast
Led 100’s of Primary and Youth workshops and choreographic projects in schools, theatres and landscapes 
A 9 month national & international tour (Kneehigh Theatre) with a cast of 14 dancers, actors and musicians
Solo collaboration with performer and violinist Patrycja Kujawska
Began collaborating on film 
Performing and choreographing in small and large site based productions across Cornwall 
Associate Lecturing role begins
7 years running a dance company 
Established an annual artist-led Summer Intensive in Cornwall
Funded R&D travelling across the UK and mainland Europe training and shadowing choreographers
Curating and producing a pro-development programme for dancers in Cornwall
Performed in Rosemary Lee’s Passage for Par
Developing Your Creative Practice Grant - R&D to support new collaborations 
Arts Council England Project Grant to support the making of new work

Career highlights...
- Touring in 2009 with an ensemble cast of 14 dancers, actors and musicians with Kneehigh. The show was made at the RSC with their team of designers, costume, prop, hair and makeup departments. The tour included a month-long run at the Spoleto Festival in the USA, and a 6 week run at Battersea Arts Centre, where we celebrated our 100th performance. I shared the stage one evening with Vivienne Westwood, and briefly learnt how to play the drums jamming with the musicians.

- A 90 date rural tour in 2006 (ish) across England where on any given day I’d be driving the tour van, sewing costumes, laying the dance floor, leading morning class, running workshops in local communities and performing in beautifully cared for venues run by local communities. Being directed by a phenomenal theatre director, Emma Rice, as part of the triple bill was a particular highlight.

- In 2017 I spent time travelling, researching and training in Norway, Belgium, London and the Midlands. It was time away from the ‘doing’ to reflect, reevaluate and reconsider the how and why behind my work. I remember sitting in a mountain top cafè in Oslo downloading ideas, reflective notes and ambitions I’d held in for years into notebooks; a really important moment.

- Collaborating with Sound Designer Daniel Hayes on my solo performance work In My Head...what started out as a 30 min conversation turned into him joining the project and being integral to the work through the experimental, unique and innovative sound design he’s created.

Career ‘lower lights’...
- Having to turn down a two-week performance project with a dance company I admired. I’d not long graduated and it was an unpaid opportunity. I had accommodation in place staying with family, but the travel costs and loss of income for two weeks wasn’t a feasible option for me to self-fund. I still remember making the phone call to say I had to turn the offer down.

- Receiving unsolicited feedback, particularly once at a point in time when exhaustion was setting in after an intense year. Find your mentors, your advocates and your support network and trust and listen to them. The rest is just noise. 

- Covid interrupting the making of my solo work In My Head. It was a two year gestation period to get to the final making stages, which was possible off the back of a year of step-change activity researching, travelling and all the personal investment and risk that comes with that. A positive out of this though is the inspiring conversations I’m having with artists making work right now and finding innovative ways to continue to develop work in extraordinary times. 

Some things not in my bio...
I grew up in a small market town on the outskirts of Birmingham in a single-parent family. Outside of school I trained in acrobatics and musical theatre travelling up and down the country competing from pretty much as soon as I could walk to the age of 18, when after listening to my gut and instinct I pursued my training at contemporary dance at Bretton Hall College of Arts. Coming from a working-class background, my understanding of the arts, access to networks and guidance about how to make a career in contemporary dance, in particular, was pretty much non-existent. I didn’t discover dance conservatoires existed until the first year of my degree, and my point of reference for contemporary dance until HE was only late-night TV airings of Rambert Dance on Channel 4. Studying at Bretton Hall meant my first year living in halls on campus was in the grounds of the Yorkshire Sculpture Park; the most extraordinary experience. My time at Bretton hugely influenced my natural curiosity for working collaboratively, across disciplines and within landscapes.

From my teenage years through my 20's I regularly worked many, many hours in casual jobs. To anyone currently working in supermarkets, shops, bars, or any other non-creative work - keep going. This doesn’t define you or your talent, skillset or potential as an artist in the field of dance. Time spent away from dance can galvanise a renewed passion, clarity and vision for your professional work.