DOWNTIME features a series of interviews with dance artists and arts leaders about how they work, what it is that drives them, and whether their purpose has changed in response to the challenges of the past couple of years. It is hosted by internationally respected dramaturg Lou Cope, who spearheaded The Centre of Applied Dramaturgy (CoAD). CoAD seeks to make the value of dramaturgical practice clear, embed it into organisations – artistic and otherwise, and develop its reach – both in terms of form and scope.
Lloyd Newson OBE is a director, dancer and choreographer. He formed DV8 Physical Theatre in 1986, and the company went on to tour across the world for decades, winning 55 national and international a…
Lou talked with Italian choreographer and performer Silvia Gibraudi, sometimes referred to as ‘the prophet of the free body’, in December 2022.
Silvia talked about her journey of trying to find joy an…
Lou talked with Movement Directors Ayse Tashkiran and Ingrid Mackinnon about how they approach the key relationships at the heart of their work - namely directors, individual and groups of actors and…
Lou spoke to Julia in November 2022. They talked about how her journey and values underpin everything she does; how important it is for her to be part of a movement that advocates for the representat…
Hello and welcome to a rather unusual one-off episode of Downtime.
Lou has absolutely loved talking to all her brilliant guests about how they approach their work. But a while ago it was suggested tha…
Damien and Lou spoke in mid October 2022. They talked about the interest in ritual that has informed all of his work; his collaborations with visual artists to make the pieces Thr(o)ugh, Vessel and S…
Caroline spoke with Lou about the work she has done, as a ‘mosquito buzzing in the ears of the arts industry’, striving for cultural equity both in the UK and Australia, and how far there is yet to g…
Lou talked with Ned, Alan and Naomi about what motivates them, what models they use, their different approaches and what’s difficult about the work they do. They talked about how trust and time are k…
Multi- award winning Sasha Waltz was born in Karlsruhe, Germany and studied dance and choreography in Amsterdam and New York. In 1993 she founded her company Sasha Waltz & Guests, together with Joche…
In this episode of Downtime, Lou talks with Noel Jordan – Festival Director of Imaginate and Edinburgh International Children’s Festival.
They talked about Noel’s approach to programming, Imaginate’s…
Lou spoke to Annabelle while she was at Jacob’s Pillow, in June 2022. They spoke about where Annabelle’s passion for working across genres comes from, the detail of how she prepares and what she asks…
Jonzi D is the founder and Artistic Director of Jonzi D Projects and Breakin’ Convention the international Hip Hop festival he founded in 2004 with Sadlers Wells. A dancer, spoken word artist and dir…
New York based Katy Pyle is a genderqueer lesbian dancer and choreographer who founded their dance company Ballez in 2011 to explore their complicated relationship to the cis-hetero patriarchal form …
Joseph Toonga is from East London. He makes and performs dance productions that tell stories of the under-represented, relevant to the here and now which are embedded in the languages of contemporar…
Born in Havana in 1973, Carlos Acosta trained at the National Ballet School of Havana in Cuba. After winning a succession of awards, including the Prix de Lausanne in 1990, he went on to dance profes…
Michael Keegan-Dolan founded Teaċ Daṁsa in 2016 as a means to forge stronger connections with the native traditions, language and music of Ireland, as exemplified by the company’s first two productio…
Lou's guest on Downtime today is Shobana Jeyasingh, an internationally recognised choreographer who founded Shobana Jeyasingh Dance 30 years ago. She has created over 60 critically acclaimed works fo…
Lou's guest on Downtime today is Swedish choreographer, film maker and dancer Pontus Lidberg. Pontus became Artistic Director of Danish Dance Theatre in 2018 . He has also been commissioned by Paris…