LASANGA WITH SHARON WATSON - Northern School of Contemporary Dance

Question one, what do you eat for breakfast?

Sharon Watson

Well, you’ve asked me that at an interesting time because actually I have been fasting for a while. So, my breakfast doesn’t really land at breakfast time, it lands pretty much around about the brunchy-lunchy time. But generally, I’m pretty good with breakfast, it’ll be things like toast, very often upstairs I’ll come and grab some scrambled eggs or porridge. And I’m quite partial to quite a few cups of coffee. And maybe some fruit.

Eleni Green

Sounds great, have you been finding fasting beneficial?

Yes, absolutely. It’s the COVID problem where you just see food and eat it. So getting rid of that or just getting a discipline and getting your body back into some kind of order. So, I thought I’d give it a go and actually, it’s not been too difficult, the 12 hour one. I’ve just shifted into the 16 hour, but I’m not doing so well with that.

Yeah, it must be hard, especially when you’re used to moving.

Yes and I do enjoy food. I really enjoy food but the 12 hour one does what it needs to do for me and I’m happy with that.

Going back to when you started your journey with dance, I was wondering if you could talk a bit more about your relationship with Nadine Senior and also tell us a bit about how you see her legacy in the school at the moment.

Nadine Senior, what an amazing individual, a pioneer and very, very important in my life, and she still is, being here at the school. In fact, I knew Nadine before I met her because my sister is two and a half years older than I am. She went to the school when Nadine was teaching, as a PE teacher, but teaching dance. From her experience, she came home and it was so overwhelming, the way that she would talk about it – just completely inspired – so I felt like I already knew what I needed to do before I arrived at the school. It was my first dance lesson with Nadine and I came home and said, ‘That’s it, when I’m 16 I’m going to London to be professional dancer’. That’s what I said to my Mum and Dad, and they said, ‘Of course you are darling. We’ll talk about it when you’re older.’ Well, it happened at 16; I was off and never looked back since.

In a way, Nadine’s teaching has always been periodically part of my journey. She would advise me. She got my grant sorted. She took us to London. She found the flat. She was my advisor and a guidance really. I went through that process, through schooling, and came out the other end, she was still there. She was still there saying, ‘Continue to be ambitious. Really, there’s no problems, there’s solutions.’ Whenever you encounter certain things, you can deal with them in a particular way if your mentality helps you to accept that, actually, there’s got to be a solution somewhere. She was the one that said, ‘Courage is really important; to have the courage to do what you do. Because not all the answers will come to you, you’ve got to go and figure them out and find them.’ And I think that’s real of where I am now. She was the chair of Phoenix for a while I was there. She was an advisor to myself. She’s intermittently always had a presence.

The fact that I’m here now is really quite a testament of her and her words of wisdom. Looking into the future, I guess I do feel a responsibility of her legacy. I feel I know her incredibly well to say that. I call her my second mom, which says quite a lot about the relationship we had. And for the school, I think she understood the importance of stepping into spaces that perhaps other people are not prepared to go or don’t understand how to be in that space. But to go there in any case because you’ll figure yourself out. You’ll figure things out. And I love that. I love the fact that there’s no real boundaries, even on a micro, even a macro level. If you want to be in America, just figure out how you’re going to get there. Don’t turn things into too much of a problem before it is a problem. And ask for help. She would always say, ‘Just go and ask.’ And it sounds simple. It really does sound simple. I think at times when your own inhibitions, perhaps, are the thing that’s stopping you, actually your own capabilities can resolve certain things my just putting yourself in that space. So, I find that sometimes her words of wisdom will come and reflect on situations for me. That helps me to move forward.

That’s brilliant to hear. And, just so we understand a bit more about her as a person, you’ve said she was kind of a mother figure but, would you say she’s more of a coach or a mentor? Was she pushing you or just advising you?

Nadine was as blunt as you could have a person. You’ve said, mother figure. Actually, she was quite a stern mother. She wasn’t one to put a soft velvet glove around you and say, ‘Okay, it’s alright’. If you had an issue, and you said, ‘I really want this …’ The question she would ask is, ‘So why haven’t you done it? … Okay, do it. It’s as simple as that. Just figure out the steps and go and get it done.’ Alright, Nadine. And to enjoy, she would appreciate a lot of things and know that in her circle, there’s power. There’s people of influence, and there’s people that do certain jobs. If you understand who you have in your circle, it helps your job; it helps you to achieve. Her mission was to be the best school. And she put that on the map. There was no question whether a politician was going to stop her from achieving her goals. She used whatever mechanism she had to be able to make that very clear. And there was a bravery and an honesty about it. I love that, I really do. Some people didn’t like her because of that, because she will tell it to you as it is. She wasn’t without empathy or sympathy but she just felt that she nurtured talented artists, and she believed in them. And because of that she was able to stand in a room with them and say that this is the product of success and there’s more to be had if you invest. She’s that kind of a woman.

Yes, I think I found, in my experience, that it is the people who have given me harsh criticism that when they give me good feedback, that really means the most. It’s those people who can give you both sides.

Absolutely, absolutely. And we could socialize. She was a smoker, quite a heavy smoker at one point, and she loved to drink. If I’m not mistaken, she probably gave me my first glass of white wine. There was another side to Nadine that was about making sure that life was balanced. And we understood how that could be, that going to the theatre was not just about going because you’re a dancer but going in appreciation. And just being able to have those conversations, the social aspect of what we did, it was great. She was a very interesting woman.

I didn’t find out about her until my second year. And then I learnt about this amazing woman and I was thought, we should all know! So, thank you so much for telling us a more about her.

What is your go-to warm up exercise?

My go to warm up exercise? Blimey, I don’t have very much of that these days. I think it’s a floor exercise, probably: folding and bending, so that I press out all my joints and I’m able to still stand at the end of it. But, I don’t tend to do too much of that. I do like to just use pressure and help ease the muscles that way.

When I was doing my research, I found out that you were one of the first female dancers to join Phoenix and, when you were touring with them, you said you went to some places where you were the first company of that kind. So, I wanted to ask you how it felt to be the first; to be the people making the space for the next generation.

It’s interesting, I talk this through with my sister quite a lot. She was one of the other females and we reflect a lot on trying to understand what the perspective was from another point of view and it’s quite hard to take yourself out – it’s like having an out of body experience – not that I’ve ever had one. Looking back, we were completely absorbed in the process, completely absorbed in our jobs. We read a lot of what people wrote about us so we got the perspective from their side. And we literally were superstars, which sounds really odd as dancers, but we were superstars. And we travelled the world. A friend of mine said everybody wanted the Phoenix tour because it was phenomenal and I think it was phenomenal because people were bringing new things into new spaces for their audiences. It was a unique position to be in an all-black, initially all-male, but then a mixed company stepping into a space that perhaps had never seen ten black people dance together, but not just dancing anything, not traditional dance, where you might assume that that was the case. We were highly skilled, highly trained professionals. And it was like, Oh my God! This is the first. Alvin Ailey, I think is the closest that people would say, ’Well, this is the British Alvin Ailey.’ That was the comparison very often. It was great, because I think we were achieving a lot and we were making a lot of people very happy. So, it was a very satisfying moment in my career.

It’s interesting to hear that when you’re working so hard, and you’re so into something, even if it’s such a pioneering thing, you don’t see that side immediately. You only see it from its reflection.

Absolutely. Wow, it was great. It was exhausting. It really was exhausting and you’re living out of a suitcase and you’re never home very often. But the tours were fantastic. And I think it was the satisfaction of knowing that we brought something new to a space that kept the drive. And we were great as friends as well, so that helped.

Do you have a favourite place to go in the city?

I do like walking down by the Calls. I like where I live, which is around Gledhow Valley area. That’s my walk. Especially in the mornings and when the trees’ leaves are falling. It is so tranquil and absolutely gorgeous. It’s long enough for me to switch off but also, it’s quick enough for me to be able to get other things done. I love my local park which is Potter Newton which is just around the corner. If I’m really looking to go and venture a little further, just a bit out of the city, there’s Golden Acre Park, which I like going to. You’ve got the deer running around, so the wildlife feels much closer to hand. I find myself in lots of different areas within the city to be fair, and different bars that I might pop into in Headingley as opposed to Chapel Allerton. And town is just everything really. The Corn Exchange is beautiful, to just browse and shop in there, but I if I’m walking and thinking then it’s places like Gledhow Valley and Roundhay Park and Golden Acre Park, where I can just keep going forever.

Lots of us at NSCD are looking to become performers so could you tell us about what you enjoyed about performing and what you gained from experience on stage that could later be transferred into other skills.

I guess you don’t really step into this space as a dancer if you don’t enjoy some aspect of performance and, over the years, I think it changes. As a younger performer, I enjoyed the adrenaline. I enjoyed the complexity of what I was having to deliver. I enjoyed being special, in terms of the superstar element. It was the adrenaline and achieving all of those things. As you get older, you begin to delve further into the kind of work that you’re performing. So, it was great that we did everything. I was trained in classical, in contemporary, in jazz, baroque, in Tai Chi and all of these different forms. And that was what was nice about being able to enter a rehearsal process and offer over the various skills I felt I had to an artist or choreographer. And later on, I realized also that there’s a skill in being part of the concept, of delivering and creating those works. So, your brain starts to look at the work slightly differently, not just someone who’s physically able to offer the steps and to digest the steps from a choreographer but you’re offering back dialogue, a physical dialogue. I think that’s another switch as you begin to question and really delve into the ideas and the concepts of a work. And then you begin to choreograph yourself, which is also beautiful, that you’ve nurtured that skill to do all that and actually give over. I loved it all. I really did. But I guess I realized that actually, as I was coming towards the back end of being a performer, I was getting more pleasure out of giving, than receiving. That changed so the teaching became part of who I am and the choreography became part of it. I needed to be able to look in on it, rather than be it. And that was a shift in my development as an artist.

Yeah, that sounds really exciting. Was that a moment, or a very gradual shift?

No, Nadine used to have us choreographing all the time. It was part of who we were, I guess, and I never used to call myself a choreographer. I made that distinction when I said, I don’t earn my living as a choreographer. And because of that, I never claimed the title. But actually, I’ve made work for companies; I’ve made work for my own company; I’ve made work for Phoenix and it was like, Sharon, you’re a choreographer. And it doesn’t help when people are talking about you as an artist, that you don’t claim that part of what you do. So, I started to absorb that. A choreographer, teacher, director, producer and you start to see that you’re capable of this broad spectrum of work. And it’s like, I like this. Yes, this is satisfying.

You see that part of yourself and say, no, that does have to be on the CV!

When you were a performer, what kinds of what kinds of supplementary body conditioning would you do?

It’s really interesting because I think we used to have Pilates on our schedule for us. And that was the thing that we felt collectively worked for us with the type of intensity of work that we did. Most people say, ‘Well, did you go to the gym?’ I never used the gym. Pilates was the thing, because it just needed to be opposite, in a way, of the kind of hardcore physical work. And that was, for us the most satisfying, and the most rewarding. Using the gyrokinesis type movements, and the machines was great. Swimming also did a great job, just being able to take the weight out of your muscles in the water. As simple as it sounds, I think the impact of that was almost the shortcut, the shortcut to recovery. We did some work with an Olympic medallist from Wolverhampton University. It was about power and impact against rugby players and it was quite amazing how much impact and power, as dancers, we had, and where our shortfall was. When we looked at, elevation, sprint, and all of that, we were way ahead of the rugby players but we didn’t have duration. Our exercises were stop, start, stop, start. So, running became another way of toning the lungs, really. That became a supplement part of what we were doing, but I think Pilates and swimming were most appropriate.

What is your relationship to mentoring and how do you think the goals of mentoring or coaching are in line with dance?

If you can find yourself a coach or a mentor, either is good. I’ve officially got a coach now and I’ve had a mentor with me for quite some time in terms of the latter end of my career. And they do different things. I think you’re coaching through a particular aspect of your development. A mentor is the kind of person that you can go to and say, I’ve got these challenges here. They’re not necessarily work challenges. They’re about life, work balance. They’re about the harmonious approach to who you are as a person. They’re about helping you to expand the thinking. Just the sphere in which you can work with a mentor is fantastic. I love being able to share my experiences, but I also love to be able to talk to other people, when I see talents, or if I see an interest or someone is trying to figure things out, then that mentor relationship can unpick so many things. It can put in place little seeds, that helps a person to go, ‘Do you know some of those words that you said are absolutely right. That’s why I’m not going there. And I’ve got to go over there.’ I just think it can be mind blowing when you realize things are happening and you’re not even aware of them but you know that it’s been generated through a conversation with someone who’s not telling you what to do. It’s just sharing some thoughts and navigating a possibility. I do enjoy it.

Do you also act as a mentor?

I do. I have currently two mentees that I work with. Sometimes people need a lot. Sometimes they need a little. I can have them periodically, but they’re pretty well spaced out for what I need. I’ve got one that’s kind of unofficial and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I think young people now are beginning to realize that it’s not an older person’s thing. It’s not a mature thing that you do to have a mentor. I think everybody can benefit from it.

Would you ever think about implementing a mentoring system at the school?

Officially? I think that would be a great idea. And I think that could work. What do you mean by a mentor system? I suppose it could be anything really. Do you mean, an overall mentoring one or from staff?

I was thinking more of an inter-student system where newer students could speak with older students. That could be really interesting. I think because dance can become your whole life, it’s nice to feel you have this social side being supported within the industry.

Although, having said that, I think you’re onto something there. I mean, Student Services does a certain amount of social connecting, which is great. But actually, when you’re talking about mentoring, it would be great to have two different organizations find a way of mentoring, because some of your experiences could meet and become quite neutral but the fact that you’re talking to someone who’s not in your industry, is a good way just to really prise open a conversation of difference. Otherwise, you can get so comfortable with your own kind that you stop seeing and stop doing. To really press against another industry or another sector would be quite an interesting way to meet the world.

At NSCD, most of the students take ballet classes and there are lots of debates currently around its inclusion in core contemporary training. So, my question to you is, what is your least favourite part of a ballet class?

Remembering the steps! Oh, gosh, I loved ballet. I loved it. In fact, the very first question you asked about exercises, sometimes I think I would do the plies and the tendus and the rondes de jambes because they’re functional and for that purpose. I’ve never, ever had any intention of being a ballet dancer but I know what I need from that technique. And I genuinely think it was remembering the steps and just making sure that I could coordinate. I loved that I could feel how we can craft from the inside out. I feel I know it’s not my goal to be ‘that’ or to do ‘that’ but to take away the value of what that technique offers. And I’d meet it on that level, as opposed to anything else that it’s going to ever give me. And so, I respect it.

And you are an advocate for keeping it?

I am because I think it helps the process of getting to an end. We’re not a Northern School of Ballet. We’re not a school that’s going to produce ballet dancers but I think there is something about understanding the form of the classical technique that is an aid to an end. There’s a different approach to how that could work for a student, for a dancer, for a body. I think some of the principles maybe are being looked at around the teaching of ballet but I do feel that it services a purpose. If you remove it completely, I’m not sure what we have in parallel in Contemporary dance. We tend to manage with a Cunningham technique or a Grahamesque technique or a more independent release or flying low. We’ve got other ways in which we can supplement but I think the form of ballet does have its own use. It’s quite boxed as to what it offers. So, I am an advocate of it but I think the approach to understanding it has to be met by the individual. Otherwise, it can make you feel like you’re trying to become something that you’re not.

From working as a choreographer and as an artistic director with a huge range of different groups and people, have you found that there’s one crucial part of your choreographic process?

There’s always something important about the relationship you build in the room. I don’t go in there always knowing what my end product is. I also go in thinking, what am I going to learn that’s new, that I can take on board? I really value being able to have a conversation, whether that’s a physical one, or a creative one; a kind of a dialogue, a verbal dialogue with the people that are there. Because I think at the end of the day, when I come out with my work, and I look at the different ones, I hope that somebody would not just say, ‘Oh, that looks like the last one and that looks like that one.’ Then I’m not seeing progress. If somebody says, ‘Oh, God, I didn’t know that was yours,’ then I like the fact that it’s not so distinctive, that I’ve not got such a signature that everybody goes, ‘Oh, that’s a such and such a work.’ I’ve worked with cyclists. I did the Ghost Peloton and I worked with a group of 40 cyclists, to create an amazing piece of outdoor work. And it was choreography because I had to choreograph the bikes in this space. And it was just amazing. None of them were dancers; there were all cyclists, and the dancers were actually on the screen, but it was just a way of talking to the cyclists, to understand how I’m crafting a piece of work that people are viewing as choreography. So, there’s a different approach to how that might work. I also did it with runners in Manchester, in Salford Quays, we did this whole thing – all to do with light. When you see it, you see the whole image but the people in it have to understand what they’re doing and they have to do that by a dialogue. Choreography is the same, I like to walk in a room, not necessarily knowing what I’m going to do, but to start to feel the way and when I look at what people are offering me as an artist, I think, I really want to nurture that. I want to put a signature on it that melts it this way and turns it this way. And then when it comes out, we just go, ‘Well, that wasn’t expected.’ And I love that – I love the unexpected.

So being open at the beginning to your resources, and then making it into something new?

One person can only have so many ideas. If you’ve got 10 people in the room, that’s all you need. Pull them all together.

Do you have a key quote that keeps you focused and directed?

No, but I’m curious. I think I’m really curious and I think I feel confident enough to not know the answers, so I feel that I can ask the question. People ask, what would you say to your younger self? And I think it’s that, if the door is slightly open, just push it. See what happens with that because you’ll only ever be where you are if you don’t step forward or you don’t try. I am a big believer that sometimes you have to just see whether that door is going to give a little bit and, even if you step through it and you don’t know what the answers are, that’s also okay, because the person you’re meeting on the other side is probably just as clueless as you. And you can work things out together. But I find that there is something about just trying to trust your gut. So far, it’s never let me down. I think it is sometimes that feeling that you get. We don’t always quite understand it but if you can trust it, you can work with it.

Yeah, there’s something about trusting that all your logic can come out through your intuition. I’ve made decisions based on my gut, my intuition and then looking back, I was like, ‘Oh, it was because of this and this and this and all my past experiences there.’

And in the moment, you don’t always know that. So, your gut has to accumulate that information from all those different places and pull it together. And it’s like, something is telling me this is the right thing to do. I don’t even know. And I don’t know why. It’s very often it’s when you reflect back on it, it makes sense. Yeah, trust your gut.

Around when you made Windrush, you’ve said that you moved from more abstract work to more narrative and issues-based work. What made that decision for you? And how did you find the confidence to begin working in that way?

Wow, I loved making Windrush. It was my first full length and my first narrative, which was quite something. I think that the story was already written for me, because it was my Mum and my Dad’s story. I’m one of eight so I watched this happen as a child, and I hear it from my brothers and sisters. And the timing couldn’t have landed better. In 2018, it was an anniversary; it was lots of things coming into play. And you think, what do I do with this? I guess what I didn’t really know was how I was going to take it from being something so literal, because you can, you can make something step by step, into something that was not a musical, but it felt musical, not quite contemporary but it was contemporary enough. It had all the elements that I really wanted people to go, ‘Actually, I don’t really know what to call it,’ because it doesn’t have to have a title. It was just a story of Windrush. And I just found that once I started to work on it, it was just coming out of me.

David Nixon, who is now, or he will be in December, the past Artistic Director for Northern Ballet, and he’s been there for maybe 20 years or so. He said, ‘My goodness, you’re a narrative choreographer, and you took this long to make it happen. We could see things coming, Sharon, but you’ve done it this time.’ And I just went, ‘David, how did you manage to see it in my previous works, and the subtleties of it?’ He creates narrative work all the time. And then he said, ‘Well, somehow, you’ve made this process so easy,’ or he assumed, but I think the vision of what I wanted was so clear.

It was quite contentious with the fact that I was separating out different cultures. And the dancers I was working with were a little bit like, ‘Oh, how are you going to tell this narrative because it’s like black against white? It’s cultures against each other.’ I said, ‘it’s okay, because actually, there’s a process. And if you understand my story, what you’ll find at the end of it is that there’s this whole moment, where this is what my family looks like, and it’s integrated in such a way that if we don’t tell this part of the story, you’ll never understand this part.’ One of the sections was quite contentious. It was about the experience of black people in this country and I couldn’t not do that but I had to take the dancer through understanding what was going on at that moment in time and the hostile approach to it.

I loved it. I love the challenge of making sure that it felt it was danced and not spoken or not acted. I loved the fact that musically I could go anywhere I wanted to. We worked with Calypso, with jazz. There’s a section, the middle section, and I just said I have a feel for it. And I went to bed and I dreamt the section. It was clear as I’m sitting here talking to you and I was like, ‘Wow’. Okay, so I’ve done that. Then I was in my kitchen and the music came on, on Jazz Fm, 18 minutes long. I just went to work the next day and I couldn’t wait to start. I thought, this is it. The length of the music was 18 minutes. The concept. The paper. I need this. I need this. Everyone was just looking and I said, ‘Don’t let me explain, just work with me because it’s coming.’ And bom bom bom, the most complex section I’ve ever created in my life was on that stage. And it was done within a matter of days. So sometimes when you’re seeped in the narrative, it kind of reveals itself and that was just a magical moment for me. I’m getting all excited as I talk about it, I remember it so clear.

It sounds like it was so vivid in your mind that it wasn’t even a conscious decision to go, ‘Oh, I’m going to do narrative: let me pick something.’ It was just alive in you.

It really was, I think, I’m blessed with the timing because it was such a prominent time, for the celebration of 50 years and I had the right cast. I brought in more dancers to make it work so the casting worked. And yeah, it was all falling into line. So, it was meant to be and then we got a film out of it, which was amazing. Yeah, it all just fell into place in days. It really did, and not without its challenges. I’m not going to say that it wasn’t hard work and making sure that everybody understood what was going on because I guess that was quite a nervous moment where, for the first time, that I started to cast. Usually, I would create but I had to cast in a way that helped me tell the story. So there were new things in there as well.

Have you ever come across a style of dance that didn’t interest you or that you really didn’t like doing?

Oh my gosh. What didn’t I like? I don’t know. I don’t think I disliked anything. I don’t think I was good at everything but I gave it a go. I did jazz. I did commercial work. I starred in a few films. I did abseiling as part of a choreographic work. I tried everything. I was part of a company in France that lived on a vineyard and you try all sorts. I’m not saying they were all the best experiences, but I took from them what I needed. I suppose because I also felt talented enough to step in that space, I wanted to test my abilities to do things. And that’s what I did. Of course, there were things that you couldn’t do but I didn’t turn anything down. I think I wanted to be the most versatile dancer I could be.

So, you go into projects thinking, what am I going to learn? Or what’s the new thing here rather than what is the blockage? I guess this is exactly what you were saying about Nadine earlier.

Yeah, I did commercial jazz. I did TV jazz. I did a bit of West End stuff. And I think it wasn’t really what I was cut out to do. But, one, I needed to earn money and I thought, well, they like me, I could do this. And I did it for a little while. And then you know, falling into different jobs. I thought, I could do that. But it didn’t take anything away from me as a as an artist; I wasn’t so ingrained in the fact that I wanted to be a contemporary dancer and it had to look like this, that I lost anything about who I was. I think I just drew from different sources and did it.

Hearing you speak and seeing all the amazing achievements you’ve made, it’s quite clear that hard work has been a really important part of your life. I think lots of people see hard work in different ways, so, I was wondering if you could describe or explain to us what makes you see hard work, what it means to you?

What does hard work mean to me? It’s hard work if you don’t enjoy it. My kids, they see me work a lot and I put a lot of hours into what I do. But also, I think because I’m at this stage of my career and that’s the latter part of being an AD and now in this role, there’s a bigger picture. I feel that I’m an enabler of that picture but I’m not all the colours. I have to have someone who can bring me red, someone who can bring me blue, someone who can give me the glitz. And when I look at it, if I can see that there is an essence of all of this happening, then I know that my journey is going to be worth it because I’ve got to bring other people with me. I said the other day in my coaching session. Somebody asked me, ‘How would you describe good leadership?’ And I said if you can see things happening without a leader being at the front, going, ‘Come along, this is how it’s happening.’ To be in the background sometimes is the power and that is what I’ve arrived at here. I can do a lot of stuff; there’s a lot of stuff going on, and things are happening and it’s not because I’m shouting, ‘Come on, lets champion all of this.’ There’s a power in being able to go, actually, I need to empower you to do that job. It’s just making sure that it’s happening. I’ve noticed that’s a very different way than how I had to lead Phoenix. In some of the rooms that I go into, and I’ve spent last year on zoom, in these conference rooms, Northern School is well recognized and there’s a power behind the voice and the action. But I don’t have to shout in those spaces. I feel as though people are curious enough to know, because of our success, what’s going on? What is happening? Can we make this happen? I realized that actually sitting back here and just feeling as though I can envelop that empowerment, is great. I feel very powerful in that respect, that I can do that. I can change the landscape without having to go in there and scrape anything out. I can influence by the conversations, by visioning. I think that’s one of my strengths and enabling others to do what I can’t do on my own. That’s very different. And I think that’s the first time I’ve said this publicly about leadership. The difference in that.

As a choreographer, and as an educator, what’s one thing that bugs you about dance students? A pet hate?

Okay, that’s interesting. Pet hate, I think what I’ve discovered is that I’d like for students to just talk more. I’d like for students to not feel that they can’t bring conversation to a space. Rather than waiting for a student survey to give your opinions on things, I’d love to think that what we’re building is something that everyone feels that they’ve got some connection to. Not everything they’re going to like, but they have a space where they can just go, actually, let’s just talk about it. I like that, because I think what tends to happen is they’ll sit on things. I think once things start to get routed, they become quite problematic, or they become difficult to unplug. Maybe sometimes the wrong end of the spectrum has been received, and it’d be great just to talk about it.

And I think it can spread as well when people are feeling things so strongly.

Yes, and I’m not saying it’s just Northern School, but I think students generally tend to just feel that that’s a part of how Student life is. And I don’t think it has to be. I think we can get rid of that feeling that nobody’s listening. If we had a way of opening that dialogue and just saying, it’s not like that, or it is like that, and let’s see what we can do about it or just communicate in that way. It’s okay, if you think something is happening and actually, in reality, it’s not, that’s not a problem, ask the question, and then it’s gone.

If there was one change you could make in the school, without having to ask anyone, without having to do any paperwork, what would you do?

Without having to ask anyone, without any paperwork. What do you mean, because obviously, getting rid of fees, and all the rest of it? The things, the barriers that stop people from doing things, that would be the first thing. Everyone should be able to dance, and everyone should be supported to do that. I would hope that the school could grow so that there’s more space. I’d love to have a bigger estate of the school and that is in part of the thinking. For the school to grow. I’d love to think that we could think about the ways in which the different strands of education facilitate the growth and the needs of each of the students. Right now we’ve had to narrow our directory of how we do it. We couldn’t have everything; we couldn’t have a dance and music course running as a course in itself. Just all those possibilities because dance is so versatile and we’re not big enough to do it all. If we could, that would be it, we would be the International School of Dance that facilitates the sector in every aspect. In dancing, in music, in theatre, in drama, and in reading and literature, in research and in public art. Dance would be the golden thread. I would love that.

Take away the barriers and I think it will tell the wider world the value of this particular art form, which is underestimated. And our instruments are it, so this is what we have. We’re not relying on a piece of wood or a piece of brass to make it happen. This is it. When you take that into a space, you can change it, impact it; you can be the thing that actually gives you success. For all of the students, for all of the skills, the different levels that they develop, they need to own who they are, and bring that confidence with them into the spaces that they want to go into. We would just dominate the world. That’s where I’d like to go: no barriers. We’d have departments that take care of certain things and continue the thread; go through it horizontally and vertically so that we stay connected. But we’d absolutely sing from the same hymn sheet, in terms of the vision. And actually, just empower staff, students, governors, those that come into the building, those that see us from the outside, to understand that we have some greater value and greater worth in what we do.

I think one of the things that drew me to this degree and dance in general was that my toolkit was with me all the time. You can’t forget your laptop, and then have no way to show your work. Instead, you just think, I’m all here.

On the other end of the spectrum, have you ever felt like leaving dance?

Yes. I felt frustrated at times with people’s fear of change. I think people might say it’s change, it’s growth, it’s whatever it is. But if you’re not prepared to do that, then you get stagnant. For me, that is probably the worst thing for a dancer, just to feel that the mundane day-to-day is not growing you and you’re not growing it. That frustration has happened in my life, in my lifetime, in my career. I’ve been like, I’m not fighting this; I’m just going to walk away from it. But actually, on reflection, you’ve got to know what is worth fighting for. So, you go back in again and this is where the courage comes into play. Because you suddenly go, right, so we’ve got a battle on our hands. I’ve actually been prepared to walk away because I’ve been racially abused in my job, in the context of the work that I do. It was like, you have got to be kidding! Somebody needs to do something about this and nothing was done. So it’s like, ‘Well, you know what? Okay, see you. I don’t really want to have to deal with this.’ It was more recent, I wouldn’t say current, but it was more recent for me in terms of thinking, wait a minute, I’m actually worth more than this. I really am. You can sit there and have this dialogue and feel you’re empowered to do so. And I’m supposed to feel undervalued, underrepresented? No, that’s not going to happen. There was a couple of moments, different scenarios. It’s not because of the dance, it’s about the people, and the frustration of trying to stress the change that’s needed, and fight for it. But in the end, it was worth fighting for. So, I didn’t leave.

I felt that I needed to check in with myself and check in with my worth at those moments because I think that was a useful thing. Throughout my journey, I have felt like I’ve been floored. On both occasions, I probably had never experienced such intensity of that challenge so I didn’t quite know how to handle it. My first response was to walk away but on reflection, I’m glad I didn’t.

There’s something that you can hold in yourself after you’ve not walked away: a confidence to say, ‘Okay, I dealt with that. And at that moment, it was impossible. But if it felt impossible, then what else is impossible, that I can still do?’

Is there one thing that you couldn’t live without?

Music! Music. I just love it. That’s all genres of music, at different times. It’s just music. At times when you feel that you’re slipping into certain spaces that you perhaps would rather not be, you just put a soundtrack on and it’s like, I needed that. It’s a bit like food but, actually, I don’t know if I would say I love food as much as I love music. So yeah, music. Live music even better. I was at a concert this weekend, in the town hall and it was gorgeous. I just let it wash over me. For a moment I could lose myself and allow my imagination to just empower me again. That’s a different way of refuelling. But it was with music and I didn’t need my instrument to be informing that choice. It was just happening.

You’ve said before that there’s always another level of glass ceiling that you need to break. What is your next glass ceiling? Where do you next want to go?

Bearing in mind I’ve only just got here. Actually, the interesting thing is, it may not be necessarily about a career shift and glass ceiling, but a glass ceiling in the responsibility I feel around making sure that the school remains current. And that, by doing so, I’ve got to enter into conversations and spaces where it’s important for us to be represented. That’s a new space. We are talking to various people in government. Government systems are changing and we need to be at the table when they understand that actually, we’ve got an amazing International School with a reputation that precedes itself. How are you going to help us to help the next generation? That room for me is where the glass ceiling is. I need to be able to get myself to the table and once I’m there, it’s not difficult to sell what’s going on here. It’s not difficult to see. We’re relatively small by comparison; we’re not one of those schools that’s got 4000 students in it. So, there’s a very personable approach to who we are as a school and the impact that we have. We are so impactful and if they understand that, it makes their job easier in terms of making decisions and not lumping us with all of the, ‘Well you can all do everything online.’ No, we can’t. We really, really can’t. We are special. Whether you like it or not, we need studio spaces. Our students don’t graduate with blinkers on. Our dancers are able to really take in the world and their confidence steps into spaces that a lot of other graduates tend not to go to. If you could sell the power that we build in our students, you wouldn’t have a problem with your government, because I think we’d be able to give you the skills that you need to run a country, some of the decision making. I strongly believe that I have something here that embraces more than what I believe government really understands. I think those are the glass ceilings now: our local MPs, our new mayor of West Yorkshire, the people, the decision makers and the influences that sit within our sphere, those are the ones that I need to be able to talk to now. If I can be seen, then I can be heard. But I’ve got to get to be seen.

Wow yes, I agree it would be great to see more creative decision making in those spaces.

Definitely, we had lock down for so long and people were singing on their doorsteps. People suddenly picked up the paintbrushes and people were writing poetry and I think to myself; we label these skills and qualities as soft skills. If you imagine a society without the skills that we have, as people, you have to question whether or not it’s a world worth living in. So, what we bring to the world is a real, in-depth amount of culture and importance and richness to who we are as humans. If we lose that, then there’s a barbaric approach to humanity that we would lose. I see that when we talk about choreography, when people feel an emotion, from something that’s on stage, you suddenly connect as a human being and not as just a thing. There is a real importance in understanding that what we bring to the table and how, if we had more of it, we probably could respect the cultural differences, the emotional intelligence that we could all grow from these experiences. So, it just broadens out our opportunity to be human beings. Climate change is only one part of our problem, but even that, you empathise because you’re connected emotionally. You start to see things and people differently. It’s not just this one trajectory we’ve got to do. The pyramid is just servicing a certain amount of people when actually, the whole ecology requires us to live together. I understand why the arguments and the fights are around climate and the environments that we live in and how we treat each other. But we do that within dance in such a way that it’s such a subtle but powerful way of making things happen. Yeah, I’d love to take the Minister for a workshop. I’d love to just bring the team along; it would be amazing. We’ve done it, we do it with corporates, we go in and we teach corporates how to build teams. We do that physically. We do that creatively. And you think, wow, that’s missing from your world. That’s amazing that you do what you do without that relationship. They’re offering you something new, and it’s not dumbing down, but it really does address the status quo of who we are as people.

Yeah, I’d take the whole of House of Parliament’s and just give them a workshop. Book us in – we’ll take care of your inequalities and your differences and inhibitions just through the power of movement.

We can see that you have a lot to do, and you’re very busy, so my last question is, what do you do to rest?

There’s been many times I’ve tried to answer this question and it’s never really quite sounded like rest. I love going to see things, I really do. I think, where you’re not the person having to drive it, you can go to the art gallery, and take trips out. I love it. I can go to music concerts. When I’m home, if it’s not too distracted at home, I do like to read. Not necessarily all policy papers, but to really pick up a nice book. I’ve got the audio on my phone now and I just plug into that every so often. I can relax my eyes and let my imagination go and just drift off in a book every now and then. That’s quite nice. I do go to the gym on occasions, but I tend to like the sauna and the swimming and the steam room, again do a bit of self-care there. It’s still all creative stuff that I find I choose to relax.

I think this is one of the things that I’ve been learning recently. It’s not always about doing nothing and resting. It’s also about refuelling and not just with food, but, artistically, your imagination needs refuelling.

And to be led. To let yourself go. I’ve got great friends that will just say, come along to this. And then you know – God, I don’t really know if I’ve got the energy but actually, I’ll just go with them and take it in and you just feel energised at the end of it. So, allowing yourself to take those spontaneous opportunities.

Lastly, is there anything else you’d like to say to NSCD students? Do you have any questions that you’d like me to ask them in return?

I’d like for them to say hello to me. I’d like for the students, however simple it is, that we try and build a relationship. Obviously COVID has been hard with the masks and everything but sometimes, I see people out in spaces, and I think I can see them going, ‘Is that …?’ We could have a moment, which is lovely. And when Potter Newton Park was the space where everybody was walking in, it was nice sometimes just to check out who’s there and what they’re doing. Come and ask me. Come and talk to me. Sometimes I might have the answer. Or I could put you in touch with other people that have the answers. Or you’re just curious, if you wanted some advice on anything. So, I’d like to think that my door is open. And that if anyone was passing and they just wanted to ask a quick question or anything, if they wanted to share an exhibition that they’ve been to, ‘Sharon, you need to go and see this.’ I’d love to hear about it. That kind of thing. And to do well, whatever that means to anyone, just to do well.