featuring imagery courtesy of Ruby Gadsby.
‘Nothing raises the stakes of something like the risk of cracking your head open - although I’d never tell my young students this’. Lloyd laughs. A contemporary dancer who runs his own dance company with his friend, Dan, Lloyd still finds it difficult to find space to perform. For dance, like many art forms, can also be quite elitist in nature, with purpose-built spaces where classes are taught, also known as conservatoires, often costing a small fortune to attend. As a result, many dancers, like Lloyd, frequently take to our urban environments to express their movements and refine their dance skills.
Recognising this element of inequality, Lloyd attempts to break down such wealth barriers through his company, stating: ‘The content we provide is educational [their videos being freely available online] and allows people to learn things that usually only get provided in a professional dance/movement setting. We’re trying to lower the barrier for entry as we feel it’s unfair that a lot of people get priced out of this training due to the ridiculous cost of going to train in a university or conservatoire’. At the same time however, as hinted at in the opening line, it is clear that this is a setting Lloyd also gets a kick out of dancing in ‘Necessity is the mother of invention’ he insightfully tells me, ‘there is something impressive about being so confident in a skill that you’re able to do it on concrete… also my background in parkour [a form of unofficial athletics whereby people attempt, typically in urban areas, to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible] means that I have a comfort performing risky things on concrete than the average person does’. Though, whilst Lloyd here may come across here as a life-long dancer, given that many begin during childhood, he in fact only started when he was 17 after feeling rather lost in life. Yet before we dive into Lloyd’s exciting story and intelligent ideas, we need to address one question many may be asking here, which is why dance is being featured in an art magazine.
‘The best artist has that thought alone which is contained within the marble shell; the sculptor's hand can only break the spell; to free the figures slumbering in the stone’ Michelangelo once said. What this genius from the past is arguably referring to here is the simple fact that an artist’s work has already been created before they have even put pen to paper or chisel to stone.
Of course, this may sound ludicrous, but for most artists this is what art is; it’s trying to draw, paint, sculpt or carve the creation that they have already conceived within their minds. It’s a process, which to many means getting their hands dirty through the use of objects, be it ink, paper, wood, cameras or otherwise. To solely define art in such a way, however, also reveals our deep desire as a species to possess something tangible – in other words, to have something to show for our thoughts outside ourselves, such as a painting, a sculpture, a photograph or a ceramic piece. Moreover, such a definition stands to unduly dampen our opinion of one of our most powerful emotions; one that doubtlessly defines art in the first place – our individual human expression.
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