1981 – Phoenix Dance Company established

Phoenix Dance Company was established in Leeds in 1981 by David Hamilton, its founding director, Donald Edwards and Vilmore James. These young Black men were all inspired by the teaching they had received from Nadine Senior at Harehills Middle School. The repertory at the small troupe was predominantly danced to reggae and club music, but by the late 1980s the company was dancing works by Michael Clark and Aletta Collins.

Phoenix Dance Company went through several directors before Darshan Singh Bhuller, a leading dancer with London Contemporary Dance Theatre and a former student of Harehills Middle School, took over the directorship in 2002. Singh Bhuller refocused the company, improving the repertory, attracting international dancers and renaming it Phoenix Dance Theatre. Javier de Frutos ran the company from 2006 until 2009, when Sharon Watson, who had trained at London Contemporary Dance School and was a former dancer with Phoenix Dance Company, became the company’s next director. The company moved to a purpose-built building on Quarry Hill, Leeds, with Northern Ballet Theatre in 2010. Dane Hurst, a former dancer with Rambert, became artistic director from 2021 to 2022, followed by Marcus Jarrell Willis in 2023.