1997 – New premises for dance companies

The millennium years and the 2010s can be seen as a time when investment within British dance went not to artistic output, but to infrastructure in the form of new facilities for dance companies. These endeavours were filled with a feeling of hope, enabling companies to fulfil a remit to keep dance relevant in a modern world that seemed to have a diminishing appreciation for classical dance. Sadler’s Wells opened its current space in 1998, a building that embodied executive director Alastair Spalding’s vision that the theatre’s programming should forge a bright future by reflecting its past: housing resident companies that produce new works.

The Royal Opera House underwent a massive redevelopment between 1997 and 1999, radically modernising the entire Covent Garden complex. The Royal Ballet Upper School moved from Barons Court to premises on Floral Street connected to the redeveloped opera house in January 2003, thus fulfilling the desire of Ninette de Valois that school and company should be firmly bound. The Royal Opera House completed a further redevelopment of parts of its building in 2018, part of the Open Up project.

Scottish Ballet moved to the Tramway Arts Centre, Glasgow, in 2009, occupying a space that includes Europe’s largest dance studio. Northern Ballet Theatre and Phoenix Dance Theatre occupied to a six-storey, purpose-built facility in the Quarry Hill area of Leeds in the autumn of 2010. Rambert moved from premises in Chiswick to a state-of-the-art building on Coin Street, London, in 2014. This move complemented a refocusing of the Southbank area of London, putting Rambert within walking distance of the British Film Institute, the National Theatre and the Southbank Centre. Within that arts complex, the Royal Festival Hall reopened in 2007 after a two-year refurbishment. English National Ballet moved to purpose-built facilities in London City Island in 2019 that could be seen as part of a powerful statement about the changing face of the nation’s capital as other prestigious arts organisations plan moves to east London. South of the River Thames, the Royal Academy of Dance moved into purpose-built premises on York Road, Battersea, in 2021.