London Contemporary Dance School

London Contemporary Dance School is a contemporary dance school located in London, United Kingdom and a part of the Conservatoire for Dance and Drama. It was founded by Robin Howard in 1966 to train new dancers for his company,London Contemporary Dance Theatre.

LCDS is based at The Place in the Bloomsbury area of Central London, close to the Senate House complex of the University of London, RADA and University College London.

London Contemporary Dance School and its partner company, London Contemporary Dance Theatre, were founded in 1966 under the governance of the Contemporary Dance Trust. After receiving support from its founder, Robin Howard, the Contemporary Dance Trust moved to 17 Duke's Road in 1969, which it renamed The Place. In 1978, with assistance from the Arts Council and Linbury Trust, The Place underwent a major redevelopment, with new studios created for the School on Flaxman Terrace. In 1982, LCDS began offering a BA Honours degree in Contemporary Dance, validated by the University of Kent. In 1994, London Contemporary Dance Theatre was closed and the Richard Alston Dance Company formed. In October 2001 a £7.5 million redevelopment of The Place, including the construction of six new dance studios, was completed. In the same year LCDS and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts formed the Conservatoire for Dance and Drama. In 2008 a £1.1 million development at The Place added two new further studios.

Teaching

LCDS teaches a variety of contemporary dance techniques including release-based, Limón, Humphrey and Contact Improvisation, priding themselves on their Graham techniqueand Cunningham technique. As part of its courses LCDS also offers pilates, body conditioning, free electives in Choreology, Anatomy and Scenography, and ballet studies.

LCDS provides both undergraduate and postgraduate vocational training as well as a research programme in contemporary dance. The School also offers courses in contemporary dance in London for adults and children, including Centre for Advanced Training, a programme allowing pre vocational training for young people in the South East.

Converted from a Grade-II listed Victorian drill hall built in 1888/9 for the Artists Rifles,The Place became the permanent home of the Contemporary Dance Trust in 1969. Since then, under the auspices of its founder Robin Howard, its first artistic director Robert Cohan, and subsequent directors Richard Alston, John Ashford, Nigel Hinds and Veronica Lewis, it has led the way in the development of contemporary dance in the UK. Virtually all of the major British contemporary dance artists to have emerged in the past 40 years have been associated with The Place at some stage in their careers, and its contribution to the popularity of contemporary dance in Britain today is hard to overstate.

Between 1999 and 2001, a major redevelopment programme principally funded by the National Lottery refurbished The Place's original building and replaced a decaying studio block added in 1978 with six new state-of-the-art dance studios designed by architects Allies and Morrison. Two further studios were added in 2001.

The Place's work today continues to focus on developing dance artists at different stages of their careers. This work is most visible through the touring of the dance company of it Artistic Director, Richard Alston, whose company perform regularly at Sadler's Wells and in 2006 complete their first tour of the USA. The Place's Robin Howard Dance Theatre, so named in honour of their founder in 2001, premieres more danceworks than any other venue in the country. It is seen as a hotbed of experimentation, where emerging dancers and dancemakers from the UK and abroad first come to national attention, while more established artists use the space to develop and show experimental works.

Among work less visible to the general public, London Contemporary Dance School is recognised as one of the world's leading dance conservatoires, providing full-time vocational training to around 170 students to degree and postgraduate level. Through founding in 2001 with RADA the Conservatoire for Dance and Drama, London Contemporary Dance School became the first dance school to provide funding for its students which compares to that for students of other disciplines in the UK.

The Place also organises community work to address the needs of local people, including those who are disadvantaged or may feel excluded, and runs a popular programme of evening and weekend classes where enthusiasts of all ages and abilities have the chance to learn from some of the artform's most accomplished practitioners.

The college offer one course:

Professional 3 Year Diploma in Musical Theatre/Dance

The college course is accredited by the Council for Dance Education and Training.

The college offer its own scholarship/funding awards.

The college is registered with EMA.

The college has over 100 students.

The college is also an approved 

centre of the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing. Students have the opportunity to gain nationally recognised dance teaching qualifications with the organisation, in ballet, tap and modern theatre dance.

The school stages an annual production at the 'UCL Bloomsbury' Theatre in London, which many agents/directors in the industry attend in helping the graduates gain employment.

Bloomsbury has no official boundaries, but can be roughly defined as the square bounded by Tottenham Court Road to the west, Euston Road to the north,Gray's Inn Road to the east, and either High Holborn or the thoroughfare formed by New Oxford Street, Bloomsbury Way and Theobalds Road to the south.Bloomsbury merges gradually with Holborn in the south, with St Pancras and King's Cross in the north-east and with Clerkenwell in the south-east.

The area is bisected north to south by the main road Southampton Row/Woburn Place, which has several large tourist hotels and links Tavistock Square and Russell Square the central points of Bloomsbury. The road runs from Euston and Somers Town in the north to Holborn in the south.

East of Southampton Row/Woburn Place are the Grade II listed Brunswick Centre, a residential and shopping centre, and Coram's Fields children's recreation area. The area to the north of Coram's Fields consists mainly of blocks of flats, built as both private and social housing, which is often considered part of St Pancras or King's Cross rather than north-eastern Bloomsbury. The area to the south is generally less residential, containing several hospitals, including Great Ormond Street, and gradually becomes more commercial in character as it approaches Holborn atTheobald's Road.

The area west of Southampton Row/Woburn Place is notable for its concentration of academic establishments, museums, and formal squares. Here are the British Museum and the central departments and colleges of the University of London, including Birkbeck College, University College London, the School of Oriental and African Studies, and the University of London's School of Advanced Study. The main north-south road in west Bloomsbury is Gower Street which is a one-way street running south from Euston Road towards Shaftesbury Avenue in Covent Garden, becoming Bloomsbury Street when it passes to the west of the British Museum.