February 2024
Nikki Northover runs Bridport Youth Dance (BYD), a dance school for young people aged 5 to 21. She studied dance and dance education in London and Surrey, and her career in the field has taken her across the world, but she has continued to work here in her home town alongside jobs elsewhere.
We caught up with Nikki to hear about her lifelong passion for dance and her plans for BYD’s future…
The Bridge: What are your earliest memories of dance? Is it a family passion?
Nikki Northover: Music has always been central to my family. Both my maternal grandparents were very musical and my mum has shared many stories of music filling their house in London.
Mum moved to Eype in the late 60s and met my father, the local dairyman. They joined the Bridport Pantomime Players, my mum as assistant ballet teacher and occasionally playing parts, and my dad as stage manager. My family also had a close association with Bernard Gale and his school of dancing in Bridport.
My mum says that as a baby I would sit on her lap watching my older sister in her dance class. I was always captivated. I started dancing when I was two, first ballet and then tap, too, at five. Eventually I also took up stage, ballroom and Latin.
It was in my teens that a Ballet Rambert dancer, Stephen Ward, came to Bridport and ran contemporary dance classes – my first experience of this style, which I later studied at degree and postgraduate level. I was also lucky to go to tap classes with Roy Castle.
As a girl I was inspired by the films of Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire and at 18 I discovered American tap. I was also the generation to watch Fame, a drama series about New York’s High School of Performing Arts. The thought of going to a school where you could dance all the time was thrilling!
TB: You’ve always retained strong links with Bridport. Why is your home town so special to you?
NN: Bridport has always been my home and in my heart. I realised early that I had a passion for teaching and working with young people. I’ve always been drawn to education and creativity, and I know this is what I’m meant to be doing – sharing my love of dance with others. Bridport is a beautiful place with a vibrant arts scene.
Over the decades, I’ve aimed to provide artistic, creative and performance opportunities to help children find what makes their heart sing, and encourage them to become self-empowered creators. I love to make things happen.
As a response to the pandemic I created an outdoor programme – BYD’s ART and DANCE in the LANDscape dance education programme, and through this I was in some ways returning to my roots. As a child I would often walk the fields of Lower and Higher Eype with my dad, making footprints in the earth as the cows were moved from field to field. Now the BYD outdoor programme is taking me back to the land, this time for a new and exciting chapter.
TB: What led you to set up BYD?
NN: After my studies and working in London, I wanted to set down roots. I was spending eight or nine months in London and summers in Dorset as I had set up Summerthing Children’s Art Festival in 1994. This ran every August for 16 years, bringing artists from London and the South West to Bridport to lead workshops in dance, drama, puppetry, drumming, music, painting, circus skills and more.
In 2001, on the train from London, I received an intuitive message that it was time to set down roots. It was to be London or Bridport: I had to decide which one I could live without. Steppping onto the station at Dorchester, I knew I was truly coming home – to Bridport. I began to live here and commute to London at the end of the week to work with The West London School of Dance and Danceworks. So in 2001 the very beginnings of BYD were established in weekly classes.
My first baby was born in October 2004 and six months later I put on my first show here in Dorset. I wonder how I managed! I was still working in London at weekends and my mum and baby son would come up to London while I taught.
My second child turned one in 2009; having two young children, some sleepless nights and early weekend starts brought the London chapter to a natural end. This made space to establish more classes for young people in Bridport, including after-school classes, an annual production, the introduction of Bridport Boys Dance and a summer school, Summer Dance Scene.
In 2014 my third child was born and in November 2015 our Steps studio and hub for young dancers was opened, and it has become an important and space for artistic, creative young people.
The Boys Dance programme was established in 2008 by Anna Golding and taken over by local dancer, teacher and choreographer Aimee Symes. At its peak it had 22 boys. Specific boys classes continued until 2020.
Since the pandemic we haven’t been able to recover this alongside Summer Dance Scene and live music in our theatre productions, but maybe it will return in time. We have nine boys and young men who dance in mixed classes, and hopefully this will continue to grow.
TB: The arrival of Covid meant BYD had to close suddenly. How did you maintain your students’ enthusiasm during this long period?
NN: In March 2020 we put on Orpheus and Eurydice: The Power of Love at the Electric Palace. Days later, BYD’s doors had to close, and remained closed on and off for almost 60 weeks. After the initial shock and dread, the pandemic became a time of possibility, and greatly enriched BYD by enabling a change of direction.
During the first lockdown we established a remote programme but it was clear that the dancers needed to connect with each other. So, following each lockdown, alongside remote teaching, I established an outdoor programme of dance, often with live music. We danced in gardens and on beaches, and we made short dance films: The Dance Weavers series about dancers responding to the land. We also created Choreography Geography, site-specific performances at sites including Charmouth beach, Eggardon Hill and St Catherine’s Chapel, Abbotsbury. The audience walks and watches, listens and absorbs as the young dancers connect to and honour the land.
The Dance Weaver films continue today and are a celebration of dance and the young people themselves. Our sixth film, Dancing with Darkness, will be screened in March. Our outdoor dance programme continues alongside work in our studio at Symondsbury.
TB: What are you looking forward to in 2024?
NN: Thanks to continued funding from Arts Council England in 2023, BYD has continued its outdoor programme of dance together with an outreach and emerging artists programme. The outreach programme took dance into local schools, Sidney Gale Home for the elderly, and a local forest school, and provided dance and wellbeing courses for adults at our Steps studio. These classes are ongoing.
The emerging and young artists programme supports young dancers, performers, choreographers and film makers, providing work and mentorship and giving valuable experience in the dance world, including teaching and design. The young dancers have always been an important and vital part of the creative process.
Specific projects I am looking forward to include our 20th annual production, Paradigm, at the Electric Palace in March.
The outdoor programme is now integral to BYD so – funding permitting – there will be more Dance Weaver films and the continuation of Choreography Geography site-specific performances in the landscape.
I hope BYD will continue to grow and reach more people locally to bring them joy through dance.