Farooq Chaudhry: Between the Light and the Shadow (Dancing Class)

Episode 11 • 26th May 2026 • Beckett Talks • Leeds Beckett University

Hi, I'm Laura. Hi, I'm Rachel, and this is the Dancing Class podcast made possible by the British Academy, Leverhulme Small Research Grant Fund and Leeds Beckett University. In this series, we invite dance industry professionals from working class backgrounds in the UK to talk about their experience of dance education and their careers. We're interested in discussing the ways in which dance can be a vehicle for class mobility in the UK, and contribute to discourses around levelling up. This series also researches the role of dance as a catalyst for social and economic progress. Some of our discussions take place while dancing and are recorded with spatial sound. This creates an immersive effect and the best listening experience is via the use of headphones. These recordings will be labelled as binaural. We hope that you enjoy the series. Thanks for tuning in.

Farooq Chaudhry, OBE, welcome. Thanks for joining us on the Dancing Class podcast. Oh, thanks for having me. I'm kind of excited, but also nervous about what I'm going to reveal about myself. Yeah. It'll be like, this is your life. Yeah, totally. Hey, actually, we could, um, have that as a side hustle, couldn't we? We could. Yeah. Yeah. Getting this info to this is your life. What you're going to pull out a little red book and say, pictures of my family and. Yeah. Did you bring your national record of achievement? Yeah. That's. Yeah. So could you just start? Farooq, tell us about where you come from. Yeah. Okay. How things began. How things began. Oh, my. Let's go back to the, the, really the beginning. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, I was born in Pakistan, so in, in the city of Lahore. And my father came to the UK, I think, in nineteen sixty one. You know. You know, there's a time when, you know, immigrants were sold this idea of, you know, the streets were paved with gold in London and he could come here and become wealthy. And, and then we would come over and join him and live this fantastic life, which was a complete myth and a lie, to be honest. And actually, the funny thing is, he didn't even want to come to the UK. He was a maths professor at the top university in Lahore University. Wow. And so he had this really and he worked really hard. He came from like an agricultural background. He, you know, he studied by candlelight, you know, no electricity in his village. So he enjoyed what he achieved with his life. And then but my mother's family, unfortunately, they were they were textile merchants. And when my mother's father died, all the wealth was just, you know, you know, ruined by the by the brothers who spent it on cars and fancy lives. So they thought, let's get an educated man. Get him over to London and get the wealth back in the family. So survival of the fittest. Yeah. So. So this guy comes over, and he must have been in his early twenties, actually. And, you know, and I think he found it quite miserable, I'm sure. What a shock. Colder. Colder. But also. But that's that you can live with. It's the stuff I'm going to tell you now. Like you know. So we came over, like, in nineteen sixty three. So it was myself, my sister and my mother. How old were you then? Three years old. Okay. So. And we joined. Joined him in. Obviously, I'm just picking up stories now because, you know, three years old, you can only remember being in a playground, right? And, you know, swinging on something, and that was it. But, you know, it wasn't easy. I remember us

moving to something like a really small flat that where the cooker was right next to the

bathroom and the toilet was right next to the cooker. I mean, it's completely unhygienic, unhygienic and unsafe. But and you know, now that I think of it, it was it was like destitute, you know, it was, you know, people, you know, with the poorest sense of our society would be living in a place like. So that's where we lived, you know, and and we came and then, you know, and all I can recall was a lot of misery at home because my father, you know, educated guy trying to get a job and no one would give him work because there was a time when racism was so bad in London. Actually, those were the times when you had those signs in shops that said, no blacks, no Irish and no dogs. If you wanted to rent something. So he was trying to get a job and the best they would give him was a security guard, you know. And so you can imagine a guy who's worked up his life to create this, this prestigious sense of his worth, a sense of worth, and then to be brought back down again is a terrible feeling. So the knock on effect of that was an incredible amount of unhappiness at home, you know, and, and myself as a Pakistani immigrant, my sister, we went to the local primary school and it was I can tell you now, right through until about eleven, I think I must have been punched every day going to school and punch coming out, my sister and myself. It was a time when, you know, the Paki bashing era, it was it was almost okay to hit a person of color. It was acceptable. It was like kicking the dog. It was that bad. Um, and so this, this was kind of the upbringing that I had. This is the beginning of how things started, right? You know, and, um, and I remember, you know, I mean, I don't want to, you know, sell the kind of poverty stricken story, but we really were very poor. I mean, you know, I always felt hungry, and and on Sundays we got these tin of canned peaches with carnation milk, and that was a treat. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and my mother came over, and she was uneducated, and she eventually got a job working at, uh, Lyons Cake Factory. Right? Yeah. Yeah. But staying up all night putting stuff on conveyor belts. So, you know. So this this is the family life. It's, you know, you would call it really working class, you know, in, you know, lower working class, probably. But ironically, my dad was really, really educated, you know, so and so he really encouraged that in me and and my sister. My sister was less inclined. But, you know, I was very responsive, you know, towards learning and studying. And when I went to school, I excelled. I was always the first or second one in class, you know, no the first one most times actually. I was good at math and I was good. My dad was giving me books of math equations that were meant for ten year olds at the age of five. Wow. Wow. Right. So? So he was kind of really. And he had this dream of me becoming really educated and then returning back to Pakistan and joining the Air Force. Wow. He used to bring me these prospectuses to say, read this, you know. You know, that's where I want you, son. You know, you're going to be you know, the Air Force was like, you know, the the dream. But that's not what happened, you know, and, and, um, and so what, what began the effect of this really on our family life was, you know, there was a lot of arguments, a lot of misery. There was, you know, my dad, actually, and, you know, was pretty violent. And it kind of unsettled him tremendously. And he used to lash out at us. And lashing out is a kind of kind way of saying it. It was pretty horrible and hurtful and and scary, you know. And then and then it was this kind of sense of feeling like as a child, I'm living in a little bit of fear all the time and anxiety, and I'm not accepted at school, but I'm not accepted at home. So but I was a smart kid, so I

started to figure out, you know, how do I live this life? How do I stay, you know, hopeful and safe? How do I get things I need so I become quite savvy? You know, I started to kind of set up all these little schemes at school where I would steal things and sell them at school. You know,

I mean, I became a local entrepreneur. I was well, I was a producer. I often joke that's where the producing instinct came from, right from the get go. Producers are meant to kind of conjure the impossible out of, you know, out the you know, the impossible, out the impossible. So it was actually conjuring up ways to make things work. Um, and at the same time, I excelled at school. So it was kind of driving my teachers mad because how can this boy, who's kind of a bad boy, do so well in his exams all the time? So it was kind of so. So that was the early life, really. And it was we lived in West Kensington actually, which is now very, you know, is it quite posh now? Very posh. Then it wasn't, you know, it was like, you know, and there was a walk to school for an hour, not an hour for a mile every day as a young kid and walked back and we didn't have cars, you know, there was the streets were different and, and then eventually my dad saved up enough money. He he he, he studied as a chartered accountant and became and joined a firm and had enough money then to buy a house. Wow. Great. You know, which is just down the road in Fulham, you know, not far from where we were living before. So it felt like our lifestyle was getting a bit better. But the family life was still really pretty bad, and my parents divorced when when I was about eleven years old. And I remember really a terrible day because, you know, it was a day when I passed my eleven. Plus, I was the only one who passed the eleven plus in school. Yeah. You know, a day to celebrate. Yeah, it was a day to celebrate. And then my dad sitting there in tears, telling me, you know, you know, they're going to break up, you know. Oh, God. So it was. Yeah. It was. And I can imagine also back then, like, divorce was really unusual. Yeah. Particularly in Asian families, you know, and you know, here's another thing. This is actually really I don't know if I had to credit my dad for this or hate him for it, but, you know, he decided when he moved to London that he wanted to live in an all white community, because then when immigrants were coming over, they were they were gathering in, you know, like Hounslow, Ealing, or they'd go to Bradford or they'd go to Oldham. Oldham, where I grew up. But I reckon the snob in him, right, or somehow decided, you know, I'm not going to be, I'm better than that. So he wanted to live in the white. So we were the only Asian family around with one black family completely for, like, two square miles. Wow. So was that your school experience as well? Absolutely. Yeah. So, you know, I grew up with this and I thought, you know, and so again, I suppose you wonder how how are you made? Yeah. And if I think about my professional career, particularly after stopping dancing, it's all been about building bridges between things to try and create connection, to try and create mutuality, understanding. A third space where new stories could be told. Right. So those early experiences, fortunately for me, I mean, most boys or girls or anyone who experienced those would have ended up in a terrible existence in prison. And that's where I was going. Actually, by the time I was eleven or twelve, I left school. I joined a local gang. I was I was breaking into houses, and I was the go to guy with Tony Gallagher to do the most difficult jobs in the area. Right. And we would plan them meticulously, you know, like timing. When people were in what we were going to take, how we were going to sell the stuff in the evening. It was this life, you know. And then I left home at thirteen and I lived in Earl's Court, you know. And, you know, in,

you know, with some students who actually live with my father, my father kicked out because they wanted more, and he refused to give it to them. And I were friends with these Japanese students. So I went to live with them, and they put me up. And I was working in a in a delicatessen supermarket until one at night from the age of like twelve and a half to fourteen and then going to school the next day. No, I never went to school. I stopped going. You left

school at twelve. School? Yeah. Left school at twelve. Oh my gosh. So, you know. And so I lived this kind of I was really I was really I looked quite old for twelve year old, by the way. You know, I looked like I was eighteen, but I lived this adult life, you know, I was working, earning money, you know, buying food, shopping, not going to school, not having anything to do with my family. And that was my life. Wow. Gosh. Wow. Um. Until one day when I used to come. You know, those were the days when, you know, when you went to someone's house. We lived on the third floor. You ring the bell three times, right? So. And so I was staying with these people. I was coming back from work at one at night. Yeah. And, um. And I'd ring the bell a lot, and I'd wake up everyone else in the house. So. So I remember one Sunday morning when I was the landlord of the place, confronted me on the stairs and said, you know, you know, you've got to get out. You know, you're causing disruption. Oh my gosh. You know, people are complaining about you and, you know, and then we had this scuffle. I remember this fight on the stairs actually. And he was a pretty big guy and pushed me down the stairs and, and I wanted to call the police, but I couldn't because I'm not, I'm meant to be at school. Yeah. I'm meant to be at home, you know. And so I couldn't. Wow. And so I had to go back home and stay with my dad, you know? And and by that time, my parents had divorced and my mum was living in another part of Earl's Court. So this is crazy, wild existence, right? Yeah. And I didn't get on with my father at all. Right. It was pretty miserable. And kept fighting and arguing a lot. And, you know, he just wanted me to be, you know, a student. Good, air force. Yeah. Yeah. Air force. So that was long gone by then, actually, he just wanted me just to go to school. Yeah. And then I'm sure in a way, That's because he knew you had a brain. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And. Absolutely. And I didn't have a brain. I just, you know, I just wasn't using it in the conventional way. Right. You know, and, um. And so what happened then? And then, um, I remember going to court because I was arrested a couple of times. I was putting boys in detention centres twice at the age. And that is the worst place on hell ever to be, you know? It's wretched in there. Yeah, it really is the law of the jungle, you know. You know, you know, people are slapping each other, beating each other all the time. And, you know, it's. And the staff overlook it because that's how it's supposed. That's how you keep people in check. Because you keep them in fear. You keep them in fear? Exactly. You know, and so, uh. And but then I had this, um. So what happened? I went to court. I remember, I think it was May the third. Why is that number? Uh, nineteen seventy four. Wow. Right. That date is inscribed. Yeah. So, actually it's interesting. Yeah. So that was the day I was put in care. Wow. So I was, you know. How old were you then? Fourteen. Right. Okay. So, um, just just the judge asked both my parents. Well, who's going to look after him? And both of them refused to look after me. Said I was so out of control. Yeah. Oh my God. So and so. And then, um. And then they said, right, well, we have no choice but to put you into the care of social services. So that's what I did. And I went to a children's home for a while till they could figure out where I could go.

Right. So here's one of the most important moments of my life. This incredible social worker called Penny. My God, how do I forget her name? This woman kind of transformed my life and I feel myself choking up because, you know, she just really. I was such a horrible kid, and she kept smiling at me. Wow. And, you know. Woof. And she couldn't know my, you know, my protests and my horrible nature. She's almost like someone was holding my hand and wouldn't let go. Wow. And she kept believing me, you know, and she, and she said I deserve something better because she could see my potential. Yeah, yeah. So, you know. And then she found me

this school called Peper Harow. There was in the seventies, there was a new radical forms of education happening, you know, and, and at the time, there was a school called Peper Harow set up near, near Godalming in Surrey. Right. And Peper Harow was started by a guy called Melvin Rose, who, you know, when it was previously a really tough approved school, you know, like you know and um, and he wanted to find a new way of, of, of, you know, restoring, you know, kids self-worth and, you know, and, you know, dealing with disturbed adolescents. So he used the idea of psychotherapy, community, community psychotherapy and creativity as a way to fix damaged kids. Yeah. You know, so, um, and it was and so I went there, I went for an interview, and I was it was a huge, great big, like, mansion on his estate, like, you know, like lords lived in, right, with these big gardens and oak trees and stuff and these boys, rough boys, you know, long hair, barefoot, you know, like walking around, hanging out, you know. And I remember having this interview and these two boys showed me around. I thought, they're so cool. And I think the thing that did it for me, because, you know, we had this interview and I then had to choose whether I was if they if they offered it to me, then I would accept it. And I had to write that. But I remember these two boys sitting there with me outside on the, on the grass, and we were like. This, this like fly landed on one of their knees. And then we proceeded to have like a almost an hour conversation about the life of that fly, how it lived, where it came from. Beautiful. And it was just our imaginations were going running riot, you know. And I thought, wow, this is so great that we can have time just to tell a story and make something up and just be playful. Yeah. And and the purpose of Peper Harow was fundamentally to restore playfulness into our lives because all the damaged kids that went there, you know, and there were people like, you know, one very famous, uh, opera singer's son was there. I won't give names away because just in case. But, um, it's. Yeah, I mean, we didn't have play in our lives and we didn't have love in our lives. And the purpose of Peper was to give us those things again. So I accepted. I went there just before the age of fifteen, and basically it was set up like a community. There were fifty boys, residents, we called ourselves. We each had a guru, we were the disciple. So we assigned a guru that would be our person we could talk to. We had group therapy once a week. We had community meetings every day to discuss what we're going to do, and we cooked and cleaned for each other. So there was a rota who's doing the cooking, who's doing the scullion, who's doing the cleaning, who's cleaning the bathrooms. We did all of that and we didn't have to do any education. There was a beautiful library there, but the idea that, he felt that, Melvin felt that if we jumped into education, because that's all we wanted to do because it was like, fix it quickly. He said, no, no. First, find who you are again. So, you know, the idea of education was our choice. We didn't think we could go through the five or six years of being there and still not do an O-level or an

A-level. So that's where I found myself at the age of fifteen. So, you know, you can see this kind of this trajectory of this first fifteen years, you know, coming from Pakistan, living this kind of very troubled, very disturbed, very unhappy early life. Poor, but poverty is not the issue, actually, I think I think it's love if you're not loved as a young person, you know everything that your strength, your value, your self-worth is what carries you through life, not whether you got more money or less money. And I see that in my own children now that, you know, I mean, they got more privilege than I did. But I think the most important thing is that the strength they get from being loved. Yeah. You know, and and knowing who they are. So I, so that was a kind of strange, crazy kind of. When I talk back about it, it almost feels unreal. You know, all these

different situations, they just don't make sense. This, this kid doing well at school, but, you know, breaking into houses, climbing into people's houses while they're having dinner and stealing things. Sorry, those people, I wish I'd never done it, but there was something absolutely risky and and daring about it. And actually, funnily enough, it made me feel quite alive. Yeah. And it was survival, right? Yeah. Yeah, it was survival. But it was also a strange kind of self-worth. You know, I became the person that everyone went to. So I suddenly had press. I had some status. Status, yeah for sure. Right. And respect. And respect. Absolutely. Social capital. Well, there you go. And all those things. And so this is a strange kind of, you know, like, you know, this kind of, of life of different things that don't make sense. And so and so then I went to Peper Harow, you know, so fifteen and I left there when I was twenty one. It was when I was eighteen, I decided I wanted to study. But prior to this, now this is where dancing kicks in. I was going to say, tell us when you started moving your body. Yeah. When I started, actually, I think I started my moving my body before I went to Peper Harow because I loved going to clubs. Right. You know, those were the days when people went to clubs, you know, in the, in the early seventies where you danced, you went to dance together, you went even went up to someone and said, do you want to dance with me? You know, and you didn't go there to look cool and wear the coolest trends and get drunk. You went there to dance. I used to go to these very cool soul clubs, right? So I developed a passion for dancing, you know. And I remember when I was at, um, the children's reception centre, they had an Elvis Presley, uh, lookalike dance competition, and I won. Did you? Right. That is brilliant. Oh, please tell me there's footage. Please tell me there's a video. Yeah. No, there's no video. Thank God. Right. You know, but it was hilarious. But, you know, those things is what we did, you know? You know, we just made things up. Yeah. So, you know, I loved dancing. So when I went to Peper Harow, you know, there was a guy, a friend of mine called Pete Allen, who joined at the same time. And every Saturday night we put Soul Spectrum on, and we'd listen to all the songs for about three hours and and we'd make up loads of these funky dances to them. I love it. That's how we that's how we kind of spent our boring Saturday evenings. Because Peper Harow, you weren't in in the city, you were isolated. We went into Guildford on Saturday afternoons or to the cinema, but we were out in the country, away from life. Wow. Away from trouble maybe. Away from trouble, you know. And I remember days, some days sitting up the top of a tree for a whole day smoking fags and just chatting to someone. Right. And then you come and do your job or whatever, you know. And so that was it. You know, there was a lot of talking. There was a lot. And it was quite meaningful talking, actually. A lot of,

you know, there's a lot of what we call therapy type talking. It feels like as well there was a lot of, in a weird way, like using your body climbing, like climbing into houses, climbing up trees, climbing. You know, it's like a physical, like in the world. Yeah, physical being in the world. And that's part of what is happening in terms of how you and your identity is finding respect or status or you know, how I mean or there's a physicality, there's a firing to fear, there's a firing in your muscles to adrenaline or to, um, pushing back or to trying to climb up all of these things that we can recognize as intrinsically embodied. And that, even that physical tussle with your landlord on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know what? I think you've got it so right, because one of the, you know, one of the, the, the, the enduring memories of Peper Harow is movement. Yeah. We used to run around like, every night we'd play pirates in the gym. Oh, God. Right. You know, I want to go to Pepper Harrow. And they were mad games of pirates, you know,

went on for hours. You know, we used to run around the grounds. We used to climb, walk up the banisters. It was constant movement. Yeah. And now that I think about it, that's how I like to live. It was even though it seemed like we were living in this sedate country lifestyle, but we were constantly active. I remember going to bed totally knackered at night, you know, like, you know, so. Which reminds me, can I just say this one thing? I'm sort of jumping ahead and maybe we could go back to it and come back to where we are. But the first time I saw you perform, Farooq was in Swindon in 'Images' with like a climbing frame, of scaffolding. Climbing up that. Yeah. And we thought you were quite cool, like the company because you all had, I think, black Reebok. We had Reebok high tops. And I got that deal from Reebok, by the way, actually. Right. No, but this had been the eighties by any chance? So, yeah, no, I remember those those blue, very trendy outfits, you know, like. Yeah. No. All right. We'll come to that, come to, the climbing is a theme, I think. But I also think actually as a fifteen, like how many fifteen year old boys actually get that opportunity to, I don't know, like you say, be that free in their body and space and time. And I think actually your experience was probably quite distinct from those boys who were going to school and doing their homework. And I don't know, you know, as a fit because you don't associate like that stage of adolescence with a real physical, you know, like climbing trees. I think actually usually at that point in adolescence, you're, you're in your bedroom, you're in your bedroom or, yeah, like in front of a screen. Yeah. Which is amazing because you weren't monitored, and certainly you're not monitored by carrying a device around that is tracking where you are in the world. But what you both brought up is absolutely fascinating because I didn't think of it that way. So when I see Melvin next, because I'm still very close friends, I will bring that up because I think movement was encouraged all the time, and it was a way for us to stay connected with each other, connected with ourselves. To build, you know, funnily enough, movement is a place where you build trust. Oh, God, Yes. You know, an incredible amount of trust with yourself, you know. Yeah. And to and build trust between people. Between people. Yeah, absolutely. And and part of building your own confidence. Yeah, totally. So this comes back to Pete Allen and I every Saturday night we do these these dances. I remember lasso dances and we're making them up and like, it was completely mad. So one night on a Saturday evening, there was one of the teachers called Graham Benjamin came in. I remember his name clearly and he said, said to us, you know, now guys, look, you love dancing. I mean, do you fancy seeing another kind of dancing? And,

and I said, well, what do you mean, another kind of dancing? Well, there's this thing called contemporary dance. Contemporary dance. I love Graham Benjamin already. Yeah, yeah. So he said, well, well, tell me, what do you mean? He said, well, there's a theatre in London called Sadler's Wells. Oh no way. Now this is true. Right. And it has this company, really good company called London Contemporary Dance Theatre. Right. And I have a feeling as you love dancing so much, you love being creative. You might like that. So who is this guy? Graham? Graham was one of the staff of Peper Harow and his wife was a modern dancer. So there you go. There's the connection. So I said, okay, let's go. So, you know, what we'd have to do is then we'd have to go round all the, you know, we had to get about fifteen people agreeing to go to London. Of course, everyone wanted to go. Yeah. You know, and we'd get leave on this blue bus, you know, on a Saturday, like, like four o'clock in the afternoon, drive to London, get something to eat and go to Sadler's Wells. Oh amazing. So I sat up there. Yeah. And I sat there and everyone's giggling like mad. We're in the gods right at the back because they were

the cheapest seats. And then someone comes on stage that blows me away. Wow. Namron. Oh, right. Namron. So Namron walks on stage and does something I've never seen a male do before. Like, he was like athletic, poetic, sensitive, vulnerable, but telling a story with his body. Yeah, and it absolutely blew me away. And, you know, and I just was completely, it was an epiphany of like, wow, you can do this. You can. That's it, that's it. That's the thing I want to do for the rest of my life. And it was that strong. The other guys were all laughing because the blokes were wearing tights. Yeah, but there was this young Pakistani boy sitting there completely fixated with this, these, these dancers on stage. Yeah. So I went back to Graham. I said, man, that was just unbelievable. How do I get to do that? Wow. You know, and I really want to do that. I really want to do that. And he said, well, unfortunately, you know where we are, Peper Harow, it's out in the sticks, you know. Trying to find a dance teacher, you know, for boys in the seventies was completely. In Surrey. Yeah, yeah. In Surrey. Unheard of. So couldn't find me. So I just kind of copied things. And then I said, well, I'll tell you what, Graham. We're going every Saturday night now, every season that they're on. So I kept going around getting everyone to come with me. And of course, they all loved the trip out and the giggle at the background. And there was me just falling in love with this art form. Wow. Falling in love with these people dancing. Patrick Harding-Irmer I didn't even I got to know them much later, but at the time they were legends. They were gods, you know? And, uh, so that's my love of dance. And then. But I kept going and going. And then when I was at Peper, I decided when I was eighteen, I'm going to study, I love study. I did love reading a lot. I read avidly, I would read three, four books a week easily. Right. And then I wanted to do, um, English literature because I loved English literature, classical civilisation, Greek classical civilisation, and and history. So I studied those as O-level and I studied them at A-level as well. So here's another big life lesson, while I was doing these things, because the way I studied was completely different, I started on my own or with one or two other guys. And this was at Peper Harow. And the teachers were all, you know, the staff were equipped to be teachers, right? So and we would learn in a way by walking around grounds, you know, rather than sitting in a classroom. Yeah. Another important person, Dave Seddon, Mancunian, by the way. Right. And and he taught me English literature, and we were talking about Othello and Shakespeare, and we were walking

around the grounds and he, you know, and, you know, when you're young and enthusiastic, you just want to get your teacher's approval by getting, you know, giving them really cool answers and, you know, sound like you're smart. And then David said, look, we were talking about Othello. He said, Dave said to me, he said, look, just stop this. Let's have a new way of playing this game. If I ask you a question, the only rule of this is that you have to come back with a more beautiful question. Oh, beautiful. And that. And it only dawned upon me much later, what this guy was doing was opening my mind. Yeah. He was encouraging my curiosity because the danger of end gaming or seeking answers is that you close down the space too fast. Yeah. And for the worst thing you can do to a young mind is close down space too fast. We're talking about space again here now. Yeah. We need space in our minds. And we need space for our bodies. Because there's the things where we explore ourselves. Yeah. And so he wanted me to explore my mind in an open space rather than a closed space. Yeah. And that was an incredible experience. And I really I loved Shakespeare, I loved, you know, I really enjoyed doing my exams and stuff, you know. And I loved the, the teaching that I had. And so I got myself into Sussex University to do English. Amazing. Right at the age of twenty one. But I

had this, this love of dance, right? So I arrived there and the first day and, you know, you're walking around and actually, I was I felt weird because I hadn't lived a normal life like everyone else was there. I hadn't lived a teenage life. I hadn't had break ups and, you know, relationships. I hadn't been hanging around on street corners, you know, you know. And so everyone seemed. And at Peper Harow, we were used to expressing ourselves. There was a lot of music. There was a lot of artwork, there was pottery. So there was constant acts of creative expression. Yeah. So, and also we were used to expressing our emotions and feelings. I remember at university, everyone's looking at me, this weirdo, he's just telling us what he feels. How he feels. Right. And what's wrong with him? You know? And then I was thinking, what's wrong with them? What's wrong with them? They can't. And I remember having the first English lesson, you know, and then I just couldn't stop talking to the tutor about questioning the subject matter. And everyone was quiet. I thought, what's wrong with you guys? Come on. So it makes me realise that's the danger of it. That's what you know. What is education for? Is it there to get something? Or is it there to open up your your thinking in your mind and allow you to, um, engage in creative thinking? Absolutely. Creative thinking? Totally. Which is totally opening up your world rather than just, um, being about memorising. Yes, absolutely. And it's like understanding is a process of negotiation. Yeah, yeah. It's not didactic. Like, yeah, these are the facts, learned them. Yeah. But actually, you know, what can emerge when you open that up to conversation? Yeah. Totally. So. So here's something that links well to me. So when I was at Sussex, I saw they had a dance union. Oh, finally, finally I've got that class I've always wanted to do. Right? So, so I go along and I missed it. It was the only place for twenty people, right? And I thought, oh, no, I can't believe it. Right. So next time I went in and I got in and, Right. And and there was this woman called Linda Rickets. I always remember the important people in my life. Right. Right? This little woman with ginger hair with lovely, bubbly kind. Right. And. And she. She taught class. As soon as I took the class, I went straight to the dean of the university, and I said, I need to speak to you. And I go, what's up? What's up? He goes, what's up? He goes, you're not going to like this, but I need to quit. And

he said, what do you mean you want to quit? You've only just started and you're a really good student. He says, but what made you want to quit? He says, well, I want to be a dancer. Oh, he said, why didn't you think about that before you came? Because I only did it an hour before. I was like, so it was this kind of strange, impulsive guy that I was, you know, I just I was smitten, like, the way I saw Namron. Yeah. Something exploded inside of me, and I needed to do it, right? So he looked at me and he could see the fire in my eyes and the madness in my face. Right. So he said, you know what? Think about it. Come back to me in a week's time. So I went to Linda. I said, Linda, look, I've taken one class, right? What are my chances of becoming a dancer? Gorgeous. And she said, well, look, you know, you've got to feel for it. I mean, you know, you're old, you're twenty one. You know it's not. Actually, I was twenty two then. Right. Um, but, you know, it's up to you. There are places that will take more mature students. That's all I need to hear. Thank you very much. I went back to the dean, said I'm still leaving. Right. So he said, look, you know what? I'll leave your place open, you go for whatever you want to do. If you don't make it, you can come back. Yeah. Then I soon after I met, I saw 'Mantis' which was Micha Bergese. Mantis, God, yeah. And they performed and I did a workshop with Micha Bergese. And I asked him again what my chances. So he kept saying to me, you know, you know, you've got something. It's up to you. So then I thought,

okay, I need to fix the problem at uni first. First things first, how do I, because I need to stay around a year at Sussex even though I wasn't studying. But I need to do a lot of dance classes. Yeah, right. And I've only got one for twenty people, so I decide, you know what, I'm going to go to London in the summer and get fifty, you know, ten fantastic teachers from Pineapple and Dance Works and give them a lot of money to come and teach at Sussex. So I blagged my way into this. Amazing. So no, seriously. And I was speaking to all these top teachers said, you've got to come to Sussex once a week, I'll get you, you know, got big audience there, which was not yet there yet. And I'm going to pay you a lot of money and stuff. Another producer. Right? Yeah. So, so seriously. So then I went back to Sussex and I created my own union. I called the Dance Society. Right. And, you know, and I created a membership scheme where people could sign up for something. And I just thought I just made it up, but it made sense to me and I and then I had Indian dancing, Scottish dancing, contemporary jazz. Brilliant. And within six months, there were five hundred people dancing at Sussex University. That is incredible. Wow. Just because I wanted to dance. Yeah. And I wanted to do at least four classes a week. Right? Right. So. And actually, you know, funnily enough, it was it was amazing because then I read in the Observer magazine that Sussex University is now the biggest and most successful union in the university network of Britain. Gosh. And up until then, it was always the drama network, right? You know, drama union. But we were richer, we had more dance. We had more people. I made a system where we could make money, where people could have great experiences at the end of the year because we couldn't carry money forward at university. I threw the best party for everyone. For everyone. Basically, you started a dance course. I did. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Just for me. Yeah. And so that's it, you know. And then, you know, this dance union and then that allowed me to do. And then I auditioned for London Contemporary Dance School in April twenty, nineteen eighty two eighty three. Eighty three. Yeah. And I got in and I went there just before I was twenty three years old. Yeah. So.

So I got my way in there. But I ride. And I thought I was absolutely terrified because I'm twenty three years old. I've only done a bit of dancing, and all these kids have been doing it since five, you know. But then there's something about starting late and knowing yourself a bit more, knowing that I can't do the technical things as well. But I could be more theatrical. I could bring other elements to myself, to my expression. So, you know, and I worked incredibly hard. I stayed there very late at night. You know, I worked, I came in early, I worked on weekends. I was just so obsessed with dancing. Right. I was making up for probably all those fifteen years of kids doing it right, you know? But plus I brought this very creative mindset into, into into into play. So, you know, it was, it was hard and I was I had to work really mentally. I had to really thank God I had the resilience not to lose my sense of, you know, my sense of value. Yeah. When you're up against kids that are really technical and those days, be honest, the schools weren't great for helping us in those ways, right? You know, the top three were immediately identified in the class, and they were already being groomed to be in London Contemporary Dance Theatre. And everyone was kind of the leftovers. It felt a bit like that, actually. So and you're kind of trying to find a way to kind of keep going and believing that, you know, you could enjoy being a dancer, you could potentially have a career. Yeah. So it's sort of interesting how that's bringing in this, um, space of hierarchies like, so you're coming like you're, you're upbringing is, is immersed in different hierarchies in terms of like, um, maybe social or economic hierarchies. And you manage to navigate those. And then you went to a place of like

liberal equality almost seems like, and like a real socialist kind of space of interaction. And then you're sort of then going back into this quite old school hierarchical system. Maybe. And and and how did that feel? Did that bring. Was there a residue of sensation of like, oh, I know, I remember what this feels like because I felt it before. Like, so your, your identity is, is like scratching around a little bit to then refind your confidence or refind your self-worth within this environment, which often was really competitive, right? Well that's it. I think, you know, I stepped out of the rat race or the competitive nature of human, you know, human society. To be honest, when I was at Peper Harow. And so stepping back into this. Yeah, you know, look, you know, yeah, it was competitive. And I don't think anything magnificent has ever been done in humankind by being competitive. I think most of it's been done through cooperation and collaboration. Right? And so I miss. It didn't have a collaborative spirit I'll be honest. Okay. You know, you know, when I was at school? I don't think so. It was really about who could train the hardest and get, you know, you know, and um, and it was I wouldn't say it was particularly cutthroat, but it was the sign of the times, you know, it was, you know, the dance schools were no different to how society was behaving in those days, right? And, um, yeah. So it was. But, you know, I was fine. I kind of, you know, I managed to get myself through that and keep focusing on myself. You know, I've learned over the years that if you get too hung up on what other people are doing. Yeah, you never you can never play your own game, right? You know, sports people have always told when you go into a game, play yourself, you know, play your game, not think about the other person. Yeah. So I think there's something about life in that, you know, you're keeping. And I think Peper Harow gave me a lot of internal strength, emotional resilience to deal with that clearly. And, and the ability to know that there's more to it than just the competitive element. Right. And so yeah, but you know, I was there for four years

and, you know, I had a great thankfully I had a great. What was it called when you have a you know the class of so and so they have this. I was just going to say what cohort. Yeah. The cohort was really good. Yeah. Yeah. No they were great actually. And some of the stars of, you know, you know, David Hughes and the Donaldson sisters, we were the lowest group. Well, it's always the way. I mean, when I went, I was in my cohort was like, Jonzi D. Wow. And Fred Gierig and we were sort of a little bit rough, you know. Yeah, yeah. Like, maybe we weren't considered back then the most technical, you know, in that, in that very sort of clean execution of technique. Yeah. But we had a hell of a lot of energy. Yeah. We said yes to everything. We collaborated. Yeah, we we did stuff. We. Yeah, we and we. Our cohort, I remember being in like, third year pieces and second year pieces were really up for making work on each other and different years as well. So I felt like our year group was one of like yours. Like a really even, even though we weren't technically the best, we we a big chunk of us had had careers. Yeah, yeah. And had careers. Isn't that so interesting? Because the ones that actually most of the time there's the one who went on to do extraordinary things because of that collaborative nature, that ability to know that you've got something to say rather than how well you can do something. You know, that resistance of trying to overcome something, and resilience, and resilience and all of that. And so you get these really powerful human values that you carry through. And actually, all the people I know who did go through that first class, even after retiring, are all doing extraordinary things as well. So it's just amazing that it sets you up for life. So it's better to be at the in the bottom rung of the ladder than the top to be honest. Yeah, so but no, it was good. And then, you know, I met there was a choreographer there called Earl

Lloyd Hepburn. You mentioned 'Images' right? You know, and he was a rising star as a choreographer. And I joined his group. We were friends. And there was Isabel Tamen, Isabel Mortimer, Etta Murfitt, you know, some really, you know, you know, David Hughes was in there. I mean, it's a really great dancers. And, um, and because I was the only, you know, we started the company. We need an administrator. Right? So. So they said, um, well, I'll do it, because, you know, I don't want to be disrespectful to my dancers, but, but I knew how to write a document, right? You knew a spreadsheet? I knew a spreadsheet, right? So. But, you know, it was interesting because also, that's when we started fundraising for the company and that kind of role of producer, manager. We never used the word producer then at all, right. And um, and I started writing loads of letters for fundraising and I couldn't get one positive reply. And then I looked at the letter and I said, oh my God, that letter is so I don't want to use, sound like I'm a loser, right? There's nothing positive, there's nothing optimistic. It's all about we're good, but you know, we're were needy and we're a little bit desperate. And if we had this, we could be good, rather than we are really good. Yeah. We have something to say. You want to get behind? You want to get behind us and we get together. We just become better. And so do you, right? You change the nature of the narrative. So I wrote a bunch of new letters after that, and within six months I had sponsorship from IBM, Marks and Spencer, and Reebok. So those those came from that. So, you know, and it just goes to show that you it's it's not that you have more talent or less talent. You just have to change your nature of communication. Yeah, yeah. You have to position yourself, change the story, change the story, make yourself a hero in your story. You know, not like you know. You know someone who's kind of has potential, but you're

already there. So it's an interesting lesson. And so I started raising all this money really rapidly. And the dance industry kind of got wind of that. And, you know, I remember Dance Umbrella coming out to me and says, 'how does this guy get money out of a stone? He's incredible. And so would you be would you be work for us and help us.' And I said, no, actually, I'm going to stop there because I gave up everything to be a dancer. I did not come at this stage to be a manager or producer. I'm going to do this dance thing and I'll come back to this later. And this was also a time when the media got wind of my background. There was lots of articles in The Guardian, Observer, about this. You know, this delinquent end up being a dancer. I remember this one headline, 'Delinquent to Dancer' in the times or something and, um, and, and, and there was a lot of attention on me and I, and I remember doing a radio interview with a woman called Libby Purves on Kaleidoscope. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I got a phone call the next day from this woman who's a South African playwright, said she wants to write a play about my life. Wow. I thought, wow, okay. And so I kept going to her house in Primrose Hill, you know, kind of fancy home, I remember. And doing these interviews, she interviewed me for weeks, you know, going over all the, you know, you know, you know, remembering all the stories of my childhood. And one day I woke up and I went, what the hell am I doing? Actually, I'm still in the cage. I'm still in the prison of my background. I'm never going to be able to move forward if I occupy this space and people love you to be in that space, then the media liked it. The thing, and I'm never going to be free. So I just I went back to I'm really, really sorry, but I've decided we've got to stop this. I don't want to go on. Yeah. You know, and I said, I stopped doing the interviews with the press, didn't want to do it anymore. I needed to liberate myself from that. That is my backstory. I had a backstory with no front story yet now I can talk about it because now the front story to talk about, right? But then, you know, it just felt like it was never going to

allow me to move forward. Yeah. And I wonder how I had the clarity of mind to make that decision. Yeah. And the smartness to realize it as well. Yeah. Because, you know, getting this attention and potentially a little bit of fame and stuff like that. Absolutely. And it's, you know, it's prestigious being featured in the Times, isn't it? Yeah. You know, but it's for something that didn't make me happy. It was an unhappy part of my life, you know. And if you don't, you know, that's the thing about life. You've got to somehow just again, comes back to movement. You've got to move on. Yeah. Not, you know, you can't forget it, but you've got to move on for sure to leave it behind. So. Yeah. And allow that, um, to inform the choices that you make in order to move on. Yeah. For sure. And I think I think there's something really significant as well in the fact that you had that real clarity that you wanted to have a career in dance and you wanted to be a dancer. Yeah. And I just think actually, there's something about that, that I think really highlights the period that you were in. Yeah. And the way that the dance industry was presenting itself to you, um, as a person in your early twenties, mid twenties, that I think actually, if we look at a more recent context, how how that might be presenting itself to the people in their twenties today. Yeah. You know, in terms of what is the dance sector, what is this world? Can I be a dancer? And the fact that you had that dedication and sense that that was going to be possible, and that's where you were putting your energy and that's what you were doing. And I think it's a real indicator of the kind of the infrastructure that might have been around at that time. At the time. Yeah. No, it is interesting because I didn't think of alternatives,

you know, and I didn't have much money, you know, and, you know, my my daughter keeps telling me, well, you know, it's really hard living today and it is hard living today. But it was really hard living then as well. But I guess I wasn't preoccupied with the other things. I didn't go away much, you know. You know, I ate lentils for three months, you know, every day because you get you could eat five meals for a pound, a bag of lentils. Right. And that's what you did. You kind of got on with it because I wanted to be, I wanted to dance. Right. And actually, I remember when I left university, I paid back the first year of university fees by working in the university kitchens for six weeks over the summer, so I could have another grant to go to the place, right? Yeah, because they wouldn't have given me another grant. So, you know, there's things, certain sacrifices that I was prepared to make for the thing I believed in, you know. So. Yeah. But, um, so when I left, uh, London Contemporary Dance School, I was with 'Images' for about two or three years. Yeah. But then I kind of, you know, and then was a freelancer, you know, I found out actually the other day where the word freelancer comes from. Oh, tell us. You'll love this. Right. So it goes back to the medieval periods where knights had no association with any lord or baron. So they were Free-Lancers Yeah. There you go. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Amazing. Amazing, right? The roots of words, right. I love that we're all knights. We're all knights. It's about knowing the association, right? Totally. So, yeah. No, but it's so, you know, I was freelancing and I kind of did lots of little projects with Aletta, did a big Carmen opera, and I think almost every dancer was freelancing at the time, within that one. And that was one of my first jobs as well. What we got to give her a lot of credit, because at that time, it was a time when equity had this silly rule that you had to do a certain number of contracts to get an equity card and Aletta, you know, gave about a hundred people equity cards without having to do horrible, you know, cruise things and things like that or stripping or whatever you did in those days to get equity cards. Right. So and it was so yeah, it was we did that. And then I started, you know, doing a bit of freelance here and there. And, you know, I ended up, um,

auditioning for 'Erasure'. You know, I remember. Oh, God, I forgot you did that. I did that, and you did a backing dancer. Oh, I did, I worked for I did everything because I just wanted to dance. I wasn't precious, but I knew there was a company I loved which was called Rosas in Belgium. Yeah. And I auditioned for her three times. And, you know, I got there eventually at the age of thirty four. But, you know, I did a lot of different things. And actually it was really useful because I was beginning to get a feeling of every industry, commercial pop industry, musical theater I did for one year. I was in 'The King and I'. I did a lot of little projects and stuff and then, but I felt like, so this is an interesting thing about life, because everyone knew Farooq as the old dancer who came in late. Kind of interesting. In your twenties. Yeah, but you know what I mean. Yeah. You know, kind of technically not as strong as others, but. And I feel there's something about living in a community where you get defined, and there's something in me said, you know what? I need to get away from this. I need to break away so I can reimagine myself, reinvent myself. And it was then lucky enough that there was a choreographer that I worked on, the Gulbenkian course, a German guy who set up a new company in Ulm and Stuttgart. Right. And I did a work. He really liked me and invited me to join the company. So I left Britain. Wow. Right. And I thought, oh my God, this is so good. No one knows me. I don't have to behave in a certain way. I can, I can reinvent myself. I can find

new ways of being, you know, and dancing and, you know, and it was such an amazing moment. I was thirty one then. Who was that? Joachim Schloemer. Oh my God. Right. Nice one. So you know. And it was there when I learned another big lesson. Like there was a teacher. We had a lot of teachers from Pina Bausch coming, which was great. And I remember one of them saying to me, you know, like, you know, when you're dancing, you're thinking too much. You're carrying too many. You're trying to fix too many things at one time. Just fix one thing for the next six months. Just focus. It doesn't have to be the most important thing, but just concentrate on one thing. So I concentrated on grand plié. Just, you know, making it go up and down smooth. And it's funny, after a few months, everything else I was trying to fix was being fixed. And it made you realize that we're so interconnected. Much more than we think. We decided that we break ourselves into pieces, and that's how we solve our problems. You just have to focus on one problem, and many other problems will go along with it. So because of the interconnectedness of our human body, all our body. Yeah, it's it's an ecosystem. Absolutely. It is an ecosystem, and it's an emotional as well as a physical and a spiritual ecosystem. Yeah. Energy's been transferred from one thing to another thing like energy. Right. You know, Qi. Exactly. And it's like how the cells in our body cells are giving energy to another cell so it can flourish. So everything is moving, relying on a cooperative, not competitive spirit, but a cooperative kind of ecosystem in dialogue with in dialogue with each other, with itself. Exactly. For sure. And so and then that was a real turning point for me, because that really helped me to kind of develop my, my intelligence, my physical intelligence, more than my intellectual intelligence about dance. Right. Yeah. So I was there, and then soon after that, I got into Rosas, you know, at the age of thirty four, which was like, actually, it was really hard because my, you know, because I started late, my legs were beginning to play up. Right. And and it was a tough job. Rosas. The work on the men was pretty brutal, right? But I was there for four years and I had I had surgery on my knees twice, but I but I got to work alongside, you know, Anne Teresa, who I think is a real genius. Her mind and, you know, and and live in Brussels and I met my wife there. You know, Su-Man who was I met in Belgium and

she has a great story. She she comes from a mud hut farm in Taiwan and crossed the world to be in Pina Bausch's company. Right. So. And we met and we started, you know, a relationship and you know, and we were married in Belgium and stuff and and so there I lived this life away from Britain from like ninety one to ninety eight. Yeah. And how was that as, like a sociocultural

experience for being in. Yeah. You know, Belgium, Stuttgart. I have to say, like being in Germany was difficult for me, especially South Germany. Right? Because it was a time when, you know, people of color were not many of them. Yeah, yeah. And and the Germans are very precise about things. I don't want to generalize, really, but I remember one time there was this thing called ausländerfeindlichkeit which means against, you know, against, um, it was a movement to stop the, um, discrimination of foreigners, right? So. And they made this big protest at the theater because there were so many people from different cultures. That's the great thing about dance as well. And I think I think the thing about dance coming back to it, you know, I think the most powerful thing about dancing is losing yourself and finding yourself in the same moment. And I think that's the key thing about education. You have to be prepared to lose yourself to find out who you are. If you're always in a conscious state of knowing, then you

are beginning to, you're only in touch with half of who you are. Yeah. Or sort of putting labels on what you think. You know exactly who you think you are. Exactly. Last week I was in Lugano, an arts conference, and there was a German talking about. I need my artistic voice. And while, you know, you have people from Rwanda and Pakistan and other parts of the world and Tonga talking about we rather than I a lot more. Yeah, yeah. And I said, well, perhaps losing your artistic voice is also part of the journey. Yeah, because actually then you may find out really what you want to say because you're in a constant state of rational engagement with yourself. Right? So and I think dance helps you to dis-, decouple from that process. Right. And find a space where you can be lost. And being lost is a good thing, not a bad thing. You know, and it's like with imagination goes, it wanders for an infinity, you know. And so I think and I think dance really also very importantly gave me an identity which I didn't have. Right. Because, you know, it's nonverbal. So, you know, it's in dance. You suddenly working with people from so many different cultures and you can connect. And it made me feel like I was, you know, I had a community because until then, everything else was very much on, like a white thing. And so I kind of then engaged with other Pakistanis and Asians and Africans and, you know, Caribbean friends and stuff. So it changed my relationship to people and that, and it kind of leveled the playing field in a kind of curious way. So I liked it for that, you know? And I liked the fact first, I loved it so much. I liked the fact it made me feel like I was more connected to people. And I loved the fact that it kind of gave me a voice, you know? And so I kind of. So that's why I think I needed it. I needed it not just because I fell in love with it, because it gave me some kind of belonging, belonging. And, you know, a kind of sense of power, of empowerment is the word. Right. So, um, and so, yeah. So coming back to being in Belgium, yeah, I think it was being in Europe for those years was was really good for me. But I did miss London and I live in Belgium, which has got a strange Brussels, strange place. Right. Because in the center of Brussels is where the immigrants live, like the Arabs and all the posh people. Rich people live on the outside. Yeah. You know, but again, you know, I made a lot of friends there, but I don't know, London was home calling, calling me. And so about ninety eight me and Su-Man said, right, get, job done. It's time to hang it all up and move. And that was really exciting. Actually, I remember I was almost I'm thirty nine, thirty eight, and I went back to

university to do a master's degree in arts management. So. Right. That thing I was good at at twenty five. Now's my time to come back to it. Right? And where did you do that? So I did that at City University. Right. So. And I remember living so the business minded me, you know, the entrepreneur said, right, it's going to be much cheaper for me to live in Belgium in a lovely big

flat, which is only sixty quid a week, right? With Su-Man still being the rehearsal director and me occasionally dropping into shows, you know, for for Rosas and getting some unemployment money and then travelling to London every week on the Eurostar and coming back. Wow. I did the business plan. Right. And it worked out. Yeah. Of course. You know, I always tell people, don't forget to. Numbers are important. You know, my dad was a maths professor, remember? Yeah. So. And I worked out it was a lot cheaper to do that as long as I bought my tickets in advance, you know. So I bought the the outward on on a Tuesday in January and the return on on a Wednesday in July. Wow. You know, so you know so I worked out the system and thankfully I got a three thousand pounds grant from the Dancers

Resettlement Trust, which I'm very grateful for. And that helped me to pay for the for the university fees and then just travel backwards. And so I did this master's degree in arts management. And and then I finished it. You know, my my child was born. And I remember this day in, in early August where we got in the car, we decided to get rid of everything in the flat. Wow. We just had a baby in the back. Right. And we had a few clothes, a little car, and then we just drove off into this beautiful blue state. Now, honestly, if I ever found a moment in my life, I felt most happy, it was that then. Oh, beautiful. That was unbelievable. Yeah. Because everything that ever was has been left behind. And now all I see in front of me is an open space, a future. But it's nothing. It's just open. It's a blue sky. Yeah. So now we got on, got on, I remember the ferry. Feeling so, so euphoric. Arriving in London. Wow. And actually, one of the things when I did my injury. Because, Farooq, you come up with some mad ideas, right? So we saved a little bit of money. Me and Su-Man in Belgium. And we knew we were going to move back to London. And when I was injured, I had a meniscus operation. So I was, you know, on my back for twelve weeks. Yeah. I started exploring buying a flat in London by fax. So. Right. So I get, I get I got every day I got these little fax coming through about little flats. So when I could walk I travelled and we managed to find a little studio flat and I bought it and we, from our savings from Belgium, we bought the flat. Amazing. Wow. Gosh. And so we had somewhere to go to, you know, and when we arrived. So we moved in. So we, you know, then then a whole new life begins. I'm forty. Right? It's like it's crazy. And then I'm looking at. Right. Arts management. That's what I'm going to do. That's what I just study to be. And and then I start looking for a job. And we both Su-Man and I both. She also retired then, right? We couldn't find anything. It was getting really desperate, you know. We even tried for Sainsbury's at Christmas. Look, I'm not going to do Sainsbury's down, but they knew we weren't going to stay. Yeah, yeah. You know they're looking at this CV going hang on a minute. Yeah, yeah. You ain't staying for long. And when was this. When what time is this? Finsbury Park. Is this in the nineteen nineties? So this is let me get the date on this. So we came back to London in nineteen ninety eight. Summer of ninety eight, late nineties. Right. Okay. Still mobile. Mobiles weren't around and stuff. The internet was just starting then. Right. Of course, you know. And so then. So I'm struggling to find work. I've got enough money for six months. Right. You know, but I'm used to, you know, Su-Man and I also come. She came from a very poor family. And so we're used to living with nothing. It's not I'm not trying to make. That's okay. It's not okay. But if

it comes to it, we'll be okay. Right. And then after. And I was getting a bit desperate. And then this this agency came out called Indepen-dance that was looking for trainee dance managers. Yeah, yeah. And Isabel Tamen and I, who were both in 'Images' and both in the same class at

the place where we got selected to be dance managers with a small salary to work and to learn under for um, senior dance managers. Yeah, right. So I arrived there, I think. Wow. Got some money now. Yeah, that was getting tight, you know, because you got a baby as well, right at the time. Right. So we're thinking I remember us, like going off to Sainsbury's at midnight on Fridays and getting the cheapest possible things. Yeah. Um, and then, um, and then starting this new career, you know, like, you know, with this man. But actually, as soon as I started, I thought, something's not right about this. And, and and I said, and I. And what do I mean by that? Well, I felt like these four senior managers and I respect them, they're very good

at what they're doing, were kind of working, the artists were working for them rather than them working for the artists. So the artists were there to make sure that the agency ran, because we had to pay money to be there, and they were getting stuff for the artists with respect, but just not ambitious enough for me. You know, I've got a bigger ambition than things like that. You do surprise me, right? I wanted more, you know, and I felt the artists deserved more. You know, there were some brilliant people. I remember Jonzi and his 'Aeroplane Man' seeing that thing. Wow, that's just genius. That needs to be seen all around the world. Not just in, you know, once at Sadler's Wells or wherever it was seen. Right. And just kind of I felt like they needed more. They needed more. And I just, you know, anyway, it was the way it worked. It was very, kind of very British focused in a way. And then and I find I was there to learn, you know, I disagreed on a lot of things. I wasn't an easy kid. You know, that rebellious kid on the street sometimes, you know, rears his ugly head. You know, he still does occasionally. I'll be honest. Right. You know, and then. And then I saw a young Akram Khan, now, I remember Jonathan Burrows telling me he's working with this young Bangladeshi boy who's very talented, and they're doing a show at Southbank. And, you know, I said, well, I better go and see him. You know, if he's that good, you know, you know. And I was completely blown away by the way he moved. Again, I think it's this thing when I see something where not only do I enjoy watching it, but I also see what it could do in the future. It's it's potential for growth. It's potential for growth. But it's also what you mean by vision. Vision is looking forward into somewhere, into the future and seeing a place in which that thing can flourish. Right. And that's how I kind of respond, because that's probably what I've been doing for my own life. My own life has been about creating a vision for myself where I can flourish. Yeah. Right. And so I had that instinct when I see it. Right. So I saw it in Akram and I had this incredible conversation with him and, and you know, he was he was just come out of Northern Contemporary Dance School. Right. A lot of debt as you do student debt, but also other debt. I wasn't good with money. And, uh, and we just started talking. You know, I just said, let's just keep talking. Let's, you know, just tell me what you're thinking about and what you're dreaming about and what things you want to create and stuff. And, and, and this conversation got richer and deeper and more animated and more excited and said, right. And it just so happened the course came up at Rosas, where I worked, called the called the X Group, and he joined that. And I got him onto that course. Right. Because he didn't want to go. By the way, the X Group was a European funded course where twenty five dancers from all around the world would be mentored by four major dancers from four companies Trisha Brown, Anna Teresa de Keersmaeker, William Forsythe and and, uh,

Pina Bausch. Oh, wow. Can you imagine that? And he didn't want to do that. Well, he didn't want to leave home. He wanted to do it right. Because he's a real bit of a mummy's boy, actually. Right, right. And, um, so now you heard it here first. You heard it here first. So he knows that he'd be the first to admit it, right? But the thing is. And so this was. And you know what? Listen to this. And they got paid so they would select five choreographers and paid them something like a thousand euros a month, with twenty five dancers to play with for six months. Oh, God. It was unprecedented. Yeah, yeah. And it was. And I got him on the course and it. Absolutely. You can imagine any artist gave that given that experience that that critical role launchpad, isn't it? My God, that's insane. It's insane. Right. So he comes back with this

incredible idea for a new work. Is that where he made 'Rush'? Yes, yes. You were in 'Rush'. Yeah. That's it, that's 'Rush'. Enter Rachel Krische. Yeah. One of the original members of 'Rush'. Yeah. I think you were the second cast, right? Yeah. Well, what it was is you. I was with Aletta Collins Dance company at the time. And you were the producer or the manager for Aletta for AC, DC. I did some stuff. Yeah. And then the 'Rush' is a trio with Akram. Glynn. Is it? No. Gwen. Gwen. And Moya. Yeah. And there was a show in France. Yeah. Uh, in northern France somewhere. And Moya couldn't do it. So literally, I met you asked me, would I just learn it and do this show? So I think I met Moya on the Tuesday. I learned it Tuesday. Wednesday. Got on the Eurostar on Thursday, met Akram in the tech run. And then did the show. Oh my God, I forgot all about that. That's. And that's how I got into the company in a way. Yeah. And then you did 'Kaash' as well right? Yeah. So I was the first member. So I was the original member of 'Kaash'. But that's how literally just learning the piece and getting in. But I have to say, that's how I that happened to me a lot, um, Farooq. Because at that time, I was really quick at learning material so I could pick things up instantly. So often I was the go to person for someone who was injured or pregnant, and I would make sure you're doing yourself a disservice there, because the reason why I offered you that, wow, that girl can move. No. Right, right. She's got she's got energy. She's got. And it suited Akram's very high, you know, high powered spins and spins. I thought it just suited you perfectly. And it was, you know, to ask you, was it because you're a quick learner, I didn't know how quick you learned. I just knew that you were an amazing mover. So that's. Yes. Thank you very much. So that was where 'Rush' was created. And so 'Rush'. So I remember before he started, he laid the seeds of 'Rush' in the X group. Yeah. And then he came back and I said, come, let's sit down. Let's figure this out. What are we going to do? Right. And then he said, so I've got this thing, 'Rush', you know, and I've got this, and I really want to develop them further with more music and lighting and stuff and you know, and, and and he's going, he's going on about it and he says, yeah, but you know, I'm not we're not going to be able to afford it, it's too expensive. So just just keep going Akram. Don't worry about the expensive part. Just tell me what you need. Right. Just keeps going. Keeps going. And then. Because I know I've got a good thing with numbers. I was actually my spin class the other day, and I was getting the numbers correct for the teacher. Right. I said it's either eight minutes and thirty, or it's seven minutes and fifty four seconds. Right, right. Because she said she said to her on the spin class, she goes, well, how long was that track? And she went, she said, seven minutes. And 90s. I said, well, that's seven minutes of ninety. That's eight minutes and thirty. Yeah. Unless it says seven point nine, which is actually seven minutes and fifty four seconds. Right. So she was like, oh my God. So, so I had this very fast way with numbers from your dad, from my dad being age five, learning those

maths was in your genes. No, no it was there. So when Akram told me this I said right this is about sixty K. Wow. Okay. Right. Let me figure this out. A fair amount of money back then? Yeah. You know, I mean, because, you know what it was, it was new lighting by Michael Hulls. Yeah. New music composition by Andy Cowton. Costumes. New costumes for the production. Eight weeks of no. Six more weeks of studio time for the dancers. Right. And marketing materials. Yeah. So that was, you know, that was quite a package of money, you know, and, you know, that takes time. So I remember thinking, I've got to solve this problem. So I went

home to my wife, sat down and said, you know, Su-Man, it's going to be difficult for you to hear. But, you know, I think I want to sell the flat that we live in, you know. She says, what for? She says, well, I'm going to I need to pay up for our first production. Oh my gosh. So that's what I did. Wow. You know, and so and it was mad because we had a baby and we, you know, again, it's kind of there's a kind of risk taker in me, right? You know you can see that, right? Yeah. Right. Back in those early days. Right. And so I just felt like, you know, that's this is an investment in the future. I've got to do it. It's the only way we're going to do it. And I don't want to, you know, spend the next five years picking up breadcrumbs until we're ready. I just felt we were ready. And this is the moment. This is the moment. So we sold the flat. We moved into somewhere. Rented somewhere. You know, it was quite difficult because we had the baby and we were living on the floor and stuff like this for a bit. Yeah, right. And then we put the money and it. And it worked, you know. That production was the one that eventually was launched. It launched in big time, right? Yeah. And that's what I knew that would happen. Yeah. And I and I didn't feel like it was. Look, 'Rush' was brilliant. It was exhilarating. But, you know, it was an early work. It wasn't what you would call a masterpiece. It was. It was what you call potential. Yeah. But what you always want to do at people, you know, critical moments in their lives is show the full potential of what they're capable of. And that then made the global arts industry get really interested. Because then after actually when I because I joined for 'Related Rocks', which then became. Yeah. And I remember doing in Birmingham like the BD British dance edition of 'Related Rocks'. I always remember like it was. I remember Farooq you came to a couple of rehearsals, right? Right before we were meant to perform, and we were still a little bit scrappy. Yeah. And somehow, um, like the show at Birmingham, we pulled it off. And I can remember your excitement and relief and, wow, that we'd managed it as well, which was extraordinary. So you're always sort of steering uncertainty as well as having the vision as well and not losing your nerve. Yeah. No, thank you for reminding me that, Rachel. I think and I was so invested, you know, like, I felt every single movement, every because I danced as well. I felt everything, you know, and it was very embodied my reactions, you know, it comes back to this thing. No. Yeah, absolutely. You know, because these are critical moments, right? You know, and it's all about the details of things and stuff like that. And, and, you know, and I was very conscious of the fact that actually I also potentially put Akram in a very difficult position as a young artist. Right. Because the expectation is really high. It was high. Suddenly high. Yeah. I think we were like sharing a platform with the BalletBoyz who were like really high at that moment. So it was like intense. It was intense pressure. Yeah, but go on, go on. No, I just think what I love, just going back to this idea that dance was the investment. Yeah. And I just think how brilliant to hear you say that. That, you know, the belief and the confidence in, like, this art form and this artist. And. Yeah, this is something important. And I'm going to sell my flat. And I just think it's really refreshing to hear, like, dance being the thing, like, because I think so often,

I mean, in current kind of climates, we're thinking about dance as fighting. And, you know, you talked earlier about those letters that you wrote about, like, you know, the kind of begging, like, you know, we haven't got much. We just. And I just think how great to think about you being this real advocate for, like, this is what people need to see in their lives. Yeah. Thank you for saying that. And it really is. You know, it's it's quite selfish, you know. You know, when all of

those pieces were created it was because I so I could enjoy them, you know, taking you back to the Sussex Union all over again. Absolutely. You know, you know, and it's a funny thing, we shouldn't underestimate the power of being selfish. Sometimes it can work in good in a good way, you know, because there is a good selfish and there's a bad selfish. And it's this desire to have something that will really set you up alight with, you know, with, with inspiration and stuff. And that's what I wanted. I wanted to go on stage every time, see our work and be blown away every time, not just once, and then relax. So it was this idea of really keeping high standards, right? Always, you know, never letting us drop off, you know, you know, never. It's like, you know, consistency is so important in terms of achieving things. Right. So but soon after that just before. So here's the big failure point right. You know this is the big learning curve right. So I don't know if you remember. But after 'Related rocks' came 'Kaash'. Yeah. Now 'Kaash' was this big sexy production with Anish Kapoor, Nitin Sawhney, Akram. It was like the Indian boy band. They were like pictures of them sitting up on the wall. Like this was the South Bank show. South Bank show. It was. It was huge pressure world tour, loads of these co-producers and people looking to him and thinking, you know, the pressure was immense. Mhm. Okay. So we then I got a co-production where you worked in France remember. Yeah, yeah. So that opening and in Ghent. In Ghent. Well that came afterwards. I don't know if you remember this part. The opening was catastrophic because Aideen had barely lit the show. Akram hadn't developed the choreography properly, right? It was really seriously undercooked. And I wasn't there because I was in London trying to work in the security desk, and all these famous presenters from all around the world came in and walked out and went, nope. He was just a one hit wonder from. And I remember it was it was really absolutely devastating, you know. And the next morning, Akram and I were in the hotel. And you've ever seen a someone with their heart down in their toes? It was him, you know. He was so absolutely destroyed by the experience because and and I remember sitting with him and thinking, oh man, I also felt the same. It was pretty, you know, they just didn't like it. Yeah. And, um, and then I sat there and after a while and then you kind of this is something that I learned later, but I realized it probably subconsciously at the time. Well, failure is a weird word. Right. But what kind of failure did we actually make? Was it failure of skill? Was it failure of concept? Was it failure of denial? Was it failure of nerve? You know, and actually, it was a failure of nerve. It was the pressure. So we were just two. Couldn't deal with it. So let's just forget that. Let's go back to the drawing board and fix this thing, this piece, this piece. And that's when I got I rang up again, you know, and we went there and we went to Ghent in this little theatre in Belgium. Right. De Vooruit. Yeah. And we. And the nice guy gave us a few weeks to fix it. And Guy, Guy Cools, who then became a dramaturg. Yeah. Yeah, totally. I remember that. And so we just. Then Akram just said forget that. Let's forget the noise. Let's dust ourselves off. Get back to work. Right. Because the piece needs work. Yeah. So we spent about six more weeks really refining the lighting, the choreography, the story, the dramaturgy. And it just suddenly started coming alive, which it should have done before. And then I called up all these people, and I

goes, you know, guys, look, you don't often get second chances, but I want one. Please come and watch the work again at the Southbank. Yeah, we did at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in like six weeks later, right? They all come back and they fell in love with it. And that is history. That

was when the company. So the company grew out of failure, actually. It was. And people don't know that because they had this, you know, this idea of Akram and his kind of beautiful career, very successful. But actually, if you think about the beginnings, it grew out of huge risk and it grew out of failure. Yeah, right. And I think there's something about, again, not being destroyed by these terrible moments in our lives. Right. You know, finding the power, the strength, the belief to to know that you can go past this difficult moment. And that's what we did. And then, 'Kaash', then, you know, that was it that then got the Arts Council funding. We toured around the world. The work toured, you know, over hundreds of shows. It, you know, it brought more co-producers. We built a network of support. That was the beginning of the office even. It was literally me, one person and Akram and the dancers then and we were like, so like we were going round the world on international flights with like Anish Kapoor set in suitcases that we were running through, like trying to get flight connections with all of this kit, literally. Yeah. And then a really bonkers gig in, um. Oh, where is it? Outside of Moscow. We went. We went to Russia. We flew from Russia to Ekaterinburg in a snowstorm. We were the only plane that landed in the middle of the night. We were it was just like, um. Yeah, wild and crazy times. It was. And you think about that. So look, I remember that first conversation with Anish Akram and I were talking. So let's go and speak to him. So, you know, this is a legend of the visual arts world. And you know he was kind. He spoke you know, met with us. And you know, I think he really liked our infectious enthusiasm and almost like our the fearless naivety that we had. And don't I miss fearless naivety. I can tell you it's really a beautiful thing to have in life, right? And then we talked about an idea and he got excited and came in and I said, right. Here's the caveat, right. He goes, what do you mean? Here's the caveat. He says, well, whatever you make, it's got to go in four bags that we can fold roll up at the end of a show and take to the next gig, and the dancers can wheel it around. And he looked at me. I never forgot that look. He looked at me. Are you kidding me? You know, I don't think he thought that because he was very generous. Because, you know, you know, Anish Kapoor, but you know. But anyway, he did. He came up with an incredible idea actually, which we did manage. So I think sometimes it's that thing about I've learned in life, you know, I think it comes off the street a little bit, you know, you know, that you just got to ask, you know, you can't hold back at that important moment because if you don't make that ask, you know, it absolutely won't happen. It won't happen. And then you go back later. You kind of says, well, why didn't you tell me at the time? Yeah. You know, and I think it's important to be very clear and very brave, you know. And so here we come back to another really important quality in life is courage. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. And I and I feel like a theme that has been, has come up in conversation before with our other guests is this notion that coming from a working class background, you never presume that things will be there for you. You fall back on having to, um, um, bring it for yourself because there's an aspect of, um, precarity. Because early on in life and maybe still in life, you've never had a safety net. Maybe like there's never been a financial safety net, for instance. So and certainly that feels still real for me. Like even when I worked in the university for a long time, I never presumed that this would be like a safe job that I would have for the rest of my life. Yeah. Because you because you come from a background where you cannot presume that you

cannot presume anything. Yeah, I think that's a really good point, Rachel, because I think you

live in a state of not being safe. Yeah, all the time. And. Yeah. And even though you may feel safe, but you actually carry that dynamic. It's it's woven into your DNA all the time and that things are never quite enough. So you've got to ask for more. Yeah. Right. You know, and so and you're, and you feel you've got the audacity sometimes to ask for more. Right. It's, it's a strange thing that comes from those upbringings. And, you know, there's a lot to be said for it. I know not everyone comes through it, you know, safely and intact. You know, it can be devastating for many people's lives. But there is something that it hardwires you in a particular way, you know, and you never assume you have the right to anything. Exactly. And seeing those exactly that I think that's important, right? And I to this day, I still feel that that, you know, I still don't feel like I have to earn everything. I have to sacrifice for things. I have to struggle for things I know. I even joked today with a Chinese producer I'm working with. She says, oh, I'm so looking forward to this outstanding project. It's going to be fun. I says, look, in my experience, anything that fun will come with some suffering, right? Right. You're going to have to struggle for this girl. Yeah, right. You know, and so. So I accept that. And I'm comfortable with it. Yeah. Because because that's been your your, um, the conditions for you your entire life. For me, I feel like this notion that the body carries either a lack of entitlement or it can carry entitlement, and that can also really affect your journey or one's journey through life. Yeah. And and the the courage they have or the courage they might not quite have as well. And so I'm really interested in that. And then also how the, the practice of the training of the doing of dancing, which is this bodily knowledge that brings bodily confidence is tied into that notion of confidence, or the ability to put one foot in front of the other time and time and time again. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's so, you know. Yeah. No, it's so brilliant talk in those ways. And I absolutely agree with that. I think it's funny that when we have these very difficult things happen in our lives, the body is the first thing to react. Right. Yeah. But we don't think so. We're not aware enough to kind of get in touch with it. You know, I'm very I noticed recently when I as I'm now directing things that I, you know, I have this actually active thing where I say, take this the energy in my head, push it down into, into here, into, lower down, into my body because somehow it feels like it's the better place to be. Down in the guts, down in the pelvis, down in the heart. It feels like it's a purer, more honest space. When it's up in the head, I feel it's almost deceptive and the mind almost becomes a place of that gets very upset if it gets ignored, by the way. You know, it's like it wants to be in every single conversation, right? And it hates feeling redundant. Right. And so I think I actually actively push my emotions and things into a different part of my body to kind of so I can get more grounded. Yeah, but I can I can see them more clearly. Yeah. But it also feels like this is really largely influenced your decision making in your career as well. Just hearing you talk about seeing Akram's work for the first time and you said about being with it, you were there with every step. Yeah. And I think actually that that's also then manifested itself as like, yeah, I'm going to this is where I'm going to put my energy. Yeah. That actually that look like it feels like there's a real learnt behavior of listening to your body first. Yeah. Yeah. And, and you mentioned earlier and I said to one of the board members. I think particularly the first fifteen years of Akram Khan company were all about growth. Everyone growing, flourishing, growing. Yeah. And growth is a very biological activity, right? It's not something that happens just by having more money and and more knowledge

and more wisdom. Growth is a very there's things changing in us as we grow. You know, we

feel ourselves expanding. We feel ourselves, you know, reaching out through space and time in a different way to to the connections we build in our lives. So there's this feeling that we become a bigger and bigger tree, and we're reaching out. Our roots go deeper, our branches grow wider. You know, we we have we're more efficient in the way that we use energy coming to us like the sun and the rain and just to stay alive, you know. And I think there's something about the human body and its capacity to to. Yeah. For growth. It's not just it's not an intellectual thing only. And just thinking about that notion of precarity and, it made me think about something that we that has come up as well is thinking about. Are there ever moments now thinking about your professional activity or in your life where you feel like that background resurfaces, or are you made to feel more aware of that? Do you ever feel we talk about this idea of being a bit wobbled by your heritage or, you know, those upbringings, the way you might suddenly feel a little bit more heightenedly aware of that might make you feel a bit different in spaces or? So I'm glad you asked me that question. Yeah. You know, this is a tough one. And he's going to say right here in this room now, but I'm going to say no. You know, I'm grateful for all the opportunities being given to me. And, you know, I've earned some of them. I've been given them by incredible people in my life, you know. You know, people who've inspired me, people who've supported me. But, you know, as a person and there's so many new phrases, I don't know what to call myself, whether I'm someone of the global majority or, you know, person of color. And I've achieved quite a bit, you know, and I'm proud of what I've done and I've given quite a bit as well. And, you know, I'd like to feel I'd like to give more than I take. You know, that's kind of one of my guiding principles. But I do notice that I've got to a point where, you know, we talk about a glass ceiling. Yeah. You know, and I and or a class ceiling or a class ceiling. And it's just I just feel it rubbing on the top of my head, you know, and I think, oh, this is as far as it goes. Oh, wow. Really? You know, is this. Yeah. Is this as far as it goes? Because I can notice there are different barriers creeping in that weren't there before because I had a certain amount of space to operate in. But I feel like it comes to it's coming to a stop or it's getting much harder. And and so now I'm much more actively engaged with this kind of, you know, this, um, the politics of identity in a way that before and I feel some of those early feelings of anger and frustration resurfacing, to be honest, you know, and it's been coming up and and it's interesting. And I want to be careful of those emotions because I don't want them to contaminate me or damage me, you know. But but but I can have a different relationship with them now that they don't do that. But I need to get clearer with them. And, and it's about where the opportunities are coming from and stuff and you know, and where is this as far as you can take something? You know, and I wonder, I wonder. It's a question I ask through working with Akram and the company and the work that we do and you know, and other, you know, in recent years I also started a new company called Fengling Productions. So Fengling is the word wind chime actually in Chinese. Right. And I like the fact is and it came from my wife who's from Taiwan, Chinese culture. And, you know, you know, the wind chime needs this unexpected gust of wind to create an unexpected beauty. But for it to happen, you need five tones to work together, right. So it has collaborative force behind it. So I find that I love that concept for fengling. And fengling is really primarily focused on, you know, aesthetics,

ideas, stories from East Asia in collaboration with artists from around the world. So and, you know, and I find now that I've entered what you call the East Asian kind of community, it's it's a lot further back than South Asian and the black community in terms of the opportunities

presented to it. I mean, it's less vocal and it's not so looking for conflict and, or, or speaks up, you know, strongly about the lack of representation or, or being less served, you know, in some ways, particularly in the UK. But um, and I've noticed this is a bit of a problem for me. You know, it's kind of but I'm trying not to be angry about it. I've always felt like somehow I've got to remain positive, enthusiastic and keep focusing on the work and and stuff. But yeah, you know, and I'm also more unstable now because I'm, you know, this is this is news now. Akram Khan company is going to close down in twenty months from now. We made the decision to say that that is as far as we can go with this story. And it's no point just hanging on to it for the sake of it. And it feels like a really brave decision and a and a good decision to celebrate twenty five years or twenty seven years, when the time are you going to have a party? Of course, absolutely. You don't do twenty seven years and not have a party, right? Right. And, um, but I feel like it's time to move on. It's time to start writing a new book, a new chapter. And so Fengling is really my new part of my. And I'm now really back at this incredible sense of insecurity and vulnerability. And I had to dig so deep, you know? And the difference between me now and twenty five years ago is just my energy, you know. And also this kind of. But on the other hand, I deal with disappointment. So. Well. If something disappoints me, it's for a few hours, I just move on. You know, it doesn't derail me. It doesn't destroy me in the same way it would have done maybe twenty five, thirty years ago. So I'm kind of much better at dealing with that. But on the other hand, it's maybe it shouldn't be like that. Maybe I should be really disappointed for longer. So I will fight that bit harder. Who knows? But maybe your your fighting is fighting in a different way. Not fighting, but you know something else. You know, I think that's what's happening is another way. I'm playing a more patient game and you know, and also I'm entering the space of director, which is very different to producer. Yeah. Wow. What a difference, guy. Boy, you know, I mean, the producer can be instinctive, you know, intuitive, race ahead, entrepreneurial, you know, can, you know, just move, move, move quick. You know, they are fast dancer, uh, producers Those like fast twitch muscles, twitch, they're the sprinter. Yeah, the director is the marathon. Yeah. Mo Farah. Yeah. No, they had the marathon run. They got to go slow. They got to think about what's happening, and they got to pace it at a particular speed. They got to understand what's going on. Yeah. And they got to look more inwards than look outwards. Right. So it's a very different you know I'm not there yet. You know I got to get used to this new identity right. And it's like so but I like it, you know, I'm much more scared I'm going to be. Because, you know, I'm. You know, when you're director, you're front facing, right. You know, so. But, you know, I like the fear of it in some ways. Again, it's this feeling of feeling makes me feel a bit alive, actually. But but I notice the opportunities are a lot tougher. Doesn't matter what I've done before. Why? I just. I just feel like the world now is different. It's become much more transactional. Yeah. You know, and, you know, the dance industry for all the good things about it, it's almost become a victim of its own success, in my opinion. It's become like a big industry, you know? It's much more transactional. I remember I was joking with someone the other day when Alistair started Sadler's Wells twenty years ago,

and all those artists were, like, hanging around the cafe. And yeah, it was a different energy everyone was looking for, looking out for each other. If someone succeeded, they were happy for them. Yeah. It was. But now it's like everyone's much more isolated. It's like the world and everyone fighting for their own corner. It's a little bit more competitive. It's much more transactional. Everyone's vying for resources, you know, because there's fewer

resources, there's fewer opportunities. It's less corporate. Actually, it's become very corporate. I'm not sure if there are fewer resources. It's the way we think about them because there weren't great resources twenty five years ago. True. It's true. It's just the way we think about resources. So I think there's a shift in our mindset, which makes it really hard for a young aspiring artist or even producers to think, you know, how do I make my way? I'm a lot more less supported than I've ever been. Yeah. And so I think that's hard. And that's why I find myself in this changed world. Yeah. I mean, maybe it's maybe it's speculative here. Maybe I'm really. But I think there's something in terms of what you were saying earlier as well about the, the fact that you, you have to ask and that kind of confidence to just give it a go and just ask and see what comes back. And I think that is also something that we've attributed to coming from a challenging upbringing and not not always having everything, not having a cushion, not having a backup plan. Yeah. And I and I wonder if, um, and this is where I might be making a leap, but there's fewer people who've come from that kind of circumstance who are engaging or have the opportunity to access dance or to engage in that world, and therefore the kind of the culture is affected as a result of that lack of, um, that maybe people's experiences in being in dance are much more kind of closely aligned now, as opposed to having kind of a diverse range of backgrounds, experiences and cultural. Yeah. Do you see what I'm getting at? But I just think I just want. And of course, it's completely speculative, but I do wonder if there is some correlation there that we're not we're not seeing the diversity of, um, engagement in dance that we, we perhaps once were twenty five years ago. I think that's a really, really good point. Laura, I think you're I think you've got you've hit the sweet spot. I think that's what's happened. You know, I think the way that people enter the industry is so different. You know, it's like, you know, there's and the pathways in are less and the diversity. You're absolutely right. I think about the people I meet. They almost feel quite I don't want to be disrespectful, but they feel quite like they come from the same place. Yeah. You know, and, um, and it's and. Yeah, I mean, I work a lot with China, right. And, and one of the things I know in China is a big, big country and, you know, and a lot of dancers in China come from rural communities. Amazing. It's amazing. And so. So when you go into those companies, they are absolutely. It's their life changing to be a dancer. You can feel the enthusiasm and how hard they work. I remember when I took my daughter around Beijing Dance Academy and she was having an ice cream, and this young dancer, lovely girl said, oh, look, she's got an ice cream. I wish I could have an ice cream, but, you know, but, you know, they work so hard, but they get an education. They get they get dance. You know, in dance in China, you get if you get in a company, you get paid well, you get pensions, you get more, you know, you get good breaks on mortgages they send home to their families and to their villages. So it's a different way. And I like that energy. Yeah. You know, and I think it's similar in parts of Scandinavia as well that people are coming to dance from like, you know, like farm like rural industry. Um, and, you

know, be really different to their family way. Yeah. You know, they're kind of stepping outside into I think there is a bit more of that. But there's something about that, you know, about the notion of a working class background and, you know, a less privileged background. And because the degrees of privilege are, are there, but we don't ever talk about working class anymore. No, I don't think I rarely hear the word. That's why we're doing this. That's very good on you. Yeah. But also, I think there's things about like, um, notions of, like, levels of 'classness'. I mean, like we say, we don't really like, how do we define working class? But also

this idea that you might have, you might not have, um, money to put food on the table, but, like, you know, my parents were really interested in art and culture, and that's how I, I kind of that was around me a little bit growing up. And they were, you know, they'd grown up in Liverpool and, you know, we listened to the Beatles every Sunday, you know, like, but they were invested in like, music and art and, and, but, you know, my dad was a milkman. And, you know, he worked. He did that all his life. As long as he was alive, you know? Right. Um, yeah. Because that was the other thing that was important to us is that we feel that the portrayal of the working class is super narrow in this country. Like, if you watching a TV show and there's a working class character, it's usually a delinquent of a housing estate. And that is not the only way. That's such a good point. Not the only. Yeah. Um, experience of working classness and working classness is often like, I think, lazily, lazily used as a shortcut for being uneducated or unsophisticated or not interested in art. It's. But I think there's a huge, um, nuanced spectrum of what you're interested in. And like you said yourself, you you're a working class boy with amazing brain for maths. Yeah, because I think often there's an assumption that working class people are a bit thick or that dancers are a bit thick. That's why they're doing dance and not using their brain. But for me, like the whole body is a brain. No, absolutely. It's the best brain of all and the most honest brain. Yeah. So. So we're sort of keen to also unpack and unravel the presumptions about class identity and levels of sophistication. Yeah. As well. And how you might define that. It's not just about what you have and all these different things that can make you. Because I think, you know, what can empower you is like, yeah, you know, that that maths skill that that kind of inherent ability is, is one aspect, just one aspect, but also, um, you know, seeing entrepreneurial behaviour in your family. Um, you know, we had a guest last week who was talking about one of their parents, just like having a market stall and selling stuff. Yeah. You know, just kind of seeing ways to be empowered because it's not just about a particular, you know, let's tie a ribbon round. This is what it means to be working class. I think I think you're making really good points because I've always, you know, put forward this belief that one of the problems with British society is it's class system. I mean, I think it's one of it's deeply embedded. And now it's it's created a new narrative around itself. Like what you said, it's, you know, it's uneducated, it's unsophisticated, it's unrefined. And we know that so many great writers and artists of the past have come from working class. Yeah, yeah. No, I think that that that that's been that myth is or that reality has now been created a new narrative. It's around, you know, lack of refinement, unsophisticated, you know, and so and it's, it's almost justifying the, the maintaining of that class system. Right. Yeah. Because it is a very strange thing. Our class system, I think it's, it's, it's, you know, I think it comes back to feudal systems that people couldn't bear to be told to do what by someone above them. So there is this thing about British

society doesn't like to be told what to do by someone above you. You see that in shops and things like that which which is very specific to this culture actually. And but it also is part of our rebellious nature. Yeah. But also we don't mind queuing. Yeah. Yeah. Waiting our turn. Yeah. We don't mind queuing, but we will curse like hell under our breath while we're queuing. Yeah. So it's like it's just the way. It's just a strange paradox of it. Right. But look, you know, we have to be really careful. I've learned over the years, you know, you know, every country, every society, every culture has a way of being. You know, it'd be very foolish of us to assume, if only they could be like the French or be like, you know that, you know, there's a specific identity to that is good and bad. And also, somehow I like the the irreverence of British culture. You know,

I was in I was actually in Milan just the other week coming from Lugano. Right. And I was at the airport buying a shirt because I saw this shirt and I really liked it. And this actually. Chinese Italian. It was really funny. First Chinese I've ever seen speaking with an Italian accent, right? And I said, well, that's really I've never done that. And then she's saying, oh, the Brits are great. You know, the Italians buy, they always have to have it really carefully coded color wise. But the Brits will go wacky. They'll go with orange and red and they put it together and they're a lot more don't want to go by the rules of what the thing should be. Fashion. Yeah. So that irreverence is also makes our culture quite interesting, you know, in music and art and painting and, you know, the industry and fashion, you know, you know, you can get people with charity shop, you know, going to get trousers and wearing an Armani shirt and say, that's okay for those to be together. So it's also the good thing about and that's also why this merging of classes is also kind of adopted that kind of structure, but actually by that at its peril, because it also just starts to be dismissive of the kind of talents and riches that emerge that are existing in those communities. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. Yeah. But there's something about this idea that it gives you a voice. And I think you said earlier that I think we can we've related to and spoken to spoken about before, is this idea that, um, the kind of the democracy of dance practice. Yes. Yeah, yeah. The way that it has the ability to kind of like you said earlier, it was a level playing field, you know. Yeah. It really can enable people to feel on a parallel with others regardless. It's so borderless that way. It's and it's one of the great art forms. Just like music, music and dance, both where they can cross over and people can be in a room and start working and cooperating and collaborating and being creative and being playful and having fun. Yeah. You know, and you can do it all over the world anywhere. And it does that. It has that power. Yeah. And and it it's important to have a voice. It's important to give you, you know, some kind of expressiveness to let whatever that thing is inside of you, in your soul or wherever it exists, come out and be shared with the world, right? We all need that, right? Yeah. And I think that other thing about the democratization in terms of like how you are identified. So like, like for instance, if I go to see a dance show and there are I go up to Northern School and I look at their third year graduation piece and there's twenty of them on stage, and I have no idea actually what their class backgrounds is. They could all be, they're all embodying who they are at that moment. I mean, and partly that's because dance, you know, and it's different to theatre because they're not generally not. We know that dance pieces do engage text and spoken text, but generally speaking, you're not identifying people by by regional accents or a posh accent or a working class accent as well. And that's something that I also think is really great about

dance that your, your, um, luggage, your class luggage isn't, like, highly visible on stage. It's not. You're a dancer first before you're working class or posh or you're rich or you're rich or poor, all of that, all of those things. So I think that's quite interesting for me as well. And that idea that also you in the rehearsal room, you've got a group of people all from different backgrounds and, and they're all wearing the same washed out jogging bottoms and t shirts because that's what you wear. You know, you're not also defined by your rehearsal clothes or things like that. I think that's kind of like a leveller in the space. So actually what remains is the body. And actually we all have an equal body. But if you think about it, you know, in the world today, we're are our biggest heroes, right? For most people. Rich, poor football. Yeah. You know football. Most footballers. Working class, working class from across the world. Yeah. They're kids who had nothing, got on the streets, no money and kicked a ball around and

suddenly found a gift. Yeah, right. And everyone, rich, poor politicians, leaders, you know, you know, scientists love footballers. They love football. The art of football, the game of football. And it's amazing that this very physical thing that has become it really defines nations. It makes people happy. I you know, I remember Saudi Arabia beat, um, America when I was out there. And, you know, the prince gave everyone two or three days off. Amazing. I mean, how much it means to people? Yeah. For sure. And I don't think there's a lot of difference between footballers and dancers. I think footballers, like dancers generally cannot start late. There's a certain balance and flow and collaborative nature. They all have positions that they're good at, you know. You know, and there's a there's a football IQ they talk about often whenever you watch those pundits speak, he says their football IQ is high or low or whatever. So you know, so in a way I think it's the same with dance. You know, there's some people, you know, it's dance IQ and recognizing there's another intelligence that comes with that, with that ability and that skill. So it's um, yeah, I do think dance and football have a great deal in common. And I think there's like a, there's like an economic anomaly in, like, dance practice because, like, I don't want to be flippant, but you can't. You can you can spend money learning. But I think there's lots of people we've spoken to on this podcast series in particular where, yeah, they're coming into dance from all different routes and possibilities. And it's not about going to the ballet class when you're four years old. Absolutely. And I think there's that kind of sense that, you know, you could, you know, that's what I want. You can spend the money, but it doesn't necessarily mean that that guarantees guarantees you a place in a dance career of your choosing. Absolutely. And I think that's often a kind of way that dance is portrayed. Is that that sense that. Yeah, that you invest, that you train, you work hard. I mean, it's quite a historical way of thinking about it. But I think actually one of the great things about dance is that it's it's for everyone. Look, I do it every. I still do Zumba twice a week or once a week at least. Right. If I don't do it, I live a miserable existence. I don't care where I live and how much you know whether I've got an OBE or not. If I don't dance, my life is poor, right? You know, and I love going every Saturday. And it's. And everyone's fifty plus, right? And everyone is you just feel the connection to the group. And it's one of the only groups in the gym that really stay very close. You know, they're close regulars. Regulars. And, you know, there's a feeling of real strong community in it, you know. So, you know. Absolutely. I mean, you know, it's such an important human activity that brings the best out of us actually. I don't I can't think of dance

generally bringing out the worst of a human being. I mean, you know. No, not at all. You know, you think about it. Does it bring out cruelty and evilness? Does it bring out does it bring out selfishness and greed? I mean, not really. No. Right, right, right. Yeah. So it's kind of. Do you want to kill someone? And actually, when you see the street dancers battling, they love each other when they're battling. Right? So they're turning it into something which is really an act of love rather than an act of conflict. An act of community. Yeah. Yeah. There's a total love and shared understanding. Yeah. I mean, look, there's something beautifully romantic and idealistic, but we need romanticism. We need idealism in our world. Right. It's really important. It's part of life as well. Yeah, well, it's like it makes me think back to you and those boys with the story of the fly. The fly. You know, just like that. That space to think and be and and imagine and dance can really do that for people. No I yeah. I've got a question. Right. Was your going to the palace and picking up your OBE the poshest moment of your life. Tell us about that. How did that feel? So so working class boy going up to get his. You know what? It's, um. It was it

was a really special day, I'll be honest. I mean. It was more special when I got. When I got the letter and I found out that it was going to be given to me. And then you, you know, you don't have to. You can write back and say, no, you're not going to take it, by the way. So yeah. Because what's the sort of is there a bit of a rub with this notion of empire? Yeah, I remember that conversation because Akram got offered something and he rejected it. So. So, um, but, you know, I tell you what, I'm not going to lie. You know, for that moment when I got there, I thought, look what you've done. Look where you've come from, and look where you've got to, you know, and and it did feel like a defining moment of, you know, my struggles and all the things I've had to go through, the life I've experienced, you know, good and bad. And and it came to this moment. But, you know, these things pass so quickly. It's like. It's like the sun came out wonderfully for two days. And then then life goes on, as you know. So it was great. It did feel good. It did really feel and and particularly in light of what my background was. Yeah. And it's kind of like. Yeah. Because usually those things are given to people, you know, that might have had a privilege or whatever, you know. But yeah. So yeah, no, it did feel good. It did feel, you know, it's. Yeah. Yeah. It was you know, I mean unfortunately my dad's not around, but my mum was family were proud of course, you know, and stuff like that. But yeah, it's um, but it's important, you know, I don't, I mean, I, I have to be really careful. Right. And you know, I, and I think I am quite wary of this, that don't get caught up in your own mythology, you know, don't you know, because you build yourself as an identity. Right. And I see it too often where people start to believe what's been said about them take themselves too seriously. I still think it's really important to give. I still really think it's important to be an inspiration, to recognize that people have helped me and that to help others. And I never, ever want to let go of that feeling that, you know, I can just sit back and, you know, and bathe in the sun and think, I'm great. I never feel I never feel that way, ever. No matter what happened, that OBE didn't make me feel like I could sit in the sun and feel like I'm great. It just says, well done, boy, you did good. Yeah, right. And that was it. And but it really is. I still believe that I really I still do a lot of mentoring. I still love to support artists. I love to make people flourish. I'm a real believer in that kind of culture of work. Goes right back to Penny. Yeah, yeah, it goes right back to it goes right back to making the most out of something where you've, you know, you know, the thing

you work in the arts, the driving principle working in the arts is and that's probably why I work in it, is that you have to get a lot out of very little. Yeah, right. And so that's what I've done with my life. I've managed to get a lot out of very little. Right. And I think that will never go away. And I still believe in that very strongly. Yeah. You know, I'm not I'm never going to let myself settle in any kind of comfortable space. Maybe I can't. Maybe if I wanted to, I wouldn't allow myself to. I don't know. Maybe it comes back to the background. You know, it's stuff, but. But I do see around me people have seemed to have got it all and they think they can just sit back and and take it easy. Wow. I don't think that's very healthy. Yeah. Mhm. Yeah. So yeah. So keeps me young as well. Yeah. Curiosity as well. It's curiosity. It's wonder. It's all of those things I think they're part of that package. Yeah. Yeah for sure. We just have one thing I think. Go on. Do you want to do it? I can do, yeah. Sounds good. I know, I know. What, are you gonna land on me now? So. So the title of this podcast is, um, dancing class moving stories of levelling up. So we've deliberately got this levelling up notion in here in relation to thinking about class and the role that dance might play in navigating or, um, maybe people feeling like they traversed that in some sort of way. But we just wondered, we're asking all of our guests to think about

this notion of levelling up, and whether it's something that you might feel relates to your experience, or would you ever consider yourself to have levelled up? Yeah, that's a really good question. And and I don't have a very quick answer to it. It's a tricky question really as well, because also some people are really, um, reject, reject the term as well. Yeah. I feel like my instinct is to reject the term. Like I reject the word inclusion. Right. Because it assumes there's a place that we all have to be, right? And I think the key thing in life is to be the best version of yourself, right? Whether you know, whatever that is and the idea that there's a leveling up and there's an inclusion place means there's a there's a set time, a place below it, there's a place below it that you need to. And so it's already diminishing what you were before because you have to be somewhere. And so I'm very aware of the danger of, of labelling, you know, particularly in our current world, we're obsessed with labelling. And labelling, for me is such a reductionist action because it assumes a place of definition, a place of value. Right. And I think we have to be careful that we're constantly like, if we think of our ecosystem, we're constantly in motion. Yeah. You know, sometimes we are more valuable than sometimes we are less valuable. Sometimes, you know, we are working in a constant state of dynamic activity that is not passive. And and our worthiness and our and our and our value as people is fluctuating. Sometimes we, it's a bit like a tango, you know. Sometimes you've got to follow, sometimes you've got to lead, and sometimes you've just got to watch. And sometimes you've got to improvise. You improvise and sometimes you've got to listen, and sometimes you've got to just walk away and say, not today. Sometimes just feel. Just feel. And so I think we've got to be allowed to be all these things. Yeah. Right. You know and, and but I, I'm aware that, you know, in a way levelling up is a very political term. Yeah. Right. It's it's not necessarily an artistic term. We wouldn't use levelling up for artistic practice. Right. But we would use it for politics and societal kind of, uh, value. So yeah, I mean, I think that's something we do quite a lot, actually. I was there at this congress talking about how arts can make a difference to the world. Right. And it's how political language contaminates artistic language sometimes. And artistic language definitely doesn't contaminate political language. It makes it better, in fact. So I just I

just think we just have to be a little bit wary of that, you know. You know, maybe what we haven't found is the right language. Yeah. You know, and but maybe leveling up is not the right word. And I think because there's this, there's this association with leveling up as a notion that is about talent distribution and thinking about, you know, talent as being more globally kind of, um, not sorry, nationally spread. And I think we think about talent. We think about we think about arts, you know, we think about like maybe unique abilities and things. And I think that's where this sort of conflation can often, often happen. Um, and I think you're right. It's about it's a language thing. And this, it's a language. I think language is a little bit outdated. A lot of the language we use currently is not relevant to the modern world. Freelancer. Freelancer. See? Look. You think so? Here's another one which you'll find really fascinating. And I love. And that's why language is, this is a separate podcast. Yeah. So the other day I was at the gym, you know, you pick up dumbbells, right? Yeah. Yeah. Right. And and in the sixteenth century. In the Stuart period. Right. One of the great trends of the era was that bell ringing. All the rich and famous were going bell ringing for hours. And it was their workout. Wow. Right. But bell ringing is really noisy. So what do they do to the bell? They take out the thing, then it becomes a dumbbell, you see. Oh my God. But how has it? How has it made its way to that? Because it's an exercise thing. Oh, because of the exercise? Oh, yeah. So? So in a way. What what

what what am I getting to? It says we need new words to describe things. It's back to that English degree Farooq, isn't it? And it's about using our imagination to see things and to make connections. And I think we've got language is becoming a little bit lazy. Yeah. You know, we need to, you know, keep it dynamic, keep it live, you know, and keep it, like, creative. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So. Yeah. No, I think it's. Yeah, I think it's, you know, we just got to find the right language. I look, I honestly and I don't mean this because I'm trying to be, you know, kind of democratic. I think people are amazing. Yeah. You know, I on the whole, you know, eight, maybe nine times out of ten when I meet someone, I'm always fascinated by them, their stories, their backgrounds, the things they've done, where they've lived and everything. I just find, wow, we just there's no linear path in our existence. We just exist and create things, create energy, and we put energy in and we put it back out again. And and, you know, most of us are generally creative in our lives. Every act is is, you know, is an act of creation, I think. And sometimes I just think we have to be careful that we don't attach our things ourselves to things too much. One of the most important things I tell young producers avoid the notion of 'It's yours. It's mine'. You know, ownership is dangerous. Yeah, yeah. You know, and ownership is also something we apply to words as well. So I think we just have to be careful that we don't. We stay fluid. Yeah, we keep moving. Keep moving. That's it. Keep moving. Brilliant. Thank you Farooq. Thank you so much. That was so much fun. Thank you. It was great. It was so interesting. Yeah. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Dancing Class podcast. We hope that you enjoy the rest of the series. Please do keep in touch with us via socials. Hashtag leveling up dance on Instagram and via the web page where you can also contact the project team.

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