Emma Gladstone is head of programming at the Lilian Baylis Studio in Sadler’s Wells and strikes me as a linchpin in the building. She has behind the scenes know-how, front of house presence and all the artistic zeal, personable charm and availability one could wish of someone in her dynamic position. I became acquainted with Emma last December during the Jerwood Studio Big Intensive, a week-long course on the art and craft of choreography where ‘muscular ideas get physical’.

So what is BELLYFLOP?

Well, essentially BELLYFLOP is a magazine about performance. A lot of magazines either function on quite a promotional and mainstream basis or have an academic angle, whereas BELLYFLOP embraces its contributors’ subjective engagement with activity on the fringe and at grass-root level. As a peer group, a generation perhaps, we are opinionated and I think this is what motivated a platform for voicing those opinions and provoking debate.

No it’s good, nice, very good. It’s true actually, there’s not... someone rang me about underground stuff and I was thinking how dance doesn’t do that much anymore. Or I don’t know whether it’s because of where I’m working now that I’m not aware of it so much, but it is definitely something that is important.

Yeah, and actually it is quite unifying.

Yeah, yeah! It’s nice not to feel like it’s you against the machine somehow.

And I think sort of natural things come out. We can pursue our interests – like, I can interview you. The reason I wanted to interview you is that I liked hearing your opinions during the Big Intensive and also your choice of the people you asked to come along... I was wondering if you could talk a bit about those people?

Yeah, I suppose part of the aim of the week was to show you different facets of how people think and sometimes how people work. So Martin [Creed] was partly because he was really interesting for me as someone who is from a different art form, but whose structure and approach was completely transferable into dance. I found that fascinating because he created something very personal, true to his style. Quite brave, I thought, just to step into another world. He’d managed to do that without any choreographic training just from his approach to making. So I thought he was really interesting. Liz [Lerman] is someone who I find I just never want to stop talking to whenever I meet her. She’s someone whose brain is sort of working at a level that I think’s fascinating. Her whole approach about how you watch and give feedback has been so useful to me over the years and I think as makers it’s like ammunition. Ruth [Little] is another big brain thinker that I suppose in a funny way ties in with Sheela [Raj]. Although Ruth's work and interest is more of the science connection it’s still quite cosmic. I didn’t ask them specifically together, but I just think Ruth looks at a really big picture, which is interesting for us on the ground trying to make and produce and programme work and also, I suppose, because dramaturgy is still quite new in dance in this country, to hear someone speaking like that, with that kind of rigour. So the goal was really to just try and give you all an injection of brain thought [laughs].

I’m curious about how you got to where you are and how much you feel like... Well, I suppose everything you’ve done has contributed to your taste, your outlook, your attitudes towards programming and your role and I’m just wondering...

How I got here?

Yeah, how you got here – and whether you saw it coming?

No, I suppose none of it’s really planned. You find out as you go along, you find out what you’re good at. When we started Adventures, I was kind of programming a bit because it was a repertory company then. I knew when I went to Laban I didn’t have a choreographic brain. It’s not how I think. So one of the good things there was finding out what I wasn’t good at as much as what I did enjoy and was good at.

I suppose the sooner you can figure that out...

Well, I think you’re probably already doing it. If you’re lucky enough to have the – or make – the time and space to do things that you’re passionate about, you’re probably doing the things that you’re good at as well. You know, they usually go hand in hand. And I suppose the longer you do that, you get more skilled and then you work in a different way or with different people or in another country or whatever it might be, and so all of those steps lead forwards. And as long as you’re moving forwards then that’s a good thing. Matthew Dunster who didn’t come in this year but has come in before-

-Matthew?

Matthew, Matthew Dunster. He’s a director and a writer and he’s working with me on the big Pet Shop Boys/Javier project. He has a thing at the top of his notebook everyday that sort of says: 'It’s a hard journey, but every step you take leads towards the mountain.' So if you have a goal, which might be to make that play, you first of all have to recognise that it’s hard and second of all that any tiny step you make, as long as it’s in the direction towards finishing that goal, then you’re heading somewhere. And then you learn how to step more surely or with bigger strides.

I was about to ask about goal-setting or striving.

I suppose I got to realise how much I liked programming a bit with Adventures, and then I did some freelance things when I was still dancing with Lea [Anderson]. Then I got the job at The Place and I enjoyed not just programming company by company but putting together seasons. A big freelance job I did was with the Middlesex University and the Southbank, a huge international platform about process. It had 23 events over 11 sites in 3 days, it was just a massive, massive thing. But I love that kind of complexity of journey of where you might take the audience. As a programmer, I always think our link is between the audience and the artist.

So, you don’t fret too much about where you’re taking things.

What, fret about who I’m putting on or who I’m not responding to?

I mean, do you think about how you fit in with other contemporary dance programmers in London or whether you actually just think, 'no, stick to my own guns, I’ve got my opinions and that’s why I’ve got this job'?

No, I think it’s interesting each venue and each place and each situation is so different. We are now talking, the London programmers, because of the British Dance Edition that’s coming up in February next year, which is the first time I’ve regularly sat round a table with other people. I mean, that’s for a specific event to try and make sure we can represent as well and as broadly as we can what’s going on. But, you know, we do talk. We try not to tread on each other’s toes. And because the studio that I programme is only eight meters deep, there’s lots of shows that I might want to put on that I can’t, but that’s quite good because the Southbank might want to or The Place has got a much deeper stage there or Dance Umbrella might find somewhere else to put it on. So there’s not much argy-bargy that goes on. I think, because all of us have our different tastes and different priorities and so I don’t worry about that, but I don’t know if they do, ha! I don’t know if they curse me behind my back. I doubt it, I hope not.

I was wondering if I could ask you this as a question that you asked us on the Big Intensive: Can you think of a decisive moment, a change, a choice that you made that stands out for you?

Strangely they’ve been about leaving things. So leaving Adventures when I’d set up and run the company for three years and done nothing else, nothing else at all, and felt deeply passionate and linked to it, but realising choreographically and as a dancer it wasn’t particularly where I wanted to be anymore. Leaving the Cholmondeleys, that was the same thing. That was quite a big decision that came after eight years of touring, feeling like I really didn’t want to do that anymore. Leaving The Place after five years and realising I wanted to work differently. So they’ve all strangely come from dissatisfaction.

I see.

Which I do think is a very motivating force, actually. Something’s always come up which I couldn’t have done, if I had stayed where I was. So that’s the great optimistic thing to hang on to, but I do think courage to follow your convictions usually is a good thing. I sound like Pollyanna.

Pollyanna? Ha ha.

Everything’s going to be alright in the end!

It’s heartening. You’ve spoken about it before: Listening, listening to your own voice and your intuition and listen as well to the niggly things...

That’s right, yeah. I think the most fearful thing is people not talking or people not knowing, so usually when you address something it’s better. You know, if you can talk directly with someone it’s usually the best way to move forwards, because then everybody knows where they stand more.

And that’s in every aspect of your life.

It think it is actually, I think it really is. And it needs a certain courage, but I do think usually people know, you know. It’s like a relationship, if it’s bad on one side it’s usually bad on another.

Or someone’s deluded and that’s bad too.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely [laughs]. And it usually engenders deeper, better, richer conversations as a result. So that can only be a good thing, whatever you’re working on.

Yep.

And actually, if it doesn’t move forward in that way, then that’s not the right person to be working with you or you with them. Like those things where you might start up a group with a bunch of friends and one of them doesn’t pull their weight or is always moaning or wants to do things in such a different way. I think the sooner you can resolve those things, then everybody can move forward. It gets back to us talking about keeping moving forwards.

Liz Lerman talks about creating local rules.

I’d forgotten that. Yeah, that’s a good phrase isn’t it?

It is because it reminds us of the importance of where you are and of appreciating those circumstances. Or to change them, if you don’t like them. It’s quite empowering.

Yeah, because wherever you are is your local.

Yeah. And again that ripples out in so many senses in terms of ecology and-

-yes, well it’s interesting for me working on this big project with Javier and The Pet Shop Boys. It’s a lot, it’s a big project with a big cast and a big set and a big score, but actually a lot of how I’m working is how I normally work on other projects – just with more people.

So the scale can change, but you don’t have to shift how you think.

No. But you’re right, you can dig it out the other way and widen if you’re talking ecologically or politically. It can all travel. I suppose we’re lucky enough in the sense that we’re working in a world that’s centred by the people who do the making and maybe by us that do the programming, so we are reasonably autonomous in that situation. In Egypt someone I know went to a festival and basically the promoters of the festival were the army, essentially. They were running the cultural institutions there, because they run everything else. You know, I think it’s hard to realise that in India, for example, there isn’t any state funding, so anything you want to put on you have to raise the money for yourself. Well, that’s some kind of freedom also, but it’s just a different weight of responsibility and a different setup, because then you have major budget issues; you have to hire the theatre and see how it all stacks up, you know. Yeah, we’re lucky here. We’re lucky. But I think that autonomy is a big thing for satisfaction, of how we can feel we’re trying to make our difference within our own local rules, rather than other peoples' I suppose.

It’s important that whatever situation you find yourself in, depending on the country, the government, to try to make the best of it.

Yeah, and to understand and observe other peoples' local rules when you’re travelling, how those might work. Alain Patel came to talk with us and he was talking about these people in Lebanon who went to rehearsal under threat of injury and fire.

Yes, I was there at the talk. That was quite arresting.

You know, it just really made me think how we don’t have that here. We have an extraordinary amount of freedom to consider those ‘local rules’ and actually act on them.

I think it’s easy now that we are witnessing all these cuts and entering an era of reduced funding-ism to be a bit down in the mouth, but actually there are good things, lots of good things, that can come out of it. I think we also have a romantic notion that when the going gets tough, people turn to art for nourishment. I mean, historically, in times of hardship things go underground, there are new beginnings and patterns change.

Yeah. It’s going to be a really interesting time I think – for good or for bad. I certainly feel, in terms of producing and programming, it’s caused the setup of numerous networks across the UK to share resources and to share commissions and coordinate touring for artists. As a building I think we are trying to see more how we can use our resources as best we can to help people, as a kind of solid building who is not as vulnerable as you freelancers out in the cold. How to try and share what we’ve got to maximise those facilities.

I have pondered and had conversations about the extent to which it would be possible for you to open your facilities without endangering or putting the name of Sadler’s Wells on the line. Is it right that basically on anything that gets programmed in the Lilian Baylis, you’re not making a profit?

Yeah, you make a loss there.

Okay, so that’s one reason why you wouldn’t run shows there every night of the week!

It’s not like there’s lots of baggy space there, there’s not empty studios. Everything does get rented out or given to associate artists or used for our own productions or used by Connect, who is our Education and Outreach department. You know, it’s not like endless weekends of endless studios that could be used. It’s not, it’s really not like that. It's important that we look at how to help the art form as well as our associates and our programme, and I suppose partly things like the Summer University and things like the Blueprint Fund that connect to Stratford Circus are specifically aimed at that. They are aimed at interesting young artists making work now. They’re not people that will be programming in the main house yet, but they will be people that may be there in, I don’t know, five or ten years time. But that’s not really why we’re doing it. It’s really more about trying to up the ante in how choreography is looked at and using the resources that we have working with professionals on lots of different scales in a way. Like with Big Intensive, I hope it was something that you hadn’t had at college. I hope it was something different just because, of course, my network will be different from an educational one.

It really was.

I think that is what’s interesting about it – sort of sharing the knowledge and the research that we’ve done over the years to help put something together that’s informative and inspirational in a different way from what people might be getting in any educational institution. And I think that’s because it’s linked into professionals working now in different forms and different ways, and that’s what I hope is what’s different about it.

So, your message to-

-The World. Ah ha ha!

Your message to the world. Do you have one?

I suppose I want to know what your local rules are. Who’s your world? Who would your world be? People making? I mean, who’s your...

Is that a question?

...your readership? Yeah, that’s a question for you.

At the moment it’s mostly artists within performance, but because the blog incorporates all sorts, the website attracts people searching for anything from Zaha Hadid to William Forsythe to Tina Turner. We aim to engage with contemporary culture at large. So people stumble across us and we also have a more dedicated readership. We are trying to expand, calling for contributors who are interested in performance. We have writers, people into theatre as well, photographers...

Yeah, that’s great though. I suppose that would be one message: look wide. You know, look wide at what’s out there and who’s out there, because I think dance is such a collaborative art form and there’s such benefits to be had from engaging with people outside. And as with any vocational training, the intensity of being a student is so great it’s very hard to have the energy, let alone the time, let alone the money, to go out and about and see things. But I think where all the interesting stuff is happening is where you can engage both with different art forms and with the world out there in a way that can resonate with an audience. As I say, that’s what I say: get out there.

Great. And finally, another question that you asked us at Big Intensive.

Ha ha. You’re bringing it all back to me, bouncing it back!

I am, I am. We were able to write it down, but I’m afraid you’re not going to have that opportunity. What do you want people to say about you–

–at my funeral!

–at your funeral?

Ah ha ha ha! Oh wow. That shows how I haven’t done my own homework from what I asked you to do.

It’s a little unkind of me to spring this on you.

Ha. [Long pause] I would hope they would say I was brave and honest and loyal – that’s what. That would be nice.