Stopgap Dance Company

Stopgap Dance Company create exhilarating dance productions. They employ disabled and non-disabled artists who find innovative ways to collaborate.

Stopgap value a pioneering spirit and are committed to making discoveries about integrating disabled and non-disabled people through dance.

Difference is our means and our method

As a charitable organisation, they openly share skills and knowledge through performance, professional training, community outreach and publications. They create works for the widest possible audience because they want to shift perceptions about difference and inspire everyone to achieve their potential.

Stopgap’s productions are devised by the company dancers and collaborators, working as an ensemble under the artistic direction of Lucy Bennett.

Our productions seek to offer a window into a parallel world where human interdependence, strength and vulnerability play out with poetic realism.

Stopgap are a British company and work in partnership with Arts Council England as a National Portfolio Organisation. They are also a resident company of Farnham Maltings.

Artificial Things (film)

Duration: 25 minutes

Description: Slowly suffocating in each other’s company, a group of individuals seek escape in a bash of riotous rock-n-roll.

Extra information: Artificial Things was originally a stage production, but Lucy Bennett and acclaimed filmmaker Sophie Fiennes has reimagined it into a 20-min dance film. Shot on 35mm film, this atmospheric film offers a fascinating viewing.

Link: https://www.stopgapdance.com/artificial-things--the-film

Freight: none

Frock (outdoor production)

Duration: 25 mins

Description: Six striking dancers collide in an uplifting dance riot set to an exclusive art rock soundtrack by Hannah Miller of Moulettes. In this quirky new dance piece, watch playful observations of the yesteryears explode into a punkish celebration of individuality and difference.

Extra information: Frock is Stopgap Dance Company's new outdoor show touring from May 2019. Supported by Without Walls, Arts Council England, and Salisbury Festival, Hat Fair Festival, Stockton International Riverside Festival, with Norfolk & Norwich Festival being our premiere partner.

Link: https://www.stopgapdance.com/production/frock/

People on road: 9

Freight: none

The Enormous Room

Duration: 75 mins

Description: In the latest epic production from Stopgap Dance Company, we follow a father and daughter gradually coming to terms with the loss of Jackie – their wife and mother. Combining exquisite detail in movement with evocative text and design, The Enormous Room takes the audience somewhere in between this world and the next.

Extra information: This is the most successful indoor production to date, having received presentation opportunities at: Lilian Baylis Studio - Sadler's Wells, Holland Dance Festival, Steps Dance Festival - Switzerland, Brghton Festival, Festival De Otoño - Madrid, Chichester Festival Theatre and Setagaya Public Theatre - Tokyo

Link: https://www.stopgapdance.com/productions/the-enormous-room-2019-2018-2017-stage

People on road: 11

Freight: necessary

Freight details: Half a shipping container

Stopgap are committed to sharing their expertise of integrating disabled and non-disabled dancers. Through workshops and publications, Stopgap take their expertise to professional dancers, teachers, students and members of the community. Stopgap are committed to training disabled and non-disabled dancers to establish integrated groups across the world.

 A lyrical ode

★★★★ The Guardian on ‘The Seafarers’

An absorbing encounter

★★★★ Bachtrack on ‘The Enormous Room’

Thought-provoking, intelligent, imaginative, powerful

★★★★★ TV Bomb on ‘Artificial Things’

The security and daring with which they move and the emotional honesty they bring seems second nature

★★★★ The Times on ‘Portfolio Collection’

Bold and disarming

★★★★ Exeunt Magazine on ‘Artificial Things’

Exhilarating, emotional and provoking

★★★★ Edinburgh Guide on ‘Artificial Things’

Inventive and visually stunning

londondance.com on ‘Artificial Things’

Everything about the immensely watchable work speaks of channeling individual traits – needs, as well as strengths – into a performing unity that has humour, risk, invention and innovative movement.

Glasgow Herald on ‘Trespass’

An outstanding offering of the day.

El Punt, Spain on ‘Corpus’