Motionhouse


Motionhouse is a dance theatre company based in Royal Leamington Spa, Warwickshire. Founded in 1988, Motionhouse operates under the direction of husband and wife team Louise Richards and Kevin Finnan MBE and the company aims to create startling, passionate dance theatre that fuses images, action and dynamism to surprise, challenge and delight their audiences. Imagery, theatricality and immediate impact combine with modern, contemporary dance and a focus on accessibility. Motionhouse also draw on theatre, circus, acrobatics and film to create performance spectacle with meaningful and resonant content which speaks directly to people through imagery and physicality.
In 2017 director Kevin Finnan MBE became first Visiting Professor of Dance at Birmingham City University’s Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. He has an MA in Contemporary Performing Arts from University College Bretton Hall and a PhD in Theatre from Warwick University. He is a Research Fellow at the University of Warwick and Associate Artist of Greenwich+Docklands International Festival. In 2013 he was made an honorary Doctor of Letters at the University of Warwick in recognition of the importance of his work and his service to the arts. He was awarded an MBE in 2013 for his services to dance

History

Motionhouse were commissioned to produce a spectacular outdoor event which formed part of the opening weekend celebrations of the London 2012 Festival in the West Midlands. The Voyage was created in partnership with Sydney’s aerialists Legs On The Wall. The Voyage featured film from Logela Multimedia, a life-size oceangoing liner and a cast of hundreds. The Voyage was produced by Birmingham Hippodrome and was performed in Victoria Square, Birmingham from 21–24 June 2012.
An enormous ship will sail into the centre of Victoria Square, Birmingham, docking itself beside the city’s Town Hall. High above the people who gather to look at this marvel, dancers and aerialists appear in the ship’s rigging – the voyage begins.
The Voyage will be one of five large-scale events commissioned for the London 2012 Festival. The Voyage is a story that explores what this means for us all: departures and arrivals, hopes and fears, expectations and disappointments.
Professional dancers and aerialists will join forces with a huge amateur choir, live musicians and over 140 community performers to transform the Square and tell the story.
In the run up to The Voyage Motionhouse will be running a participatory project called Quest which offers young people from the West Midlands the chance to be part of the London 2012 celebrations. From March 2012 Motionhouse will be creating material with 8 community groups which they will then go on to perform in The Voyage.
Motionhouse won the Audience Award in the National Dance Awards 2005, as well as winning the Audience Prize for the MiramirO Festival in 2009 and is currently on the GCSE syllabus for dance in England and Wales. The structure of Perfect is thematic rather than narrative and explores the concept of time.
Motionhouse has produced 18 full-length, middle-scale touring productions and a series of dance spectacles in sights and spaces throughout the UK. The 2005 production Perfect won critical acclaim and is currently on the GCSE syllabus for dance in England and Wales. The structure of Perfect is thematic rather than narrative and explores the concept of time.
Motionhouse currently employs eight professional dancers and in 2011 it toured in seven different countries throughout the world.
In its first year of touring, Scattered, Motionhouse’s 18th theatre production opened the Sibiu International Theatre Festival in Romania where it was deemed the “revelation of the festival” by the event director. Scattered continues to tour into 2012 and beyond and completed its first international tour in 2011, taking in dates in Macau, Belgium and Portugal as well as a return visit to Romania. Tours of Scattered are planned for the China in autumn 2012 and Motionhouse has also been taken on by IMGA Artists who are currently representing the company in USA, Asia/Pacific and Europe and are building a tour of Scattered planned for the United States in spring 2013.
The tour is set to continue into 2012 at various venues in the UK, Europe, China and USA.
Motionhouse have 3 festival pieces in rep, Cascade, Underground and Chaser which are widely performed across the UK and Europe. Generally, these pieces require fewer dancers than the theatre touring pieces, are smaller and therefore more flexible and easier to tour and are usually shorter. As a result, the company can perform at simultaneous festivals in different locations, performing more than once a day. Motionhouse’s 2008 piece Underground won the Audience Prize at the MiramirO Festival in Ghent, Belgium in 2009.
In 2011, Motionhouse had the opportunity to reunite with some JCB diggers and create two new pieces in their Machine Dance collection. Waiting Game premiered on 3 March and is a playful and audacious trio of 2 dancers and a JCB digger which takes place in a familiar restaurant situation. Turning dining out on its head, the 2 dancers are waited on by a JCB - but the quality of the service leaves something to be desired!
Traction followed in November, commissioned by Birmingham Bullring and with the number of diggers and dancers tripling the Machine Dance made a climactic celebration to launch a new development to the shopping centre complex. Traction is a stunning Transformers-esque performance that sees 6 dancers and 3 JCB diggers dancing together with extreme acrobatic partnering, animal-like strength and startling unison phrases.
Traction is a high voltage celebration of the powerful harmony of humans and machines and is at once impossibly emotive and theatrically unforgettable, defying gravity and suspending disbelief.
Motionhouse provides community education programs, as well as outreach and community work in its campaign for wider and more accessible dance education.

Funding

Motionhouse is a National Portfolio Organisation of Arts Council England and is regularly funded by Warwickshire County Council and Warwick District Council. Following the 2010 Coalition Government's Comprehensive Spending Review Motionhouse have seen their funding cut from around £270k to £250k.
On 30 March 2011 further funding decisions were announced by Arts Council England. In this round Motionhouse received a further cut to their funding of around 11% whereas 4 other West Midlands-based dace organisations all received significant uplifts and another Warwickshire based arts organisation, Live and Local, became part of the National Portfolio with a rise in funding of 80%.

Productions