Timeline

Be Mine!

Be Mine was the piece from which the entire company was launched. It was created when we were given the opportunity to perform as part of the RESOLUTION festival hosted by The Place in London. It remains an incredibly special piece to us as it saw a collection of key dancers come together who have gone on to play major roles in the company’s development. Set to a suite of Judy Garland classics this piece was all heart and hope… and more than a little glitter. The show was later picked up by Cloud Dance Festival and invited to perform at Jackson Lane Theatre in Highgate. This launching piece was only ever performed twice by the company.

Fun fact: This is the piece that gave our Artistic Director his nickname… ‘Drewdy’ (shortened from ‘Drewdy Garland’!).

The buzz from the Jermyn Street Theatre run led to us being invited to restage Good Morning Midnight at Latitude Festival, where we performed alongside hit shows from Sadler’s Wells on the Waterfront Stage. We further developed the piece for this performance and added entirely new sections. We also had the thrilling opportunity to perform the piece with Tasha’s live vocals and band.

DRUNK

DRUNK is the longest running production the McOnie Company has ever performed and was initiated by Curve Theatre, Leicester, where the then Artistic Director Paul Kerryson offered us rehearsal space and the Studio Theatre to present a new dance-led piece. We quickly teamed up with the brilliant theatre composer Grant Olding and leapt into developing the ‘all-singing all-dancing drinks menu’, marking the company’s first exploration into using the vocal talents of the performers.

We secured funding from Arts Council England, and after just two sold out performances at Curve Theatre took the production to London’s Bridewell Theatre for a 4 week run. As a result of DRUNK, Drew was nominated for the Emerging Artist Award at the National Dance Awards that year.

Fun Fact: Len Goodman and Arlene Philips attended the closing night performance, and spontaneously jumped up on stage at the end. This was closely followed by the entire auditorium doing the same. The audience stayed and danced with the cast for as long as the live music continued. It was a thrilling moment in the company’s history.

A major moment in the development of the company was being given an Associate Artist position at London’s Old Vic Theatre. As part of Matthew Warchus’ new appointment as Artistic Director, we were given the opportunity to use the building’s resources to develop work, and play a part in reintroducing the theatre’s audiences to dance, which is such a rich part of the building’s history.

Sean Foley was appointed as new Artistic Director of the Birmingham Repertory Theatre and brought with him a wave of new Associate Artists and Associate Companies. The McOnie Company was invited to join the group with a specific aim to create dance-led work for the audiences of Birmingham. Drew grew up in the West Midlands and this partnership is an incredibly exciting one for the future of the company. The goal is that we will deliver creative productions across all three of The REP’s auditoria, as well as workshops and valuable dance training to the students of the city.

Fun Fact: Drew began his performing career as the original ‘Little Boy’ in the now hugely successful stage production The Snowman, which was created at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. It was inside this building the idea to one day be a choreographer and run a company was born.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the McOnie Company launched a Digital Dance Season to raise money for our ‘Fund For Freelance Dancers’ campaign. The digital season provided a range of online dance opportunities over a 12 week period.

The open Company Class at Pineapple moved online for free, reaching up to 250 dancers from all over the world each week. These Instagram Live tutorials provided the Theatre Dance community with a much-needed focus, and a space to virtually come together and learn company repertoire.

We also ran a Digital Dance Film Festival, where dance makers created intimate short dance films responding to the theme of self isolation. All films were hosted and promoted on Instagram TV for the three-day Festival.

We also launched the Micro Musical Lockdown, an initiative created for performers featuring original songs and practical tutorials from some of the industry’s leading creatives such as Marlow & Moss, Stiles & Drewe, Dan Gillespie Sells and Vikki Stone. This was an amazing gathering of industry professionals under the roof of the McOnie Company, all coming together to support the next generation of performers.