Yorke Dance Project Honours Modern Dance Pioneers
Yolande Yorke-Edgell discusses her newest mixed bill, Modern Milestones, and how it fits within her Yorke Dance Project
This article was first published on London Unattached
“Legacy is very important to me”, says Yolande Yorke-Edgell, British dancer, choreographer and founder of the Yorke Dance Project, which launched in Los Angeles in 1998 and relaunched in the UK in 2009, thus spanning the width of the Atlantic Ocean, not only geographically, but also culturally.
We met to talk about her current programme, Modern Milestones, a mixed bill of works old and new, which comes to the RBO Linbury Theatre mid-January at the end of a UK tour, and more widely about the purpose and aim of her Yorke Dance Project (YDP).
In person Yolande Yorke-Edgell has the easy bearing of a dancer. She’s soft spoken, but her gentle demeanour belies the strength and determination with which she’s kept YDP going and developing through good times and bad.
Modern Milestones honours the legacy of pioneers of contemporary dance: Martha Graham and Bella Lewitzky in the USA, New-York born, London-based Robert Cohan, who was key to the development of contemporary dance in the UK, and veteran British choreographer Christopher Bruce. Side by side with them is a younger heir to their collective influence, Liam Francis.
Linking them all, Yorke-Edgell explains, is a fortuitous series of anniversaries,
“It’s one-hundred years of the Martha Graham dance company; 2025 marked one-hundred years of Bob Cohan’s birth. And then it just so happened I had this interaction with Christopher Bruce and he said he was turning 80. It seemed the perfect fit. And then I looked into Bella Lewitzky’s company [Dance Theater in Los Angeles] and it would have been the 60th anniversary [the company disbanded in 1997]. I’d also started mentoring Liam Francis, and he’d just started his own company, so it was like a lovely bridge from the beginning to the present. One-hundred years is very significant.”
Yorke Dance Project – the Americans
It’s impossible to overstate the importance of Martha Graham (1894-1991) in the development of contemporary dance. The founder of the first modern dance company in the world, her own Graham technique, anchored in the concept of core ‘contraction and release’, is still taught the world over. Her works are grounded and transmit strong emotions.
And so it is with Deep Song, the Graham piece Yorke-Edgell picked for Modern Milestones.
“Deep Song seemed very relevant to what’s happening in the world, the wars that are going on. Her inspiration was taken from the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), though that’s not what it’s about; it’s about someone’s response to war, the internal feelings. So, that seemed very relevant to me. We had done Graham’s Lamentation, and some people say Deep Song is the follow-on from Lamentation.”
Bella Lewitzky (1916-2004) was influential in a different way. Her philosophy privileged freedom and independence in life as in art; her work, which Yorke-Edgell knows well having danced with her in LA, is physically very demanding. For Modern Milestones Yorke-Edgell picked Kinaesonata.
“I had done sections of it in lecture demonstrations, and I’d always loved the challenge of it. It’s complicated and very physically hard to do. So, I like that challenge; but not every dancer would look at that and go, ‘I want to do it’. So, I sent the video, and I said, ‘would you be willing to do this?’ And some went ‘Yes’, some ‘I’m not sure, I have to think about it’.
“I’s full of lifts, and it’s full of jumps. And it’s very dynamic and unexpected, and her structure is very architectural. It’s not something you get bored with. The music [Alberto Ginastera’s Piano Sonata No. 1] is hard to dance to, actually, It doesn’t have a clear rhythm. But mostly I chose it because you just don’t see work like this. You don’t see this kind of lift work, partner work. And so It felt like a good work to do.”
Yorke Dance Project in the UK
Robert Cohan, founder of the London Contemporary Dance School at The Place, was a prolific choreographer, who was active until very near his death aged 95 in 2021. Yolande Yorke-Edgell worked closely with him – she always calls him Bob – and has done more than perhaps anybody else to keep his work alive. For Modern Milestones she chose Lacrymosa (pictured top), which he created for YDP.
“Lacrymosa was very special to him. He made it for specifically for Jon Goddard and Laurel Daley Smith. It had been premiered at the Clore studio, but we hadn’t really toured it anywhere, so it felt like this was the perfect opportunity to give it a bigger platform.”
The fourth piece brings this mixed bill right to the present day. It’s Liam Francis’s CAST/x/.
I asked Yolande Yorke-Edgell what it was about.
“It has a narrative of sorts. He’s taken sound bites out of films or voices, And it’s about relationships between people and the relationship with yourself. And so, it has dialogue and brand new music [by Jethro Cooke]. And it’s the interplay between four people”.
The second half of the programme brings a radical change of mood. It features just one piece, Troubadour, which is also Christopher Bruce’s first creation in ten years – and how we’ve missed him! It’s an homage to another giant of our culture, the Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen.
Based on a live recording of Cohen’s show at the O2 Arena on 2008, it’s danced to six numbers, starting with ‘Dance Me to the End of Love’ and building up to the rousing ‘First We Take Manhattan’. It’s piece which, Yorke-Knell says, “has to stand alone.”
Yorke Dance Project – from LA to the UK
From small beginnings in LA – “when we had the money, we did a show” – YDP has evolved, and an important stage in its progress was the 2009 relaunch in the UK. Yoland Yorke-Edgell explains:
“The company really significantly shifted from the moment we did McMillan’s work [Sea of Troubles]. The challenges of that work and then working with Bob took us to such a deep level that they all changed as artists, and the company changed. And so, you can see if you start working in that way and do the new work you’ve got versatility.”
Legacy, though, has always been its keystone.
“You can develop yourself as an artist, choreographer, dancer, but the roots of it to me is honouring those pioneers,. They’re pioneers for a reason: they have lasted the length of time because of how they emanate their own emotions, how emotions and language and connection to the audience comes from physical movement.”
© Teresa Guerreiro
(Banner image credit: YDP, Lacrymosa. Dancers Jonathan Goddard & Eileih Muir. Photo: Jimmy Parratt)
YDP, Modern Milestones is at the RBO Linbury Theatre 19 -22 January 2026