The dark, high-ceilinged studio-turned-performance space at JV H.O.M.E in Ashford, Kent, is full of movement. Rehearsals take place on a round rotating stage that symbolises a clock. Dancers whirl through classes in the adjoining studios. On a row behind me, Jasmin Vardimon, the choreographer, artistic director of the Jasmin Vardimon Company and founder of JV H.O.M.E, diligently takes notes.
Vardimon was watching rehearsals ahead of the opening night of ALiCE, an innovative reimagining of Lewis Carroll’s novel Alice in Wonderland, which returns to Sadler’s Wells on 23 May, before embarking on an international tour that begins in Taiwan.
As the movement and music came to an end, dancers gathered by the edge of the stage, tired but pleased, breathing heavily with their hands resting on their hips. Vardimon walked over to them with a smile and high praise – there are fewer notes on her piece of paper than at the last run-through, which took place the previous day.
Born in 1971 to an artistic family involved in dance and theatre, Vardimon didn’t initially follow suit. She grew up as a long-distance runner and gymnast in the kibbutz Ein HaHoresh in central Israel. A ballet teacher who was employed by the coach to help the gymnasts’ movements look “more beautiful” inspired Vardimon to begin afternoon and evening ballet classes.
With classical dancers expected to be career-ready by 16, Vardimon was late to the dancing world, starting ballet aged 14. “I actually believe that starting to dance at a more mature age allowed me to understand that dance isn’t just about technique and creating beautiful movement,” she told me. “It is about using the body as a tool of expression to communicate ideas and thoughts – to tell a story. I believe the human body has this endless capacity to communicate and express.” Vardimon joined the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company in 1990 and moved to London after winning the British Council “On the Way to London” Choreography Award in 1995. It was here that the Jasmin Vardimon Company was founded in 1997.
Vardimon’s choreography, which features on dance theory A-level and BTEC programmes, is known for being challenging, multilayered and laced with social and political commentary. Her work has explored themes of homelessness, freedom and even the justice system. ALiCE, first performed on stage in 2022, touches on immigration: Alice is “an immigrant. She’s moving into a different land. She doesn’t know the rules, or the ruler. She is questioning [the rules]. She feels unwelcome.”
Socio-political narratives are “very important” to her work. She recalls going to the theatre that her father ran in the kibbutz movement “almost every Friday… I grew up in a very left-wing movement and it was a very political venue, in a way”. Her father produced works co-directed and co-written by Israelis and Palestinians, with the “aim to create bridges through art… and to show a point of view from the other side”. That was where she was first exposed to art’s capacity to build awareness, educate and make change.
Compared with other subjects, drama, music and performing arts had the largest proportionate drop in subject entries between 2022 and 2023. Since 2015, A-level dance has had a 50 per cent drop in entries. Vardimon works with eight local schools to promote dance, and runs a youth company for under-18s that aims to nurture young talent around the world. Vardimon compares the transition from being a dance student to a professional to a very fragile bridge: her main goal is to enable that transition.
On the first floor of the JV H.O.M.E building there’s a modern, brightly lit room dedicated to the company’s archives and teaching materials. It’s also a place for Vardimon’s golden retriever, Oreo, to relax. The room was full of VR headsets. During the pandemic, Vardimon said, “we had to be imaginative to continue to deliver art and have work for the dancers”. ALiCE was created for VR in 2021, known as Alice in VR Wonderland: allowing people to watch the show without breaking lockdown regulations. Vardimon has since been able to bring the show to care homes and to schools through this medium, allowing those who may not be able to access theatres to experience dance. Some of the stage performances of ALiCE, like the upcoming shows in Taiwan, will also include the option to watch it through VR either before or after the production.
“I believe that our bodies are in a way our first home… that’s where we live our eternal and most rich life. Being able to share from this richness with others is something we should all be able to do,” Vardimon said. “Feeling at home within your body is highly important and you can achieve it through dance,” she added. When dance is devalued and underfunded, Vardimon said, it not only puts strain on the industry but also on “another layer that is hard to measure, which is the joy and fulfilment from participating in dance as a viewer”. She believes dance to be a “universal language” than can reach the subconscious mind more directly.
Despite funding cuts and the difficulties of hiring international dancers post-Brexit, Vardimon remains hopeful for the art form. “There are so many projects out there and each artist engages with their audience in a different way,” she said. The political landscape may post challenges to the arts – but Vardimon’s work is testament to the value of embracing those challenges, and addressing them directly in the art itself.
[See also: Wes Anderson’s sense of an ending]
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