The Dancehouse is a dance centre at 10
Oxford Road, Manchester, England.
History and description
The building which now houses the Dancehouse Theatre, on
Oxford Road, Manchester, was originally designed by Pendleton and Dickson for the property developer Emmanuel Nove, a
Ukrainian who came to the city in the late 19th century. The building was built in 1929-30 originally containing two large meeting halls over a parade of shops. Before the interior of the halls was completed, they were converted into two cinemas (The Regal Twins) with fashionable 1930
Art Deco
Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...
interiors, the world's first
multiplex
Multiplex may refer to:
* Multiplex (automobile), a former American car make
* Multiplex (comics), a DC comic book supervillain
* Multiplex (company), a global contracting and development company
* Multiplex (assay), a biological assay which measu ...
. These were converted, in 1972, to a five screen complex (Studios 1 to 5) by Star Group, as the first five-cinema complex in Britain. before closing in the 1980s. Star Group also established Studios 6-9 in Deansgate.
[''Manchester Evening News''; 26 January 1972]
![The Dancehouse, Manchester, October 2016 (01)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cc/The_Dancehouse%2C_Manchester%2C_October_2016_%2801%29.JPG)
A lease for the derelict property was obtained in 1990 by the Northern Ballet School which, together with its sister company The Dancehouse Theatre, set about restoring the building to its former Art Deco splendour. One previously derelict 750-seat cinema was converted to create the Dancehouse Theatre, officially opened in 1994 by
Princess Margaret. The next four cinemas and other areas of the building were converted into the five dance studios and associated facilities that now house the Northern Ballet School.
The Dancehouse Theatre complex extends to some and comprises the theatre, three medium and two large dance studios, a green room, a café bar, theatre bar and coffee shop. The £500,000 cost of converting the theatre was largely met by donations from the
Foundation for Sport and the Arts, the
Arts Council of England
The arts are a very wide range of human practices of creative expression, storytelling and cultural participation. They encompass multiple diverse and plural modes of thinking, doing and being, in an extremely broad range of media. Both h ...
and many other subscribers to the company's development programme.
Trivia
Local band
Elbow
The elbow is the region between the arm and the forearm that surrounds the elbow joint. The elbow includes prominent landmarks such as the olecranon, the cubital fossa (also called the chelidon, or the elbow pit), and the lateral and the me ...
filmed the video to "
Newborn
An infant or baby is the very young offspring of human beings. ''Infant'' (from the Latin word ''infans'', meaning 'unable to speak' or 'speechless') is a formal or specialised synonym for the common term ''baby''. The terms may also be used to ...
" here. The theatre was supposed to be underwater so all extras were asked to wear blue.
See also
*
Listed buildings in Manchester-M1
Manchester is a city in Northwest England. The M postcode area, M1 postcode area of the city includes part of the city centre, in particular the Northern Quarter (Manchester), Northern Quarter, the area known as Chinatown, Manchester, Chinatown, ...
References
External links
Official website
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Theatres in Manchester
Art Deco architecture in England
Former cinemas in Manchester