Remembering Sir Richard Alston

There have rightly been many tributes to Sir Richard Alston that speak about his extraordinary contribution to dance, his work as a choreographer and artistic director, the companies and artists he shaped, and the influence he had across British dance over so many decades.

At One Dance UK, we also remember Richard as one of the greatest champions of young people and youth dance we could ever have hoped for.

His relationship with our work stretches back long before One Dance UK existed, through Youth Dance England and the U.Dance and Young Creatives programmes, and continued right up until this year. Looking back through our photographs of him, what strikes me is just how present he was. There are images from festivals, performances, workshops and conversations spanning so many years: Richard with young dancers, talking to teachers and youth dance leaders, watching work, listening closely, laughing, stopping for photographs and giving young people his full attention.

One of my earliest tasks when I joined One Dance UK was being asked to interview Richard for the magazine. I was absolutely terrified. I was very new to the organisation, carrying a fairly substantial dose of imposter syndrome, and couldn’t quite believe I was being asked to interview “actual Sir Richard Alston”. I think I had convinced myself he would be wondering who this random Northerner was who had been sent to talk to him.

Of course, I couldn’t have been more wrong. Richard was immediately warm, charming and genuinely interested, not just in the questions I had gone there to ask him but in me, my background in education and the work we were doing at One Dance UK. At some point he casually mentioned that “Bob” was popping in too and hoped I wouldn’t mind. I remember thinking, “Who is Bob?” before Sir Robert Cohan walked in and the three of us sat down with a cup of tea. Even now, the whole thing feels slightly like a fever dream.

What stuck with me most was that Richard remembered my name after one introduction and, when Robert arrived, introduced me by name. It sounds like such a tiny detail, but it mattered enormously. Here was somebody with this immense career, meeting a very new and very nervous member of staff, and he made me feel as though I belonged in the room.

Over the years that followed, I saw him do that for people again and again. He had a way of making people feel seen, and that is something I learned from him and still try to carry with me in my own work: to remember the name, to listen properly, to make sure people know that they matter. Richard seemed to do that instinctively.

He took young people’s ideas seriously. To him, they were not students waiting to be corrected, but young artists whose work deserved proper thought and attention. He was genuinely curious about what they were making, what they were thinking and what they wanted to say through dance. He listened properly, asked proper questions and gave thoughtful feedback because their ideas mattered to him.

That was also what made his praise mean so much. After Young Creatives in 2022, Richard told the One Dance UK team, “That was the best Young Creatives I have ever seen.” We were so delighted that, for a while, we genuinely thought we should print it on a T-shirt.

Richard had seen so much work across so many years and so many generations of artists. When something excited him, he said so, and his enthusiasm carried real weight because you knew it came from close attention rather than politeness.

That relationship with Young Creatives was very special. Richard spoke about the importance of giving young people time and space to explore their own ideas, and that was exactly how he approached the programme himself. He was never there simply to pass on what he knew. He was interested in what these young artists might discover for themselves.

Richard was still working with us as recently as April, meeting our Young Creatives and giving individual feedback to the young choreographers. I keep thinking about how lucky those young people were to have that time with him, but also how entirely characteristic it was of Richard. After everything he had achieved, he remained interested, curious and generous with his knowledge. He was still giving young artists the confidence to take their own ideas seriously.

Looking through the photographs we have of Richard now is incredibly moving. There are so many of them, spanning many years. Together they tell a story that words alone cannot. They show a hugely celebrated choreographer and one of the most important figures in British dance, of course, but they also show Richard chatting with a young dancer in a corridor, listening closely as a choreographer explains an idea, laughing with participants at a festival, stopping for yet another photograph and seeming completely at home amongst young people making dance.

Richard gave an enormous amount to One Dance UK and, before us, to Youth Dance England. More importantly, he gave an enormous amount to the people within that work. His encouragement stayed with me, and I know it stayed with many of the young people he met too.

There will be countless people across youth dance with their own Richard story, their own conversation, photograph or memory of something he said that made them feel a little more certain that what they were doing mattered.

I feel enormously lucky to have known him, and even luckier that so many young people had the chance to know that same warmth, curiosity and encouragement too. We will miss him enormously.

Reflections from Linda Jasper MBE and Claire Somerville

Richard Alston was a renowned choreographer and company director and a remarkable human being in so many ways.

We came to know him personally when he agreed to be Chair of Youth Dance England, the national organisation created by Arts Council England, the Department for Education and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to support young people’s dance from 2004 to 2016. Our organisation was given a huge remit and major public investment, and attracted a high level of government and Arts Council England expectation and scrutiny.

Richard was recommended as a possible Chair by his colleagues at The Place and was initially reluctant to take on the role because he felt that he had no experience to bring to chairing an organisation. With encouragement from his colleagues, he agreed to become Chair in 2009 and remained in the role during Youth Dance England’s merger with Dance UK, the Association of Dance of the African Diaspora and the National Dance Teachers Association to form One Dance UK in 2016.

He was a wonderful communicator and an inspiration to the young people he met through U.Dance, the national youth dance performance programme, and Young Creatives, the young choreographers’ programme. Never patronising, he talked with young people about their work in a way that deepened their understanding. He treated them as fellow artists and shared his knowledge and passion for dance generously with them.

At an introductory speech at a U.Dance National Festival, we remember him saying to the young dancers:

“Remember, you are not the future of dance, you are dance.”

He was treated as a revered celebrity by the young dancers and their teachers, who took many hundreds of photographs with him. It would often take twice as long to move between the studios at national festivals when walking with Richard because he would gladly stop for a chat and selfies with dancers who could hardly believe he was in their midst.

We could not have asked for a better person to support us through some challenging times forming and running Youth Dance England. He had an ideal profile in the education and training world, as he was known for repertoire included in GCSE and A Level Dance syllabi and in training schools’ programmes.

As part of the staff team, we welcomed his kindness, positivity and encouragement. A very strong partnership was formed between Director and Chair, something that is not always experienced in any organisation.

Personally, Claire remembers the care and attention he brought to everything he did. There would be in-depth conversations about the work watched after each U.Dance festival performance. He would ponder what it said about youth culture at the time, where there were recurring themes, and then delight in something that came along and completely surprised us.

Working with him made you feel special for being in the orbit of such a dance icon, someone who saw the potential in people and did all he could to champion them. You could see the difference his feedback made to the Young Creatives choreographers and the appreciation that youth dance leaders felt when he spoke to them about their group’s work.

In 2018, Richard joined Claire and the team in Ipswich when One Dance UK ran a three-day festival. Sitting in the DanceEast café, he shared how much he valued U.Dance, how pleased he was to be back at the festival and how excited he was to watch the work.

Whilst that was Claire’s final festival, Richard remained in the role of U.Dance and Young Creatives Champion, maintaining a golden thread of positivity and encouragement as both programmes continued to flourish.

We, and many others, will miss him dearly.

With our heartfelt gratitude, Sir Richard.

Linda Jasper MBE
Founder Director of Youth Dance England

Claire Somerville
Programme Manager, Youth Dance England and Head of Children & Young People’s Dance, One Dance UK, 2016–2018

Richard and young people in dance

We are sharing just some of the many photographs from Richard’s years with Youth Dance England and One Dance UK. There are formal moments amongst them, but many more show conversations, laughter, selfies and Richard doing what he did so generously: giving young people his time and attention.

Taken together, they tell a story of someone who did not champion young people’s dance from a distance. He was there, watching, listening, questioning, encouraging and taking their ideas seriously.

Thank you, Sir Richard, for everything you gave to us and to generations of young people in dance.