Weekly · barefoot · adults from scratch
Contemporary Dance Classes in Sheffield
Our contemporary dance classes in Sheffield are for grown-ups who want to move for the sake of moving: barefoot, unhurried, with a great deal more floor than mirror. Weight, breath, momentum and one long phrase built up over a month, an hour at a time in a city-centre studio. Single classes are £10; a run of four is £32.
Come and move
Ask, and the evening comes back to you.
Contemporary runs once a week in the centre of the city. Tell us whether you danced as a child or have never done any of this, and we'll say honestly how the class will feel from where you're standing.
- One class £10 · four for £32
- Barefoot — no shoes to buy before you start
- Times and the studio address by return
The essentials
- Where Sheffield city centre studio
- When Weekly, evening — sent by reply
- Length One hour
- Level Beginners upward
- Ages 17 – 75
- Partner Not needed
The class
Contemporary is the one where you exhale.
What contemporary asks of you
Contemporary borrows ballet's sense of line and then spends the rest of the hour arguing with it. Where ballet lifts away from the ground, this drops into it: weight given rather than held, momentum allowed to finish, breath used as a timing device. It is easily the least showy style on our Sheffield timetable and, judging by who keeps coming back, the one people find they need. Nobody is counted in eights all hour; a phrase is often taught by feel, then cleaned once the shape is in the body. Phrases tend to be given whole and then taken apart, rather than assembled a count at a time, which suits anyone who never got on with counting in the first place.
The room is a mix. Adults who did ballet until they were twelve and stopped, runners looking for something that stretches rather than pounds, people who tried a gym class and hated the mirrors. Ages run from seventeen up to seventy-five and nobody is asked to have a flat back or a high leg. What the class does want is a willingness to get down to the floor and stand up again, repeatedly, without minding how that looks the first few times. A few arrive after physio, having been told to move more and having found the gym unbearable; the class is low-impact enough for that, and worth flagging to us in advance.
The shape of an hour
A long, warm start on the floor — spirals, rolls, breath — then standing work for swing and suspension, then travelling across the space. The last stretch goes on a phrase that grows all month until it runs unbroken. Bare feet or socks; leggings and a top that stays put when you tip upside down. There is no kit to buy and we lend none. Dancers here often add ballet for the technique underneath, and a few couples borrow the softer vocabulary for a first dance. Bring water and something warm for afterwards, because you cool down quickly once the floorwork stops.
How a month unfolds
Four weeks, one phrase, a different body.
A block usually travels like this, though the class is led by what the room can do rather than by a plan on paper.
Down to the floor
Getting on the ground and back up without bracing: rolls, spirals and the discovery that giving weight is harder than holding it.
Swing and suspend
Standing work built on momentum — drop, swing, catch. This is the week the movement starts to look continuous rather than posed.
Across the room
Travelling phrases with changes of level and direction, taken in small groups so there is space to actually go somewhere.
The whole thing
The month's material joined into one continuous phrase, danced with music and, by the end, without counting anything at all.
Quietly, over a term
What contemporary does when you're not watching.
The reasons people stay are rarely the reasons they came.
- Hips and spine that move in more than one direction
- Getting off the floor without using your hands
- Deep core strength earned slowly, not crunched
- Breathing that reaches the bottom of your lungs
- Balance that holds up on an uneven pavement
- An hour with no score and nothing to win
- A way to be tired that is not the gym kind
- Somewhere to put a week you'd rather not talk about
Contemporary, answered
Before you take your shoes off.
Ten honest answers about contemporary dance classes in Sheffield, for anyone still hovering over the enquiry form.
1Is contemporary just ballet without the shoes?
It shares ballet's care about line and then goes the opposite way with weight. Ballet lifts up and out of the ground; contemporary sinks into it, using momentum, breath and release where ballet uses turnout and hold.
2Do I need ballet training first?
No, although a lot of the room did dance as children and drifted back this way. The class teaches its own vocabulary from the ground up and assumes nothing beyond being able to lower yourself to the floor and rise again.
3What do I wear, and do I need shoes?
Leggings or joggers and a top that will not fall over your head when you tip upside down. Everything is danced barefoot or in socks, so there is nothing to buy — and we don't supply or hire footwear or kit for any class.
4Is there much floorwork?
A good deal, yes. Rolling, sliding and returning to standing are central to the style, so wear something over your knees if kneeling bothers you and expect to leave a bit dusty.
5I'm stiff and not twenty any more. Does that matter?
The class runs from seventeen to seventy-five and half of it arrives seized up from a desk. Range comes back surprisingly fast with weekly work, and none of the phrases are designed around extreme flexibility.
6Will I be made to improvise?
Sometimes, briefly, and always with a task rather than an empty floor and good luck. It is the part newcomers dread and often the part they end up liking, but you can stay with the set material if you'd rather.
7What music is it danced to?
Mostly instrumental — piano, strings, ambient textures — with a song when the phrase asks for words. The counts still exist; the music simply gives you more room to breathe than a chart beat does.
8How much is a contemporary class?
£10 buys one class. £32 buys four consecutive weeks and takes the hourly cost down to £8. There is no enrolment charge, no term fee and nothing you have to remember to cancel.
9Where in Sheffield is the class?
A studio in the middle of Sheffield with enough floor to travel properly across. You'll be given the exact address in the reply to your enquiry, alongside the evening it currently runs.
10Is contemporary actually a workout?
Deceptively. Standing up off the floor forty times in an hour builds legs and core quicker than most people anticipate, and the release work tends to leave you loose rather than wrecked.