As part of our commitment to local creatives we are using this time to get to know the Winchester scene a little better! Our ‘In a Nutshell’ interviews are aimed at local creatives, practitioners, freelancers and independent businesses residing in Winchester. We want to use our platform to meet new people and showcase the incredible talent residing in this city. Hannah caught up with choreographer and movement director Cathy Waller to talk about starting a dance company at the age of 24, working as a funding consultant, and creating her newest work based on her experience of living with an invisible disability.

Cathy Waller began her career training in gymnastics and classical forms throughout her youth in Hampshire, continuing her professional training at LABAN Conservatoire for Contemporary Dance, graduating with a BA Hons in Dance Theatre.

Alongside her training, Cathy developed her love for hip hop theatre by co-founding Surge Dance Theatre in 2006. As co-director and choreographer, Surge toured around the U.K for 4 years in over 25 venues, including performing at prestigious venues such as Sadlers Wells, Hammersmith Apollo, Wembley and Barbican to name a few.

Cathy has choreographed pieces for Breakin' Convention for 4 years in succession as well as for the BBC, Move-It, Tate Modern and a vast number of dance platforms and festivals throughout the U.K. In 2007, Cathy became Resident Choreographer of Dance Offensive, creating full length work, developing young aspiring dancers and collaborating with professional artists of a wide range of disciplines.

After being awarded the Blueprint Bursary in 2012, a commissioning fund given by Sadler's Wells and East London Dance, Cathy created Cathy Waller Company, a touring company of dancers and live musicians. The company has since toured to over 50 venues in the U.K, made several indoor and outdoor works and have been commissioned and funded by various organisations across the UK.

Cathy became the recipient of the London Dance Award 2012, after being shortlisted alongside 6 other choreographers and dancers in the U.K including Wayne Mcgregor, Akram Khan and Lloyd Newson.

At the end of 2012, Cathy became disabled. Whilst continuing her original vision for the Company, and continuing her choreographic work, Cathy has adapted her way of working to make the Arts world more accessible for her. Cathy works extensively with other disabled artists and prominently advocates for more exposure of disabled dance artists and their work in the arts sector.

2019/20 will see the first work by Cathy Waller Company that draws on Cathy's personal experiences of living with an invisible disability.

Hannah Castleman: Tell me a little bit about growing up in Winchester.

Cathy Waller: I grew up in Cheriton, which is a little village outside Winchester, but went to school and college in Winchester. I went to the Lewis Allsopp School of Dance - my teacher was Wendy Allsopp. She’s amazing, and so many of her pupils have gone on to work in the arts. She was always encouraging; she really helped me out. I went there for seven years.

Now, I am a choreographer and a movement director, and I also do some wrap-around things in the arts like grant writing and consultancy for arts organisations. I live in London - I’ve lived in London for 14 years. I moved to London when I was 18, when I went to train at Laban, which is a contemporary conservatoire in Deptford, and I never moved back.

HC: So why Laban?

CW: I auditioned for musical theatre school and contemporary school, because coming from Winchester, all I knew was modern, tap, ballet, musical theatre...I did get into hip hop and street dance when I was 15 or 16, but other than that my contemporary knowledge was pretty small. It’s definitely better now in Winchester, but I didn’t really know about it then. So when I auditioned for Musical Theatre school, I wasn’t a singer or an actor, I hated that. I just wanted to dance. The only contemporary schools I applied for were The Place and Laban. I got into Laban.

HC: You say you found some street dance groups. Was that in Winchester, or did you have to go somewhere else to find the classes?

CW: It was in Basingstoke. The hip hop classes were with NoCo, which was a strand of Hampshire Dance. I went off with a couple of people from NoCo and we made a hip hop crew. We ended up doing loads of shows with that.

HC: So attending Laban must have changed your entire career path.

CW: I did my first ever proper contemporary class for my audition at The Place, and it was the most amazing thing I had ever done. It was with live music, and just the movement we were doing, I thought ‘this is what I want to do’. It was lucky that I got into Laban. Surge was still going, I was teaching a lot and I started choreographing for a company in Cambridge. I would go to Laban Monday to Friday, go to Cambridge on Saturday, and then on Sunday come back to Basingstoke to work with Surge. I don’t know how I kept it up because our Laban days were eight plus hours, but somehow I did that! I was doing loads of choreography while I was at Laban which I think is what put me on to doing what I’m doing now, because I was super experienced by the time I left Laban.

HC: What do you love about choreography?

CW: I don’t think anyone has ever asked me that before! I haven’t asked myself that in a long time. I think I love creating something and then seeing other people do it. It brings it alive. Obviously I’m one body, and normally I’m doing it in my head, it’s not like I’m doing it in front of a mirror. I think it’s feeling the excitement and rush of making it in your head, and then seeing other people do it and execute it well is a buzz.

HC: I have been extremely lucky to see your work in person. I love the fact you choreograph with live music in mind, and with a live musician in the room. It must be quite a collaborative process.

CW: It’s funny because I worked exclusively with live music for about six or seven years, but now the new work I’m doing doesn’t have live music. It is newly composed, and I’m working with the composer to make it, but it’s not live in the room. It is super collaborative. It’s very difficult - when you work with a musician as a choreographer, you have very different citations, and the communication of your ideas can be really difficult. I was lucky, because with Chris [Preece, drummer] we always really understood what each other meant. We had a bit of a shorthand.

I just love music. It’s so cliched, but I love it so much, and working with live music was a massive dream. I was like - imagine not only being able to create exactly what you want in a room while you’re making the choreography, but also to have the visual of that person playing while you’re watching dance? It was pretty awesome. I think it came from my first audition, my first contemporary class at The Place because it had live music.

HW: If you’re choreographing in your head, are you hearing the music at the same time? Does it make the dialogue harder when you’ve heard something and you know exactly how you want it, and you have to communicate that with the musician?

CW: Sometimes. Now I’m older, I’m much more interested and up for lots of different ways of working. So yes, I will make something, like a phrase or a specific idea, and I’ll know it’s with this super long cymbal sound and then a hit on the rim of the tom. I know that that is what it is - I don’t know exactly but I know the sound I want. And then with other parts, I want the music to be made, and then for me to make something off the feeling, atmosphere or rhythm of the music. Before, when I was younger, I would be so controlling and specific, but because it was so exciting and I had a drummer in a room, I would say ‘give me ten different beats on this vibe’, which would be an amazing thing. Now I'm much more open to a more indepth collaborative thing, where actually the composer inspires me.

HC: How long does the whole process take for you, from the initial idea to putting on a show?

CW: I have no idea. That’s the honest answer! A lot of it depends on money and how quickly funding comes in. My first ever show I made - it was a short show so about 20 minutes - that probably took six months, but I had the idea in my head for years.

The new work I’m doing, the idea came about years ago. I started to put it in place at the beginning of 2019. From January 2019 to November 2019, we had done a huge first phase of research and development. This year, if Covid hadn't happened, we would have probably now have the finished production ready to go. That would have been almost two years for a full length, hour long show. It really depends on what the show is, how many elements, how many people - and obviously the more people the more money. Funding limits and commissions - there’s just so much of that. But probably from concept to done, about two years.

HC: I wonder whether people realise so much of it is a business proposal. You can’t just think ‘I’m going to make something!’ It has to be considered, funding has to be applied for, all of these things. There’s so much more to it, so much that happens even before a rehearsal period.

CW: It also really depends on the team. If you want to make a solo on yourself, it’s probably going to be a quicker process because for a long time it’s only going to be yourself to think about. As soon as you have five dancers, a whole creative team - even getting those people in a room together, it takes a lot of work beforehand.

HC: Do you use the same dancers for all of your projects?

CW: I generally use some of the same dancers in everything. There has been one dancer - Yukiko Masui - who has been in every show that my company has done. I’m working with her next month. I do open up auditions when I’m looking for dancers.

HC: What do you look for in a dancer?

CW: It depends on what the project is. One of the main things is a groove - that sort of fluid understanding of rhythm. A lot of dancers I work with have a hip hop background - it’s not a requirement but it’s definitely good. Technique - how someone can move in and out of the floor. And dynamics - you have to be able to move very quickly and very precisely, otherwise it’s just not going to work. Now, and for the last few years, another paramount thing is that they have to be a nice person, because I don’t want to be in a room for months, or on tour for months, with someone who’s just not very nice.

HC: The best piece of advice I had as a musician was that you have to be nice, otherwise people just won’t want to work with you, they won’t book you.

CW: If you are a calm, nice person, it’s going to be more enjoyable for everyone.

HC: How did you make the jump to creating your own company?

CW: So I made my own company when I was 24. From the age of 18 to 24 I was doing a lot of choreography for other people and other theatres and organisations. Whilst I was the choreographer, it was always under the artistic direction of someone else. So I had that experience, and I knew what it took to choreograph a work. I knew I wanted to do my own thing, but I didn't really know how to go about it. Funding was so scary, Arts Council terrified me, I didn’t know how to do it. But in 2012, I applied for a bursary award from Sadler’s Wells and East London Dance; they commissioned me to make a new work and that’s the work that started the company.

HC: I know first hand what you do in the world of grant writing and consultancy, and how accomplished you are at it - how did you get it into it?

CW: I don’t really know exactly how I got into it. I was terrified of the Arts Council for years and then I finally wrote my first application in 2012. I think I asked a few friends who had done it already to send me their applications so I could really understand what the questions meant. Also, there was a lady who worked for the Arts Council who was in Cambridge at the time, and I remember having a meeting with her when I was quite young - 20 or 21 - and she was talking me through the process of it, and it completely freaked me out. In hindsight that was great, because to sit down with someone from the Arts Council was a pretty big thing.

You very quickly learn that as a choreographer you need to be applying for all the commissions. You’re constantly applying for stuff. So I got what you needed to do and how to get it. And then it started off with friends asking me to help and look over their applications because I had got the Arts Council grant a couple of times. It went from there. Then other people who weren’t friends asked if I could help them, and I realised I couldn’t keep giving up my time for free.

HC: And it’s a lot of time. Those applications are huge.

CW: All this time, I’ve never advertised that I write grants. It’s just from word of mouth. It’s nice to be able to support someone doing it, because it is a bit scary.

HC: I think it is a terrifying process. They don’t make that application easy.

CW: They know their online system is difficult. It’s very inaccessible for everyone, and more inaccessible for disabled people, or people who haven’t had the privilege of having an amazing education, like in Winchester. I mean, what a privilege to be able to just go to the schools in Winchester and the college, and have this amazing education because you happen to live there. But you can get support for [the Arts Council application], you have to go to people like me, or ask the Arts Council, or go to organisations because they will help you.

Again, it’s a very privileged thing, because most artists do not have the money to be able to pay someone before they get the grant to help them write the grant. I think artists need to use organisations more to get them to help them out. It’s also worth noting that the Arts Council will pay a grant writer for access support. So if for example you’re disabled, you identify with a long term health condition, you’re dyslexic, they will pay someone to write your grant for you.

HC: Would you say that your journey to what you do now has been pretty linear? Has it been a natural progression?

CW: I’ve always thought I’ve been quite lucky. I’ve come from a privileged background and that’s set me up. Looking back it does seem linear but it is so up and down. There were times when we had performed at Sadler’s Wells, or at West End Live to 10,000 people, and then the next day you’re in your pyjamas with no work. It’s like, am I doing things? Am I an artist? It’s so up and down. The only thing that was a massive spanner in the works was when I became disabled at the end of 2012. That was different because I stopped working for a year and a half, maybe two years.

HC: What happened in 2012?

CW: I developed a seizure condition called Dissociative Non-Eplieptic Seizures. I had multiple seizures every day, with moments of paralysis. It was a massive shock, my mental health really declined. I didn’t work for ages, it was so difficult to understand how I was a mover with so much freedom, and now I was paralysed from the neck down a lot of the time and felt so restricted and isolated.It took me a couple of years to carry on. I remember at the time one of the really sad things is that I felt like my career had really just taken off in 2012 because I was doing so many things, and I just stopped.

I managed to get some advice, and worked out how I could best continue. Now, eight years later, I’m working more than ever. I’ve been able to put structures in place to remove some of the barriers there are to being a disabled person. It’s taken me a long time to learn what some of those things are, and what support I can actually get. Whilst it’s been very difficult, the privilege of being an artist and creating your own work is also a blessing in disguise because actually I’m in control of a lot of how I work.

HC: Have you put that into your work, or do you try and keep your work separate? How has that affected your creative output?

CW: For years, there was no input in my creative work whatsoever. I was actually really swayed by a lot of people saying to me, ‘well you have to make a choice now - are you going to be a disabled artist that makes disabled work, or are you going to be an artist who makes non-disabled work?’. At the time, because I was younger and I didn’t really know, I thought they were my only options. I was really resistant to doing anything creatively about it and I was brushing it under the carpet a bit.

The first time that I’ve ever bought it in creatively was in my new project in 2019. It’s called ‘Us’, and it’s all about invisible things, which obviously includes invisible disabilities, but also invisible ways that we move and are as people, and all the things we hide away and how we expose that a bit more and hopefully bring a bit more awareness to things we can’t see. We’re so reliant as humans on only having understanding for things we see and not things we don’t.

So that’s the first time I’ve ever bought it in, and I’m really happy to have. It’s definitely been an organic thing that I’ve done on my own, rather than someone saying ‘well you really have to’. I felt like it was the right time and I really just wanted to do that. I work more within disability arts in general so I feel a bit more supported and I understand more about that sector.

HC: In terms of people giving you - well, people telling you you only have ‘two options’ is not really advice - but in terms of people putting their two cents in, how hard was it when you were younger to take or leave the advice? Has it affected the advice you would give to people now?

CW: I took what people said to me when I was younger as gospel, which was very sad. And the people that told me that were quite respected, well known people in the arts, which was also sad. If I got that advice now I think I would have the experience to say, I don’t know if I agree with that. I’m sure subconsciously it’s affected how I give advice to people. I don’t think I would ever say to people ‘well, you’ve got two options and that’s it.’ It makes me think twice about that. I feel like I prefer to support people in how they can get to where they want to be with whatever it is they’re doing, and pointing them in the right direction.

HC: It’s a limiting thing to say to someone in the creative industry, where there are supposed to be unlimited options and interpretations.

CW: That sort of thing - ‘well you’re a disabled artist therefore you obviously make work about being disabled’ - is still a thing. There are still conversations going on all the time about systemic ableism and putting disabled artists at the same level we value non-disabled artists; we need to give disabled artists the same parameters of creativity, which is basically no parameters. Just do what you want. But it is still a thing.

HC: I’ve kept you talking for over an hour, so I’m going to let you go - just one final question. Circling back to where we started - what do you think of the creative scene in Winchester now?

CW: Because I don’t live in Winchester anymore, and I’m not immersed in that artistic community, I wouldn’t really know. But I can say The Nutshell is something I’ve never seen before in Winchester - an actual community arts space.

In A Nutshell: Cathy Waller