Monday 27 April - Friday 8 May
This two week residency will contribute to Charlotte Mclean’s anthropological research into Scottish Highland Dance – a form that has shaped her since childhood, that she believes remains under-documented, under-explored, and constrained within its own rules. Guided by themes of history, gender, elitism, and access, she will work with a collection of dancers to explore how different bodies encounter, inherit, and transform the tradition.
Drawing on dance and performance studies, feminist and queer theory, phenomenology of the body, and critical archival practice, the research combines embodied experimentation, research and reflection.
Alongside this, Charlotte’s ongoing womb-centred movement practice ‘my body is my home’ frames the body as a site of knowledge, care and resistance:
my body is my home
my home as my nation
my nation as my identity
my identity as my culture
my culture as a weapon
the swords my Granddad made me
This residency is the continuation and deepening of Charlotte’s creative endeavour, that imagines Highland Dance as a living, evolving practice capable of holding multiple bodies, stories, and futures.
Open class
Tuesday 5 May | 10:00 – 11:30 | Open Class | £Free | Book Now
Throughout the class, we will root ourselves in ‘technique’, drawing inspiration from ballet, Highland dance, and folk traditions. Through set exercises and improvisational scores, we will explore with the history, anthropology, and politics of “technique”-driven classes while imagining new techniques and dances our bodies hold. Bring your own dancing body—every style and lived experience is welcome—as we celebrate our bodies and co-create embodied folkloric futures together.
About Charlotte Mclean
Charlotte Mclean is an award-winning transdisciplinary artist whose practice explores anti-capitalist, cyclical ways of working through movement, voice, and collaboration. Drawing on her childhood training in Highland Dance, she reimagines tradition through intersectional feminism and community values, expanding its possibilities for contemporary audiences.
A graduate of London Contemporary Dance School and a 2025 Arts Foundation Dance Fellow, her work has been presented across Europe, including at The Place London, Tojo Theater Bern, FITS Romania and Black Box Teater Oslo, with her debut solo show And still touring internationally to critical acclaim. Charlotte’s latest work not for glory, created with Jack Anderson, in collaboration with Malin Lewis will World Premiere at Dance Base this August 2026.
She is co-founder of movement grrl-band’s badbodychaoscode and Die Berner Band, whose performances have featured at London’s V&A Museum, Pete the Monkey Normandy, Brainchild Festival and Alte Münze Berlin, amongst others. Alongside her creative practice, Charlotte performs internationally, collaborating with independent companies including Eva Recacha Productions and Barrowland Ballet. She also teaches at leading institutions including London Contemporary Dance School and Barbara Bortoli Ballett Schule.
Collaborators:
Creative Producer – Helen McIntosh
Links