The driving force behind the company is the desire to create new engaging dance that pushes the boundaries and perceived limitations of what dance is and should be. Stan Won't Dance is about collaboration — bringing together an amazing creative team, putting them in a room and devising from that.

There are four stages to our devising process.

stage one ... We work on the core of the idea: talking to creatives, performers, writers, designers and composers to get a feel for the piece. Once the ground has been prepared and everyone knows what to expect (i.e., timescale, production size, broad flavour, general mood and subject matter), we can start stage two.

stage two ... We get into the studio with the creative team. This often involves a designer, a composer, a writer, and performers (dance, circus, physical theatre). We work to very tight creative schedules (just 7 weeks for REVELATIONS and 6 weeks for SINNER). All the creatives make sketches of their elements: small sections of music, short dialogue scenes, a design for the the set, etc. The performers start to work together devising movement and sequences around a feeling or type of interaction with others or objects.

stage three ... From a very early point in the process, we start to bring the elements together in the studio. The performers integrate text and movement within a fixed space or with specific objects. In this way, the text is learnt attached to movement. The elements are fully integrated and happening simultaneously — otherwise they just look stuck together. We work on the formation of the whole piece, developing sequences and how sections link together. We also work on the set as early as possible, since the movement is also anchored to the objects in it and the spaces it creates. At this point nothing is set in stone and everyone has input. Sometimes it becomes apparent that something spoken would be better expressed in movement and vice versa — we do rework things.

stage four ... Once the whole begins to form, we can then tweak everything. As devised work, it is never finished and we constantly change parts of it. The script is tweaked, and movement sequences tightened or edited.