The dancer, who has been announced as the new artistic director of the Leeds-based company, shares his ambitions for the future
Dane Hurst was learning to dance in “a ramshackle, termite-infested” school in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, when he first heard about a dance company in the north of England where an older classmate had escaped the poverty of their neighbourhood to make a new life. Now, just over two decades later, Hurst has been announced as the new artistic director of that very company, Phoenix Dance Theatre. “I’m definitely humbled and honoured to take up this post,” says the 36-year-old. “I know how incredibly life-changing dance can be.”
Hurst came to the UK to train at the age of 18, on a scholarship founded by Nelson Mandela and former ballerina Anya Sainsbury. He soon made his mark as a gifted, arresting, award-winning dancer with the Rambert company and others (including a short stint with Phoenix in his 20s) and, more recently, as a choreographer in his own right.