ABOUT US
ONE STUDIO · TWO BRANDS · BASED IN SCOTLAND WORKING UK-WIDE
We make participatory dance and digital adventures with later-life dancers and the communities we work alongside.
Illustration by Emma Clifton-Brown
01 | WHO IS BEHIND IT
I came to dance late.
So can you.
Growing up gay in the 1980s in the North East, there was no one — at home, at school, in my peer group — to point me toward dance. So my route was a longer way round. I spent most of my working life as a civil servant in London government departments: the Department for Education, Businesslink.gov.uk, the Employment Service.
I started dancing at 30, on my own time. At 38 I retrained professionally at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance. By then I had a different vocabulary to most of the room — graphic, civic, digital — and a deep instinct for who gets left out of cultural spaces. I think both of those things still run through everything NOCTURN does.
I founded NOCTURN in 2007. The company has spent the years since making participatory and digital dance outside major cultural hubs — in rural communities, museums, festivals, online, and now from Scotland, which is recently my home.
How I work has changed too. I no longer keep a fixed studio. Scotland is the home base, but the practice itself is mobile. I work from kitchen tables, residency spaces, library corners, community halls and online. It keeps me close to where the work actually happens, and means that when a partner says come to us, I can.
02 | WHAT WE KEEP RETURNING TO
Our work is drawn to what's hidden in plain sight.
Only recently have I realised how much of that is rooted in growing up gay — in learning, very young, what the world preferred not to see.
Adult and older dancers have been at the centre of our work for the same reason I came to dance late: there's nothing about a body's stage of life that determines whether it has something worth saying.
CURRENT WORK
Right now, this question is being explored in Good Enough — a multisensory story-box about shame and acceptance, made with LGBTQ+ communities across Scotland.
03 | PRACTICE
THE SHAPE OF A PROJECT
Slow before fast. Place before form.
NOCTURN projects move through four phases over twelve to eighteen months. The pace and the shape are themselves part of the practice — they're how we make sure the work that arrives is the work the place actually asked for.
Listening.
Long before any "making" begins — coffee mornings, walks, drop-ins, conversations. We need to hear a place before we try to shape anything in it.
Inviting.
Open calls, workshops, online story-gathering. People decide whether to step in. Anonymity respected, and no assumption about who has something worth saying.
Making.
Residency with a small team of dance artists, designers and technologists — local where we can. Story becomes object, choreography, encounter. We prototype with the people who shared the stories.
Sharing, then returning.
Residency with a small team of dance Work meets audience in unusual places — community halls, foyers, forests, online. Most NOCTURN projects then come back — we retour, refine, and deepen the relationship with the community where it began.
04 | VOICES
FROM THE WIDER FIELD
What others say about the work.
Here are some of the producers, partner organisations and peer practitioners we've worked alongside. How the work reads from inside the wider field.
"NOCTURN's work is all at once a gripping cinematic drama, an intense creative immersion and a seamless experience of movement and twisting narrative."
Tom Hobden
DIRECTOR · Tom Hobden Studio
"Staff get to know their patients better & understand more of their life stories — which can lift spirits & sometimes help people make new friends."
Angela Conlan
ARTS COORDINATOR
On The Smile Inside
"A unique, beautiful and creepy experience of dance & digital."
Annette Mees
CREATIVE FELLOW · WIRED & The Space
On The Revelation of Miss White
"Not only a very talented artist but an inspiring collaborator who fills the rehearsal room with a positive energy that makes working with John hugely rewarding."
Danielle Corbishley
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR · Beautiful Creatures
05 | CARE AND ACCESS
HOW WE HOLD THE WORK
Care is part of the craft.
Our work often touches identity, ageing, sexuality and grief. We don't run a single safeguarding framework that fits every project but we do treat care as part of the craft.
For each project, we agree consent, safeguarding and access provisions with the partner organisations involved. Participants opt in, can step back at any time, and own their stories. For Good Enough specifically, we work with Switchboard so that support pathways exist outside the project itself.
If you're a partner thinking about hosting NOCTURN work, we're happy to talk through how we'd plan care for the specific community involved.
Every project is different.
06 | SISTER PRACTICE
How we sustain the work.
NOCTURN Designs is our sister practice — a one-person Squarespace studio that builds clear, story-led websites for small arts organisations, charities, and people doing serious work in unfamiliar territory.
The income from design work keeps the dance practice independent. The dance practice keeps the design work honest. Same approach. Same designer.
Same ethics about how human beings encounter what's on the screen.
07 | WORK WITH US
THREE WAYS IN
Participate.
Older dancers, LGBTQ+ folk, anyone curious about taking part in story-led work near you. No previous dance experience needed.
For — community members, dancers, story-sharers See open calls Door 02Partner.
Host or grow a NOCTURN residency, sharing or community engagement at your venue or in your community. Rural, urban and online welcome.
For — venues, councils, community orgs, trusts Become a partner Door 03Commission.
Develop a new immersive or participatory work with us. We take on a small number of new commissions each year, from R&D through to touring.
For — producers, festivals, funders Start a conversationTRUSTED BY
Past & present partners across the UK.
08 | GET IN TOUCH