26/10/2007

A Cardiff building of historic and artistic interest is 100 years old next week.

Rubicon Dance, based in the old St Lawrence Mission building in Adamsdown, is marking the centenary on All Saints Day, (November 1st.)

The foundation stone for the Mission was laid in 1907, dedicated to providing help, refuge, and care for the poor in the community. The building served as a Mission until the early 1960s when the sisters returned to their home base in East Grinstead, Sussex.

The Welsh Theatre Company took over the building in 1963 and used it as an office and rehearsal space for their touring productions. In 1968 it was converted to the Casson Theatre, providing a performing space for the Company, which operated there until the late 1970s.

The theatre was named after Ruthin born, theatrical acting legend, Sir Lewis Casson, (1875 to 1969) and was approved by his actress wife, Lady Sybil Thorndike, (1882 to1976). The idea was to create a National Theatre Company for Wales (an idea which is still blossoming today)

The theatre was the springboard for many a young actor / director to go on to bigger and better things and the company also developed a schools group taking performances out and about and involving children from the schools as extras.

In the 1980s it was again converted, this time to a dance centre, to house Rubicon Dance, formerly the Cardiff Community Dance Project.

What was once a chapel and a meeting hall and then a theatre became, and still is, two beautiful dance studios in the heart of Adamsdown.

Further conversion with Arts Council of Wales Lottery funding, in the 1990s provided disabled access, a lift, and a new front entrance on Nora Street. So the tradition of providing a service for the local community has continued unabated for a hundred years.

Rubicon Dance works with the support of the Arts Council of Wales, the County of Cardiff and Newport City Council. It offers a weekly centre programme in a range of dance styles for adults and young people. It's also the home base for the Young Dancer programme, the flagship youth dance groups and the full-time dance course. Across the city the Cardiff Dance programme provides weekly sessions for all ages and abilities in a diverse range of community settings including nurseries, schools, elderly homes and day care centres. Whilst the Newport Dance programme provides a similar range of sessions in specific target areas of the city and at the Riverfront Theatre and Arts Centre.

Just as in the days of the Casson Theatre and Welsh Theatre Company, participants come from across the city and beyond to the building and programmes from the building stretch out across the cities. Attendances during 2006/07 topped 80,000. Rubicon Dance has nurtured generations of young dancers, and has seen many students go on to vocational training just as the Casson Theatre nurtured young actors and as the Sisters of the order of St Lawrence supported their local community.

Rubicon Dance is marking the centenary of their building with a plaque which reads, "For a hundred years this building and those working here have provided a service to the community".

Ruth Till, Director of Rubicon Dance said:

"There is something very special about this building and all the staff here are proud to be a part of its story. May it continue for another 100 years."