Dancing In Utopia.

The latest exhibition at the Elmhirst Heritage Centre is Dancing In Utopia.

The Heritage Centre was once the private residence of Dorothy and Leonard Elmhirst, and you can book a guided heritage tour to get a sense of how the building looked in its 1960s heyday. The period-refurbished ground floor rooms are now home to Dartington’s core collection of Modern British and American paintings and ceramics, whilst the upstairs rooms play host to a series of changing temporary exhibitions, inspired by our wider art collection and archive. This project was delivered with generous advice and support from the Jenna Burlingham Gallery group.

In Dartington’s centenary year, Larraine Nicholas also launches the updated edition of her groundbreaking book, Dancing in Utopia: Dartington Hall and its Dancers. It charts the extraordinary history of dancers nurtured at Dartington, from the Elmhirst founders to the institutions that followed.

The Dance School, built in 1932, was central to the dance presence at Dartington for generations.

Peter Nicholson, the Trust’s arts curator, said: “Following Leonard and Dorothy Elmhirst’s purchase of Dartington Hall in 1925, dance soon became an important part of their project of rural renewal and cultural regeneration. Classes, choreography, performance and personalities all played a large part as leading dance and theatre figures: Margaret Barr; Louise Soelberg; Michael Chekhov; Uday Shankar, and the Jooss Ballet took up residences on the estate.

This unique exhibition of iconic photographs drawn from our archive, with many by the German-born photographer Fritz Henle, brings to life the vibrancy, joy and experimentation of the early years of dance at Dartington. The exhibition shows what an important place Dartington holds in the history of twentieth-century dance evolution. “

The exhibition opens on November 1 and runs to the end of January

You can find more details on the Dartington Website