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Artistic Director Joe Moran established Dance Art Foundation in 2000, under its original name East Performance Workshop. He was inspired by his research and studies in the USA during the late 1990s to create new platforms for forward-looking and experimental dance practices in the UK. Upon founding the company, he initiated the Breathing Space: dance-in-health programme with a small award from the National Lottery. Breathing Space has subsequently grown to become a celebrated national programme that now works with 36 partner organisations and employs a network of ten Project Artists working nationally.
In 2001, Moran initiated a seven-year collaboration with choreographer Gaby Agis who joined the company as Associate Director in 2001, becoming Co-Artistic Director in 2004. Agis and Moran collaborated on a series of professional development initiatives for independent dance artists and the curation and production of dance performances. Their work together established London as the European centre for training in Skinner Releasing Technique and gave prominence to the work of many British and international dance artists.
The Charity Commission acknowledged the company’s work in 2004 when it was awarded charitable status. At this time, the company was renamed Falling Wide. Agis and Moran drew their collaborative partnership to a close in 2008 in order to develop new working structures for their developing interests and artistic projects. Agis stepped down from the charity in 2008, which Moran took forward under the new name, Dance Art Foundation.
In 2009, Moran re-launched the charity with a renewed artistic vision concerned with the critical development of dance as a contemporary and socially engaged art form.
