PROFESSIONAL CONTEMPORARY CLASS | 
AUTUMN TERM | BOOK HERE
PAY-AFTER-CLASS LINK HERE

Thursdays & Fridays 
4 Sept - 12 Dec 2025
9.30AM - 10.45AM
Queen’s Park Govanhill Church, 170 Queen's Dr, Glasgow G42 8QZ

The Work Room and Barrowland Ballet co-run weekly, morning contemporary class for the professional dance community in Glasgow on Thursdays and Fridays. The classes began in 2018 in response to the lack of professional-level contemporary dance classes in the city, providing a space for independent dance artists to come together to train and sustain practice. 

About

Class is led by Aya Kobayashi and guest artists.  Aya takes a different teaching approach to the classes on Thursdays and Fridays, with guest teachers taking a similar approach. 

Our aim is for these classes to be accessible to a wide range of physicalities. If you have any access requirements that you would like to make us aware of in advance or you would like to chat this through, please contact hello@theworkroom.org.uk

Thursdays | 9.30am - 10.45am 

The class includes both set materials and improvisations to train the clarity and embodiment through release based technique. We start with gentle way-in to our moving body, often focus on breath and energy paths to find attentiveness. With a few simple repetitive exercises we will try to find a deeper understanding of gravity, alignments and skeletal connections. The class is designed to develop your stamina and strength as we will move through with full bodied engagement and articulation. Some phrases are repeated over a few weeks to explore familiar and unfamiliar coordination of movement vocabulary.

Fridays | 9.30am-10.45am 

The class starts with giving space to breathe, land or ponder then offering some images or small questions to navigate an explorative journey.  Using various imageries, somatic exercises, or looking at other species or other art forms as hints or metaphors, we explore the anatomical potential and find the connections in things we live with. We will enrich our embodiment and feed into your practice. The class welcomes all movers. Aya cares about the journey of each class and within the inclusive facilitation, will move with openness and playfulness to cultivate the moving body together.

Cost & Booking

Classes are subsidised by Barrowland Ballet and The Work Room.

The class fee is £7 with the option of discounted rates (£5 & £3) for Work Room members / out-of-work artists.  

While we remain keen for these classes to be an accessible resource supporting the professional dance community in Glasgow, the long-term sustainability of this programme is not possible without generating income towards the costs. We encourage you to consider what you are able to contribute financially to make these classes possible. If the discounted rates are still a barrier to you attending, please do contact us to discuss – hello@theworkroom.org.uk

Book tickets in advance via Ticket Lab 

Pay After Class

The ticket link expires at 9:30 am.

If you want to attend class but haven’t booked a ticket in time, you can now use the Pay After Class ticket option, HERE

Venue

Professional Contemporary Class takes place at:

Queens Park Govanhill Parish Church, 
170 Queen's Drive,
Glasgow, G42 8QZ

QPGPC has yellow doors. The internal venue used is the Sanctuary, which is accessed via lift or stairs.

Occasionally, the location of class may need to change at short notice if the hall is required by the community for a funeral service. Ticket holders will be emailed about any change of location asap, and we will announce this on our website and socials.

Guest Artist* Classes (Autumn Term)

Guest teachers follow a similar approach to Thursday and Friday classes as Aya, with Thursday class being more focussed around technique, stamina, and learning set sequences, and Friday class taking a more open, improvisatory, and explorative approach, aimed at widening access across a range of physicalities. While keeping this distinction, each teacher approaches class with their own focus. 

Each guest artist will share an outline of their approach to class. Find that info here and on our socials.

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