13 About Shaper/Caper

About Shaper/Caper

Shaper/Caper is an independently led organisation based in Dundee developing the work of multi award-winning choreographer, BBC Radio 2 Artist in Residence, and Clore fellow, Thomas Small.

We do two things:

1. tour dance-theatre work around the world both live in venues and digitally via online platforms 2. deliver Creative Engagement projects for people of all ages, backgrounds and abilities

Our critically acclaimed performance work, such as ‘Within This Dust’, a piece inspired by the events of 9/11, has toured extensively across the UK over the past 10 years, as well as internationally to North and South America across Europe, including a sold out performance at the 9/11 Memorial & Museum at World Trade Center NYC. His work for children under 5, ‘Paper Moon’, a Cumbernauld Theatre commission, sold out every one of the 55 performances to date. As part of Tommy’s role as BBC Radio 2 Artist in Residence, we’ve presented work outdoors to audiences of over 30k people. We were commissioned to choreograph the opening of V&A Dundee as part of the 3D Festival. We worked with 8 pro dancers, 3 dancers from Scottish Ballet, and 500 young people from across Tayside who performed to an audience of 10k people, and shown on BBC2. Since 2010, the choreography of Thomas Small and the recognition he has received has grown at an exponential rate.

We won the Inspirational Work in Education and Community Outreach Award from One Dance UK in 2020. We have worked with over 45k children and young people over the last 5.5 years through a partnership with NHS Tayside delivering the Well Good project in 116 primary schools each year in Dundee, Perth & Kinross and Angus. We also deliver the Dance for Parkinson’s project for the Dundee and Fife hubs, continuing the project that was developed by Dance Base and Scottish Ballet; and A Day to Play – a hugely popular monthly interactive performance workshop for families in museums.

We recently moved into an office at Manhattan Works in an area of multiple deprivation in Dundee. Creating excellent art that connects with real people drives both him and the company to want to ensure that as many people as possible, despite their socio-economic backgrounds, race, and/or gender, can access high-quality arts for free. We really believe that the arts are an intrinsic part of achieving a cohesive society that can spark civic action for social change. During 2020’s initial lockdown, we created and presented Children’s Capers, an online dance class and performance presented on Facebook Live every weekday morning at 10.30am. We presented 100 episodes of Children’s Capers and reached over 100k views so far.

We are also proud to work with our volunteer Youth Advisory Board, The Body. The Body forms part of our governance procedures and help us to ensure that young voices are heard within our programme and are co-designed with our participants.

We are continually reflecting, evaluating, developing, adapting and evolving to deliver world-class creative experiences for all the people we reach.

We are supported by Creative Scotland, Scottish Government, CashBack, National Lottery Community Fund, National Lottery Heritage Fund, Corra Foundation, Northwood Charitable Trust, NHS, YouthLink Scotland, Dundee Social Enterprise Network and Rank Foundation, among others.

Awards and Accolades

Thomas Small has received numerous awards and commissions for his choreographic work. He is also one of the very few artistic leaders in Scotland, to have received bespoke leadership training experiences such as the coveted full fellowship on the Clore Leadership Programme and currently he remains the only Scottish choreographer to receive this prestigious accolade and undertake this training. He was also invited to be part of Dance East’s Rural Retreat programme of leadership training for choreographers. We were selected to take part in bespoke training with the Royal Opera House through the ROH Links programme conversation days where we have learnt from leaders at the Royal Opera House and Paul Hamlyn Foundation.

Highlights for Thomas Small and Shaper/Caper include:

• Winners of the ‘Inspirational Work in Education and Outreach’ award at the 2020 One Dance UK Awards

• Finalists in the 2022 SCVO Charity Awards and 2022 Proud Awards

• Robin Howard Foundation Commission

• Bonnie Bird New Choreography Award

• Commissioned by V&A Dundee to choreograph a piece of work involving 500 local young people and dancers from Scottish Ballet for the opening of V&A Dundee as part of the 3D Festival

• Commissioned by Starcatchers to create ‘Teeny Weeny’ for young audiences

• Commissioned by Dance Base to create ‘The End’

• Commissioned by Cumbernauld Theatre to create ‘Paper Moon’ for under 5’s audience - sell out tours in 2018 and 2019

• Awarded the first ever opportunity to be Artist in Residence at BBC Radio 2. He was picked from 750 applications and was on the final shortlist alongside two Turner prize nominated artists. As part of this process, he is mentored by Google Cultural Institute CEO Amit Sood.

• Creative Scotland full fellowship on the Clore Leadership Programme. Thomas undertook secondments at The Roundhouse in London and V&A

Dundee shadowing the leadership team at both organisations. He was mentored by Akram Khan and English National Ballet Producer Farooq

Chaudhry. He remains the only Scottish choreographer to be selected for a full fellowship.

• Selected to take part in Scottish Ballet Creates, creating work on principal dancers at Scottish Ballet under the mentorship of Kerry Nicholls and

Christopher Hampson.

• Within This Dust international touring thanks to inclusion in the Made In Scotland showcase. Touring to Sao Paulo, Brazil and New York City 5 times including the prestigious performances at the 9/11 Memorial & Museum at the World Trade Center in April 2017 as part of the museum’s 15 year anniversary programme of events. This has allowed us to build links with the US Consulate in Edinburgh and London and international interest in further USA touring.