My Space: Sarah Knox

It was 25 years ago that Dr Sarah Knox first stepped into the dance studio at the Kenneth Myers Centre (KMC), to take a workshop as a final-year dance student with legendary dancer and choreographer Mary-Jane O’Reilly.

“The space holds so much history for me; so many people from the New Zealand dance industry have danced in there at some point,” says Sarah, who is now a senior lecturer in the Dance Studies programme and deputy head of Creative Arts at the University.

The KMC on Shortland Street holds a lot of history, more broadly. Built in 1934 as New Zealand’s first purpose-built radio station, its windowless brick facade was designed for soundproofing. The building was later the home of television broadcasting in Auckland for many years.

Today, it also houses practice, rehearsal and recording spaces for music students, as well as the Gus Fisher Gallery.

Every dance studio has its own energy, says Sarah, and she has a particular fondness for the KMC studio.

“Because of the nature of what we’re doing in the studio – we’re so in our bodies – we get attuned to the energy, tone and feeling of a space, and not necessarily consciously. Like, if you’re going to warm up, you know just where the sun will hit the floor at that time of day.

“The studio becomes a friend. It’s a sacred, spiritual place.” 

As a teacher of dance and choreography, Sarah aims to make the studio feel safe for students – an experience not every dancer brings with them.

“For some people the dance studio can be a place that’s full of trauma and potent memories. This is what I mean when I say it’s a spiritual place; it’s full of all the things that have happened in dance classes before – our own experiences – and all the people who came into the space before us.

“We’re not separate from the spaces that we work in; we make our marks on them and they on us.”

The studio door is important, she says, providing a boundary between how dancers behave inside and outside of the studio.

“The studio is a space where we can choose to go to strange, weird and wonderful places with each other because of the art form that we’re dealing with. We know collectively that we’re allowed to explore ideas in such a way that we would never normally do on the other side of the door.

“It’s a real privilege to be able to express ourselves and inhabit our bodies in this particular way, and that’s what the studio offers us.”

– Caitlin Sykes