Pavilion Dance South West is the National Dance Agency for the South West of England, supporting regional dance strategy development and representing the South West Dance sector nationally.

It works collaboratively with partners across the South West who share a commitment to develop and sustain opportunities for people in the region to make, present, watch and participate in dance.

Pavilion Dance South West launched Pavilion Dance in September 2010, a national centre of excellence for dance located behind the Pavilion Theatre and facing the gardens and the seafront in the centre of Bournemouth.

It has benefitted from £3.29 million capital investment by Bournemouth Borough Council in the renovation of a previously disused part of the much-loved Pavilion Theatre. It is the first project to be delivered as part of the Town Centre Master Vision - an imaginative plan to reinvigorate the town centre to the benefit of residents, visitors and the local economy.

This new venue includes a state of the art 200-seat studio theatre space, designed specifically for dance, and two excellent dance studios. It provides the region and the nation with first-rate facilities for artists to perform and create new work and explore interdisciplinary practice, for practitioners to develop and share creative engagement activities and for the public to become regular dance audiences and participants.

The combination of a brand new dance house and an explicit art form development remit offers the South West region and its dance sector an exciting new dynamic to benefit from and to celebrate.

Pavilion Dance South West is working with The Royal Opera House as part of its Arts Council England skills-sharing programme, ROH Connections.