We’re standing in the spanking new auditorium at Sadler’s Wells East, when Britannia Morton spots a chip in the black woodwork leading down to the stage. “That shouldn’t be there,” she says, alarmed. “We’ll have to get that covered up before Thursday.”
For the executive director of Sadler’s Wells, two days before the theatre opened its doors to the public, the snagging is real. London’s East Bank hopes to become an essential cultural destination, with the V&A and BBC both opening new bases alongside Sadler’s Wells.
But it’s dance that, fleet-footedly, opens first. What will its impact be?
“We’ve been at this for 11 years,” Morton says. “It's been a long journey.”
That journey ended last week with the theatre’s exuberant first show, Our Mighty Groove. Created by choreographer Vicki Igbokwe-Ozagu, it enticed audiences to get their groove on and shake a tail feather alongside the dancers, bringing the building immediately to life.
What is it like to encounter a shiny new theatre building? When I met Igbokwe-Ozagu for the Why Dance Matters podcast, she sounded giddy with the opportunity. “First day of rehearsals, walking in with the cast, touching things – even, don’t judge me, using the toilet. I was like, I’m one of the first! We’re testing the building, setting the temperature for what’s to come.”
That temperature is set to warm: “You are welcome,” beams a neon sign above the biscuity brick entrance. Theatres, like vampires, gravitate to dark spaces, but inside the impression is of light: high ceilings, generous windows, terraces overlooking the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. “We’re bringing lots of light in, because it affects wellbeing,” Morton confirms. There’s even a window behind the auditorium, so technicians don’t beaver in the shadows.
Above the well-raked auditorium, hugging the audience in a curve (“we feel we’re in a room together,” says Morton), are six studios named for dance icons: Josephine Baker, Alvin Ailey. These will welcome Academy Breakin’ Convention’s next-gen street dancers, and emerging artists at the Rose Choreographic School.
The public spaces are open for snacking and working through the day. “You don’t want to build something like this and then have it dark,” says Morton, “it’s not in our DNA.” Star of the L-shaped foyer is a dance floor for community groups, set on a windowed corner “for maximum visibility.”
“I love the dance floor,” says East Bank director Tamsin Ace. “Having something so prominent right at the front of the building, open for anyone to come and dance, is amazing.”
How did the theatre end up here? Sadler’s Wells long planned a mid-scale theatre to complement its venues in Angel and Aldwych, but hadn’t initially selected Stratford. “We looked at lots of other places,” says Morton, “then the London Legacy Development Corporation got in touch.”
Their suggested spot sat opposite Zaha Hadid’s swooshy Olympic aquatic centre. The site’s previous lives included a fun fair, the white-goods graveyard known as “fridge mountain” and a long-gone industrial past. “You can only go so far down into the ground,” Morton explains, “because it is still contaminated. And now, here we are.”
There have been, she admits, “wobbles along the way”: as when incoming mayor Sadiq Khan cancelled Boris Johnson’s cherished Thames garden bridge in 2017: “not a good time for big projects,” Morton observes. “Luckily, Sadiq got behind the building.” Other obstacles have been unexpected. “We had a big redesign because there was a big hoo-ha about sightlines from Richmond Park.” I’d always thought it an urban myth that no building could loom behind St Paul’s Cathedral; not so. “The design had to start again. That was certainly a moment when we wondered whether it would happen.”
Morton doesn’t seem unduly phased at the memory: elegant in scalloped white, she merely raises a droll eyebrow. Her instincts are practical – complementing Alistair Spalding, the theatre’s vision-spinning artistic director. “We talked about building it inside out: it started very much with the auditorium,” she explains. “You build everything around the practical elements.” Those pragmatics include: an auditorium at street level, so stage crews can easily take shows in and out. Or deciding which takes priority, cloakroom or loos (easy: “everyone needs the toilet but not everyone needs the cloakroom”).
Nonetheless, a home for creative potential can’t be merely functional. “We all want to be surrounded by beautiful things,” Morton says. At SWE, these include Eva Rothschild’s dramatic tapestries in the foyer, vivid, hand-dyed colours changing with the daylight. Coppery filament bulbs offer theatrical warmth, and Morton adores the crackle-glazed tiles, fronting the bars in translucent greens and blues. “They’re from the same people that made the bricks, just outside Venice. Aren’t they just dreamy?”
“It’s a bit of a gift that we are all arriving together,” says Ace. “like a blank slate inviting you to think differently.” The V&A Storehouse will open later this year, the museum itself next spring and the BBC’s music centre in autumn 2026. Iconic design features are already emerging, says Ace, like the community dance floor, UCL’s Gaia globe artwork and the “phenomenal” twisting staircase at London College of Fashion.
The area is undeniably in flux – students flocking in, housing springing up. “Transport links into Stratford are phenomenal,” enthuses Ace, who took up her role just as the London College of Fashion UAL and UCL East opened on East Bank in 2023. “Overnight 8000 students and staff arrived – this whole new community engaging with the buildings was a big milestone.” She describes her own role as “the glue and the connector between the East Bank partners, but also between them and the community.”
“We’re part of the Olympic and Paralympic legacy of driving investment and opportunity into this part of the city,” she continues. “We’re here to tap into the local community and offer something back.” Is it easy to engage the community? “We haven’t just arrived,” Ace argues. “We’ve been working in east London for many years, building relationships, tapping into grassroots organisations who are the experts here. V&A East are working with a collective of local young people on content and design. It’s a two-way exchange, which we hope will bring a level of trust.”
Similarly, Sadler’s Wells works with 10 schools, says Morton, as well as “in community settings at parent and baby classes, or dancing for older people. Now we can invite them in to have a go on the dance floor.” The building’s neon sign may feel a bit on the nose – but, Morton adds, “getting over the threshold of a theatre is intimidating for a lot of people. That’s why we put ‘You are welcome’ at the top – we want to be really explicit about it.”
The young Botis Seva might have been one of those intimidated punters. “The first time I went to Sadler’s [in Islington], I felt alienated,” says the Dagenham-born choreographer. “I wasn’t used to that kind of space. That mental barrier is quite tough.”
Seva first encountered dance at school (“it kept me out of trouble”) – so would a theatre like Sadler’s Wells East have made a difference to him? “Definitely. Stratford was a place we would always go to. The most important thing is people, especially unrepresented people, getting to watch stuff.”
Now a rising star, Seva’s new work Until We Sleep (“a reflection on leadership now”) is a highlight of Sadler’s Wells East’s opening programme.
Here too are sparky talents across the dance spectrum: classical gems from Birmingham Royal Ballet, international stars like Trajal Harrell, the UK’s Aakash Odedra and Jasmin Vardimon, plus, for Christmas, the Dickens-inspired Ebony Scrooge. Seva believes the new theatre offers a crucial stepping stone for emerging artists. “Not everyone wants the big stage – sometimes you want to be more intimate with an audience. This opens up doors to experiment.”
As buildings open and a new community forms around East Bank, will the area become a London destination? “My hope for East Bank?,” says Ace. “That the park as a whole has a clear, beautifully curated identity, and that the partners start to build collaborative ideas that could only happen here. And that truly the people of east London are represented within every aspect of those organisations. That’s my dream.”
