Lea Anderson's The Cholmondeleys and The Featherstonehaughs - 40 Years of Style and Design

2024 marks the 40th anniversary of The Cholmondeleys dance company, founded in 1984 by Lea Anderson, Teresa Montano and Gaynor Coward. When they started, The Cholmondeleys wanted to create something that would interest their friends. They obsessively discussed what kind of impact they wanted to make, danced to music and looked like modern people wearing modern costumes. They called themselves The Cholmondeleys like it was a band. In the UK in the early 1980s there was a lot of fashion and music, cabaret and clubbing going on; everyone was doing their own thing - making art, magazines, designing and making clothes, performing in bands, starting record labels, running nightclub evenings, holding parties in warehouses. In the aftermath of punk, DIY culture was freshly exciting and there was a lot of it about. The Cholmondeleys and their performances arose from this exhilarating time, and featured collaborations between a range of inspiring British artists including (among others), choreographer Lea Anderson, costume designers Sandy Powell, Emma Fryer and Simon Vincenzi, composers Drostan Madden & Steve Blake, and lighting designer Simon Corder. The Cholmondeleys, alongside their brother company The Featherstonehaughs (founded in 1988) made over 87 works, both live and on film and performed throughout the UK and internationally. A vital part of their creative legacy remains in a rich archive of images taken by photographers Chris Nash, Pau Ros, Pete Moss, Eddie Monsoon, Douglas Brothers and Matilda Temperley among others. For the first time, these images are now collected together and presented here, in a celebration of The Cholmondeleys and The Featherstonehaughs.