New home for Sadler's Wells?

National dance house Sadler’s Wells has revealed that the Olympic park in east London is a possible site for its proposed new 500-seat theatre that was announced last year. This fourth performance space will be used to host contemporary work as part of its vision for the next 10 years. The venue has been looking into a number of different sites across London, but is now in the “early stage of discussions” about using the Olympic park site which would be used to accommodate work made for mid-scale audiences and to respond to the high demand for dance seen in recent years. London mayor Boris Johnson announced his vision for an arts and culture hub at the Stratford site at the end of 2013, with organisations such as the Victoria and Albert museum and University College London confirming their plans to develop new buildings there. Wayne McGregor has also confirmed that he will open two new dance studios at the Olympic park as a “gift” to hundreds of young choreographers and dancers looking for an alternative to expensive rehearsal rooms, he hopes to launch the new studios in January 2016, which will be bigger than the main stages at leading dance houses. McGregor said he wanted to challenge the model by which rehearsal space was currently rented out at extremely high rates, unaffordable by young or new dancers and dance companies. McGregor aims to challenge that with new partner organisations that are not usually in the arts economic model. The new studios are part of McGregor’s Random Spaces project, under which his company Random Dance will relocate to the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and create a permanent home for its rehearsal, research and administration work.