THE son of a former Ebbw Vale steelworker has launched a new dance theatre company and is on a mission to take professional dance back to towns across Wales.

After a successful career as a dancer and choreographer, Phil Williams, has now launched Cascade Dance Theatre company which is about to embark on their first debut tour of Wales this November.

Mr Williams trained at London Contemporary Dance School and danced with the National Dance Company Wales for six years.

He said he knows how important, and life-changing, it can be to take something new and refreshing like dance into small communities. It wasn’t until he was sixteen that he and some of his fellow rugby friends were invited along to the school dance club at Ebbw Vale Comprehensive that he began to rethink his career ambitions.

The former head boy said: “My friends and family were pretty cool about it, mainly because two of my mates had gone to the dance club with me. Some people were funny, as it wasn’t the accepted thing to do, but my parents were supportive.

"My father was a steel worker, as was his father, but he was happy as long as I was happy, as was my mother."

Mr Williams added: “The aim for this tour is to make it as much of a success as possible, both for us and the venues who are taking us. I hope to make the tour a fixture in Cascade’s calendar every autumn.

“We’re visiting places where this scale of dance doesn’t go any more. I’m a boy from Ebbw Vale so it’s important to get these shows into communities like that. It’s important for professional dancers to put on a certain scale of show that lets us turn people on and make sure people can still get excited about contemporary dance.”

A piece choreographed by Mr Williams called Collidron which will be part of the tour was inspired by Einstein’s theory of relativity.

Cascade Dance Theatre’s Autumn tour will be in the Blackwood Miners’ Institute on November 7 and The Borough Theatre in Abergavenny on November 23. For more information visit www.cascadedancetheatre.co.uk