Terpsichore: Voices in Dance

Léa Tirabasso is a choreographer and performer whose work is rooted in physicality, instinct, and a deep curiosity about what it means to be human. She was born in eastern France, and before training at London Contemporary Dance School, studied Modern Literature and History of Art in Lyon. It was here that she first became interested in the Fluxus movement and the idea of dissolving boundaries bet...

Based in London, visual artist Megan Rooney grew up between South Africa, Brazil, and Canada. She completed her BA at the University of Toronto before earning an MA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths College, London, in 2011. Working across painting, sculpture, installation, performance, and language, the body has long played a central role in her practice. Megan describes her painting process as deeply...

Formerly the director of Bern Ballet from 2007 to 2013, Cathy Marston is currently the Director of Ballet Zürich in Switzerland, as well as an internationally renowned choreographer of contemporary ballet. Originally trained at the Royal Ballet School, she’s known for her inventive approach to storytelling—translating seminal works from the English literary canon onto stage and into movement to of...

Robyn Orlin was born in 1955 in Johannesburg. Known in South Africa as "the permanent irritation," through her work she reveals the difficult and complex reality of her country. Originally trained at London Contemporary Dance School before later completing an MA at the Chicago School of Fine Arts on a Fulbright scholarship, she combines various artistic expressions  including text, video, and the...

Eun Me began training in Traditional Korean Dance at just 12 years old before attending Ewha Womans University in Seoul. She later continued her studies in New York, graduating from Tisch School of the Arts in 1994. During her time in the U.S., she refined her craft as a choreographer, exploring how to translate Korean dance philosophies onto the bodies of American dancers. After 10 years in the S...

Born and raised on Kibbutz Ein Hahoresh, Jasmin Vardimon was a member of the Kibbutz Dance Company for five years before being awarded the prestigious British Council ‘On the Way to London’ Choreography Award in 1995. This led her to move to the UK permanently, where she went on to establish her eponymous company. Under this banner, she has developed a distinctive choreographic voice, defined by h...

Paris-based Leïla Ka began her dance journey by engaging with hip-hop and street dance styles before discovering contemporary and modern dance. Notably, she danced in ‘May B’ the seminal work by renowned French choreographer Maguy Marin, which is a powerfully theatrical response to the writings of Samuel Beckett. Leila now imbues her own choreography with the powerful theatricality she experienced...

Based in Glasgow, Scotland, Claire Cunningham is one of the UK’s most acclaimed and internationally renowned disabled artists. Her work, which is often biographical and deeply personal, explores Crip & disabled experiences, practices of care, and questions societal ideas of knowledge and value. The movement vocabulary she uses to delve into these these topics is often rooted in the use/misuse,...

Born in Marseille in 1948, Malou Airaudo began her dance journey at just eight years old at the Opéra de Marseille’s ballet school. She later joined the opera’s ensemble and went on to perform with prominent companies, including the Ballet de Monte Carlo and Ballet Théâtre Contemporain, before eventually moving to New York. There, in 1971, she met Pina Bausch, who would invite her to join the newl...

Rio de Janeiro-based choreographer Lia Rodrigues began her dance journey by training in classical ballet alongside studying history at the University of São Paulo. After cutting her teeth as a dancer in France, most notably performing with modern dance legend Maguy Marin and being part of the creation of her seminal Samuel Beckett-inspired work May B, Lia moved back to her home country of Brazil a...

Originally trained at the Julliard school in New York, Janet Eilber danced professionally with the Martha Graham Dance Company for many years. During this time she danced many of the greatest roles from the Graham repertoire and had several new ones created on her by Graham herself. In 2005, she was appointed as the company’s Artistic Director, tasked with preserving Graham’s legacy while keeping...

Cassa Pancho founded Ballet Black in 2001 after graduating from professional dance training and was one of the first dancers and choreographers in the company. Her initial goal was to provide role models to young, aspiring Black and Asian dancers. A year later, she opened the Ballet Black Junior School in Shepherd’s Bush, London.  Since starting Ballet Black, Cassa has commissioned over 40 choreog...

Québécois dancer and choreographer Louise Lecavalier joined choreographer Édouard Lock’s company La La La Human Steps in 1981. Known for its energetic, acrobatic style involving fast-paced and athletic physical contact, La La La is regarded as one of the most prominent contemporary dance company of the late 20th Century. Louise became one of its key figures, and was well known for mastering La La...

Born in Denmark and trained at the Royal Danish Ballet School, Simone Damberg Würtz danced with the Ballet Ensemble of Theatre Ulm and Peter Schaufuss Balletten before joining the renowned London-based contemporary dance company Rambert in 2013. Since joining Rambert, she’s worked with countless choreographers, and has particularly enjoyed working with the likes of Kim Brandstrup, Didy Veldman, Ch...

Based in Dehli, India, Aditi Mangaldas is a leading dancer and choreographer in the classical Indian dance form of Kathak. Having trained extensively under the styles leading gurus, Aditi is recognised for her artistry, technique, eloquence and characteristic energy that marks every performance. Considered a maverick in India, she has consistently broken new ground as choreographer, creating works...

Andrea Miller is a US-based choreographer, creative director, and the founder of the internationally renowned multidisciplinary organisation GALLIM . Working across dance, film, fashion, and the visual arts, Andrea is known for her exploration of the essential elements of human behaviour and the alchemy of human expression through the medium of movement and performance. Andrea is a Guggenheim, Sad...

Shobana Jeyasingh CBE is a London-based choreographer. Born in Chennai, India, Shobana trained in Bharata Natyam (the classical dance of Tamil Nadu) and read English Literature before founding her eponymous company in 1989. Since then, she has created over 60 critically acclaimed works for stage, screen, and out and indoor sites, ranging from Palladian monasteries in Venice to contemporary fountai...

Florence Peake is a London-based artist who has been making solo and group performance works intertwined with an extensive visual art practice since 1995. Presenting work internationally and across the UK in galleries, theatres and the public realm, she is known for an approach which is at once sensual and witty, expressive and rigorous, political and intimate. Florence explores notions of materia...

Dollie Henry MBE is recognised as one of the most formidable exponents of artistic and creative jazz dance and theatre dance in the UK and globally. Over the past 40 years, she has led a respected career as a performer, choreographer, theatre director, creative jazz artist, working on diverse projects in the West End, film, and TV, as well as in concert dance, jazz theatre, cabaret and the commerc...

Katrín Hall is an Icelandic choreographer and artistic director. She started dancing at a young age with Iceland Dance Company, before moving to Germany to tour internationally with the legendary Cologne-based company Tanzforum. In 1996, Katrín returned to Iceland Dance Company to take up the position of Artistic Director. In this role, she placed a strong emphasis on collaborating with Icelandic...

Siobhan Davies is a contemporary dance pioneer who has witnessed and contributed to the development of the British dance scene over the past 50 years. Having originally studied visual arts, Siobhan discovered contemporary dance in 1967, when she began to take classes with the Contemporary Dance Group, which later became London Contemporary Dance Theatre. In 1969, she started performing with the co...

While growing up in Freiburg in South Germany, Joy Alpuerto Ritter started dancing at the Ballettschule Armin Krain, and learned Philippine Folk Dance in the cultural dance group led by her mother. After training at the Palucca School in Dresden, she started working as a freelance dancer in Berlin—her current base—and learnt urban dance styles such as hip hop and voguing. In 2011, Joy joined Cirqu...

Ceyda Tanc is Brighton, UK-based choreographer. After studying dance at the University of Roehampton, she spent four months at The State Turkish Conservatoire for Music and Folk Dance in Izmir to train in Zeybek and Denizli, the styles of her heritage. On her return to the UK, Ceyda founded her eponymous company, and started to create a body of contemporary dance work with influences from Turkish...

Sonia Sabri's eponymous company is one of the leading contemporary South Asian dance & music organisations in the UK. She has an international reputation for presenting classical North Indian Kathak dance in a contemporary context without diluting its integrity. Her fresh, new style of Kathak was developed by reinventing it from within, stretching its limits, and generating socially and politicall...

Camilla Greenwell is a London-based dance photographer. She has worked with numerous high-profile dancers, companies, and venues, including the Barbican, Sadler’s Wells, Candoco Dance Company, and Rambert, to name a few, for who she creates unique imagery informed by her interest in people and the stories they tell. Outside of dance, Camilla has also photographed for publications such as The Guard...