Sadé Alleyne with Alleyne Dance

Hong Kong Performing Arts Expo

Alleyne Dance (AD) is a UK-based company founded in 2014 by award-winning twin sisters Kristina and Sadé Alleyne. Their choreography blends West African, Caribbean, Hip Hop, and Kathak into dynamic, powerful, and graceful performances.

AD excels in performance, participation, and development, winning accolades like the 2023 Black Female Icons of Lewisham and Best Independent Company at the National Dance Awards. Their works, including A Night’s Game, The Other Side of Me, (Re)United, BONDED, and Far From Home, have been showcased globally.

As winners of the Bench 2019 Women of Colour Commission, they created the outdoor work POWER on 2Faced Dance Company. In 2022, they choreographed on the Martha Graham Company and Phoenix Dance Theatre, and created a mass Dance of over 100 community dancers for Lewisham’s London Borough of Culture.

Education is central to AD’s mission, with bespoke workshops and classes offered worldwide. During the pandemic, they launched the Alleyne Sisters Workout and an annual mentorship program for early career artists.
Currently, AD has choreographed and directed ALL TOO WELL with the Tiroler Landestheater & Orchestra GmbH  in Innsbruck, Austria.

Sarah Blanc with Moxie Brawl

Krokus Festival

Moxie Brawl is an award winning spicy inclusive dance theatre company who make work that your mum would love. Their work has been described as ‘wholly absorbing’, ‘endearingly witty’ and ‘gloriously shambolic’.

Moxie Brawl creates work for the outdoors, indoors and places where dance shouldn’t be. Led by Sarah Blanc, they have been making work since 2014 and have performed at and been supported by organisations such as Southbank Centre, The Place, New Wolsey Theatre, Contact, artsdepot, Cambridge Junction, Candoco Dance Company and Oxford Playhouse.

Their work is politically driven and uses storytelling to talk about important global issues.They have got children and their adults believing in their collective voice and protesting outside the theatre after each show (Punk Alley). Raising awareness of topics such as the lack of representation of women in history (History Of Ireland; Jane), the ridiculousness of beauty standards (My Feminist Boner) and global warming (Windibops). Moxie Brawl is passionate about diverse bodies and creating creative practises and experiences that represent and invite all ages, classes and abilities onto an equal playing field.

Tim Casson with Casson & Friends

Yokohama International Performing Arts Meeting

Tim Casson is a record-breaking British choreographer and the director of Casson & Friends – creating ‘People Powered Performance’: playful, joyful and accessible participatory projects that bring the joy of dance to the public in exciting new ways.

Since 2012, C&F’s projects & performances have toured extensively nationally and internationally to theatres, festivals and public spaces in over 10 countries, including best-known work The Dance WE Made which is in its 13th year. Currently an associate artist at Lincoln Arts Centre, Tim also works as a guest lecturer, dramaturg, coach, and is a trained facilitator of Lego® Serious Play®.

Courtney Deyn with BULLYACHE

Tanz im August

Courtney Deyn is a British-Bajan, queer, working class choreographer, musician, teacher and director. He is half of the music duo and dance company BULLYACHE with Jacob Fairclough. They have been making interdisciplinary performance work since 2021.

BULLYACHE spans theatre, performance, dance, music, make up and film. They are “like a live music video crossed with avant-garde dance theatre – and utterly steeped in young queer British culture” (Guardian). They imagine themselves as Pina Bausch cosplaying as Dua Lipa in their parents’ make up.

Tamsin Fitzgerald with 2Faced Dance Company

Festival Quartiers Danses

2Faced Dance is an all-male contemporary dance company based in Hereford. They make innovative, distinctive and aspirational dance works and perform across the UK and internationally.

2Faced Dance began in 1999 when Tamsin Fitzgerald returned home from training at the Northern School of Contemporary Dance in Leeds. Realising the lack of access to high quality dance opportunities for young people growing up in rural Herefordshire, she decided to embrace the landscape that the region provided her. Since its early formation, 2Faced Dance Company has grown into one of the UK’s most toured contemporary dance companies.

Today, 2Faced Dance tours extensively across the UK and the globe telling new and original stories, working with culturally diverse artists, advocating on behalf of the wider dance sector, and challenging and inspiring the different communities they meet.

Sara Macqueen with Linden Dance Company

Festival Quartiers Danses

Linden Dance Company is an innovative professional dance company based in Birmingham, creating passionate and exciting new works.

Directed by Christopher Radford and Sara Macqueen, the company champions positivity, individuality and free expression and blends positive physical and mental wellbeing training throughout all areas of its work. In recognition of this commitment to creating safe and inclusive spaces, Sara was awarded the 2024 One Dance UK award for Health & Wellbeing.

Linden Dance Company specialises in theatre tours, outdoor festivals and events. Their work is emotionally engaging, centered around current topics that resonate with society, and performed with blazing physicality in the movement styles of Contemporary and Afro-fusion dance. They collaborate with mentors from outside of the dance sector to diversify their work and integrate different art forms, such as spoken word, poetry, and music.

Donna Meierdiercks with Alexander Whitley Dance Company

Hong Kong Performing Arts Expo

Originally from the U.S., Donna Meierdiercks has been the producer for Alexander Whitley Dance Company since 2012. She is also an adjunct faculty member for the Roger Williams University London Dance programme (US/UK).

Other past freelance projects include producing the dance-digital work, Blood (Royal Opera House ROH2 commission) and INSIDE for Jean Abreu Dance and managing Freddie Opoku-Addaie’s Royal Opera House ROH2 commission Absent Made Present and Hofesh Shechter’s deGeneration tour. Prior to that Donna was Dance and Performance Event Co-ordinator at the South Bank Centre and Artist Fellowship Coordinator for the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts (US). Donna danced professionally from 1986 – 2002 and was co-Artistic Director and Executive Director of Groundwerx Dance Theatre.

Jamaal O’Driscoll with O’Driscoll Collective

Festival TransAmériques

Jamaal O’Driscoll has been a part of the dance community since 2010, practising a variety of dance styles and developing a strong technique within the hip-hop style of breaking. In 2019, Jamaal created O’Driscoll Collective to give back to the community, facilitating conversation through movement, continuing to teach and deliver performances in various settings.

Over the last five years, Jamaal’s practice has focused on making choreographical work in indoor and outdoor settings in connection with community engagement. The majority of Jamaal’s work is to combat mental health and celebrate individuality and freedom through movement.

Lydia Wharf with BirdGang Ltd

CINARS

Lydia Wharf is an independent producer working in contemporary and hip hop dance theatre, tending to specialise in practices of care, access and inclusion. She works directly with a range of artists and companies, most recently BirdGang Ltd, Dance Umbrella, Julie Cunningham & Company, Stuart Waters and Northern Rascals.

Lydia has a long, twisty relationship with dance; as performer, writer, facilitator and producer. She reviews regularly for Gramilano and Springback Magazine and was writer in residence at the Festival, Varna in 2023 and Tanec Praha in 2024. Earlier this year she co-designed and hosted the Art of Dialogue, a series of discursive events as part of the Czech Dance Platform and co-produced the Commons Festival for Stanley Arts.

Elsabet Yonas with Metal & Water

Festival TransAmériques

Elsabet Yonas am a movement artist and dance producer inspired by the extensive potentials that art holds in building communities. She holds over 15 years of experience working across performance, choreography and movement direction in live and digital spaces. Her work has been commissioned by Bernie Grant Arts Centre, The Place, Arts Admin, LIFT, Breakin’ Convention, Zinnema & Tempo Festival amongst others.

Over the years, Elsabet has honed her experience in working with micro, localised community groups, building her practice around people, space and connections. She has spent the last decade regularly facilitating in a range of participatory art settings whilst building her portfolio as an independent artist.

Elsabet’s personal commitment to widening pathways into dance and carving sustainable careers for dance practitioners led her to supporting the creation & development of Metal & Water, a new London-based creative studio for dance founded by Nancy May Roberts. Together, they create & produce live, digital & participatory dance at the leading edge of new practice.