phase 1: 2025

Meet the cohort

• 

  Bronwen Wilson Rashad

  Image by Rocio Chacon

  “I am investigating how you can help a community find its dance, for the purposes it seeks. I want to see if social and folk dance forms can help us understand how to build communities that are ready and resilient for the fight for our collective future. A dance craze with a purpose, with something to say.”

• 

  Chisato Minamimura

  Image by Mark Pickthall

  “As a Deaf choreographer, I’ll be exploring the intersection of climate awareness and accessibility through my practice. I’ll begin to develop Deafscapes of Gaia, a new movement-based interpretation of human-in-nature experiences using visual soundscapes. Beginning with the theme of Water, I’ll create inclusive, sensorial choreography highlighting nature’s fragility and resilience.”

• 

  Emma Lewis-Jones

  Image by MM Whawell

  “I will study unison, exploring the extent to which irregularity and failure are intrinsic qualities of the foundational dance tool. I’m curious about unison’s dizzying impact on spectator and performer alike, but also it’s flaws and limitations in the context of research-lead contemporary performance practice.”

• 

  Eric Scutaro

  “I am exploring how to develop my first choreographed performance, using the symbolism of the phoenix to embody resilience, transformation, and non-binary identity through Waacking and Hip-Hop dance, transitioning from freestyle activism to staged storytelling.” 

• 

  Esme Benjamin

  Image by Serafina Pang

  “This research investigates the queer mixed-heritage body as a borderland to develop a practice-of-disorder and choreographic methodology. Exploring sites of disorder through the spine (physically and symbolically) and the borders of movement, mark-making and free-writing, to re-define the borderland from a perceived place of burden to a place of possibility.”

• 

  Freya Stokka

  Image by Guy Bellingham

  “I am going to use counterbalance and counterweight to research the act of falling. I’m curious about how it impacts the performer and the audience, and how this changes if the audience, or the performer are from a marginalised group.”

• 

  Izzy Brittain

  Image by Coralie Datta

  “I will research new work The Smalls; a fun, fascinating, interactive arts experience for small people and their grown-ups. Merging dance, poetry, soil science, storytelling and song. Inviting audiences to wriggle through a journey into a teaspoon of topsoil, bringing the weird and wonderful microworld of soil animals to life.“ 

• 

  Maiya Leeke

  Image by Courtney Lowe

  “How far can I dream if my body and wheelchair are suspended in the air? I will be researching fluidity, weightlessness, and connection when my body and wheelchair are held in aerial suspension. My desire is to further unlock a movement language in the air that I don’t have access to whilst dancing on the ground.”

• 

  Neve Harrington

  Image by Christa Holka

  “My research will sit between dance, visual arts, craft and coding to explore ways that creative coding and choreography might interact to create a hybrid performance that I’m provisionally calling a “digital quilt”. The research will underpin how the project might progress, answering some known unknowns and inevitably revealing as yet unknown possibilities which are made possible only through doing.”

• 

  Oluwaseun Olayiwola

  Image by Richard Moorhouse

  “My research is two-pronged: firstly, to form a personal archive of artists that combine the poetic and the choreographic, and secondly, to use the learning from that archive to augment my own studio dance practice entitled; ‘Radical Wonder. Serious Play’.” 

• 

  Payal Ramchandani

  Image by Sharad Sharma

  “I’m exploring how Indian classical dance can serve as a movement-oriented response to systemic biases like casteism and colourism through a new work called ‘Footprints in Ash’ (working title). I’m curious about how power and exclusion are held in the body. This research seeks to push the form beyond tradition to challenge hierarchies through sound, space, and presence.”

• 

  Ray Young

  Image by Rosie Powell

  “My research will be an inquiry into the transformative power of social dance as a medium for healing, ancestral connection and inclusivity.  It will consider what might emerge from the convergence of formal, instinctual and communal movement to shift past trauma towards joy.“

• 

  Roberta Jean

  Image by Jonathan Webb

  “This research aims to explore predictions about the future of movement and choreographic practice, focusing on the impact of technology, the environment, and culture. I will specifically examine the potential benefits, limitations, and challenges of developing a therapeutic relationship with AI. For example, what might we feel comfortable sharing with a non-human entity that we wouldn’t share with one another? ”

• 

  Sarah Shorten

  Image by Marcus Way

  “I’m interested in how a professional adult dancer and young child can work as equals away from traditional studio settings – I sense these often confine the child. In general, I don’t want site choreography to be devoid of children, which doesn’t match the world around us.“

• 

  Tim Lo

  Image by Trans Portraits UK

  “My research is into multi-modal dance theatrical installation exploring themes of queerness, migration, roots and home. The main inquiries include: Interweaving of British life and Chinese heritage; Challenging choreographic approaches to music through spoken language, vocalisations and body percussion; Developing improvisational score as performance; Creating ensemble touring framework with changeable cast; Installation creating and performance sharing in varied settings/venues.“

• 

  Viviana Rocha

  Image by Serafina Pang

  “My research investigates the conditions for, and integration of, K.R.U.M.P.’s Get Off and Flamenco’s Duende into a new choreographic language. I study how these forms of heightened expression, embedded in form and rooted in feeling, can collaborate with images both created and pre-existing as a method of exploration and unspoken co-creation.“