Name: Helen Calcutt
Company:
Dance Level: Experienced
Bio
Helen Calcutt is an award-winning choreographer, movement director, and poet whose practice centres the body as the primary site of language. Her choreography redefines how language is authored and experienced, placing her at the forefront of cross-disciplinary performance in the UK. She creates movement for stage, screen, site and specific productions, ranging from intimate showcases to large-scale ensemble casts. She is Artistic Director of the dance-theatre company Beyond Words.
Helen’s choreographic work spans theatre, television, site-responsive performance, and live production, with commissions from Birmingham Royal Ballet (Curated by Carlos), Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, Total Insight Theatre (When I Was 10, dir. Kieran Vyas), Def Motion, Apple T.V. (Three Poems) Midlands Actors Theatre (Descent, The Fountain of Light, I’d do It All Again (touring)), and a solo rendition of T.S. Eliot’s ‘Marina’ performed at the Southbank Centre as part of the Poetry International Festival.
She has performed and collaborated with Dundu (Giants of Light) Sonia Sabri Company (Sharing the Light), Autin Dance Theatre (Little Amal, the Big Walk), Akeim Toussaint Buck (OKAN), SEH Company (She Swims), and was a leading performing artist as part of the Commonwealth Games Opening Ceremony, 2022.
Helen is the creator of the Hypha Method, a pioneering system of text-to-dance translation informing research and performance across both dance and literary fields. Her practice is funded by Arts Council England, the Society of Authors, and One Dance UK. Her radical new dance adaptation of Max Porter’s Grief Is the Thing with Feathers received a major touring grant in 2025, and will tour internationally from Spring 2026.
Helen is also an activist and speaker. She was awarded a career-wide Honorary Doctor of Letters in 2023 from Loughborough University, acknowledging her mental health advocacy and outstanding contribution to the arts.
Dance Style: Cuban Salsa,Jazz,Large cast movement,Movement Direction
Work Context: commercials,community,dance theatre,devised theatre,film,Live Art/ Performance Art,Television
Personal Contact
Telephone: 07746505010
Credits
2026
WHEN I WAS 10 TOUR
Adam Tulloch and Kieran Vyas, January 2026
Supporting the staging and tour of ‘When I was 10’, directed by Kieran Vyas and produced by Adam Tulloch.
2025
FOUNTAIN OF LIGHT (R&D)
MIDLANDS ACTORS THEATRE, June 2025
The research and development of a new site-specific work by Midlands Actors Theatre, directed by David Allen. Helen devised an organic movement language through ensemble choreography and characterisation to physically re-imagine the script, expanding and illustrating the narrative. Performed at FABRIC studios and Huntington Hall.
2025
WHEN I WAS 10 Research & Creation
Adam Tulloch and Kieran Vyas, June 2025
The creation of bespoke gestural choreographic language to translate the emotional and narrative content of Total Insight Theatre’s powerful new verbatim theatre work ‘When I was 10’, directed by Kieran Vyas and produced by Adam Tulloch. Drawing on the principles of the Hypha Method, Helen worked to build a playful physical vocabulary that echoed the rhythms, themes, and emotional arcs of the script.
2025 - 2026
GRIEF IS THE THING (WITH FEATHERS)
BEYOND WORDS, September 2025 - May 2026
Grief’ is a groundbreaking dance adaptation of Max Porter’s novel, directed & choreographed by Helen Calcutt. This creation began as research into the development of a new movement language – a way of precisely and consistently ‘speaking’ words through embodied forms. The result, was the imagining of a “poignant and vital” (One Dance UK) reimagining of a timeless text, seeing a five-strong cast take audiences on a journey of despair, humour, and resilience in a highly charged and controversial new dance-theatre work.
Read more: https://www.beyondwordsdancetheatre.com/
2021
'Descent' with Midland's Actor's Theatre
Movement Director and Choreographer for a site-specific production exploring the psychological effects of war and terror, and a mythical ‘descent’ into healing and redemption.
2020
'Descent' trailer, for Midland's Actor's Theatre
Featuring Shelley Eva Haden.
2020
Hounslow Action for Youth, Made in LDN (2020)
As a dancer/performer/choreographer. A digital, collaborative project on which I responded to, choreographed, and performed three solo dance works in response to poetry written by young female members of the HAY outreach programme. The performances were directed and broadcast by Apple on social media platforms.
2020
'Time'.
Private choreographic commission, responding to voice through movement. Voice work by Cillian Murphy.
2020
Curated by Carlos (postponed due to the pandemic.) Birmingham Royal Ballet (2021 /postponed)
A live performance of dance and poetry, seeing professional dancers spontaneously respond to verbalised and written audience stimuli. Performance creator and performer.
2019
'Naked'
Movement and dance re-working of a poem by the same title, produced by Red Storm Productions.
2018
‘I’D DO IT ALL AGAIN’ – Midland’s Actors Theatre (2018)
Movement direction on an original, community theatre production as part of a creative outreach performance toured in dementia care homes and day centres across the UK. Funded by ACE
2018
THE DARLSTON DOG FIGT’ – Regional Voice Theatre (2017-18)
Movement Direction, fight choreography and dance choreography for an original three-cast theatre production performed at The Arena Theatre. Funded by ACE.
2017
‘STAY’ - Birmingham Weekender Festival 2017
A contemporary dance piece blending movement with sign language. Performed by dance group ‘Beyond Words’.