DanceEast CEO is awarded Honorary Fellowship

Brendan Keaney, Artistic Director/CEO of the charity DanceEast, has attended the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre to receive an Honorary Fellowship made by Goldsmiths, University of London, where Brendan studied in the 1970’s.

The award was in recognition of Brendan’s service to the UK dance industry and dance education.

In his acceptance speech at the ceremony, Brendan said, “Goldsmiths was a life-changing  experience for me. It was an amazing hothouse of ideas. I met fantastic people, some of whom became lifelong friends.

Most critically, I think it was the first time in my life I genuinely experienced confidence, and that was because people I respected seemed to respect me. It was that confidence that made me believe that I could translate aspirations into reality, and that I could and should become a dancer.”  

Brendan has previously described himself as “Remarkably unremarkable”  with a “properly working-class” background. He is dyslexic. “Dance felt like the perfect job for me. It is, however, a great sense of frustration that although we now acknowledge and understand so much more about neurodiversity and the importance of creative thinking in growing our economy, subjects like dance and drama remain marginalised on the schools’ curriculum.”   

Brendan joined DanceEast in 2013 after a highly successful and varied career in the UK dance industry.  He began working as a dancer in 1979. Before joining DanceEast in 2013 his career had shifted into management and leadership roles working at Arts Council England and then as Director of Greenwich Dance.