The Place announces Choreodrome Artists 2025

Every summer, The Place, London’s leading centre for dance and performance, is excited to welcome a new annual cohort of Choreodrome artists to its building for two-week long residencies, to research and work on new ideas.

Choreodrome is one of the most important dance development programmes in the UK, enabling artists to explore new territories and have access to tailored support. It is part of The Place’s range of artist development opportunities designed to nurture talent and facilitate the growth of independent artists’ creativity and sustainability. The 17 artists selected this year are researching ideas across a wide range of practices, from Hip Hop and South Asian dance practices to circus, and playing with ideas around poetry, ancestry and identity, generational conflict, family ties and human relationships in all their forms.

Speaking of the programme, Eddie Nixon Artistic Director of The Place says: “Creating something new and surprising takes time and resources. Choreodrome is where we make room for artists to explore their ideas without any pressure to arrive at answers. It’s a place for choreographers to discover the right questions.”

The creation of new dance thrives best in collaboration, and as always, The Place works with a number of partners and experts in their field, in order to best support a wide range of artists from different practices and with different needs.

This year there are three focused booster packs offering additional support for artists working in particular focus areas:

Kloé Dean, a choreographer, movement director, and performing artist with expertise in Hip Hop, Funk and Street dance styles, and a Work Place Artist at The Place, will be supporting the Hip Hop Booster Pack. Artists Oluwatosin Omotosho and Gary Clarke will receive in-studio creative support.

"I am really excited to be supporting the next generation of theatre makers. As someone who has gone through years of artist development, including Choreodrome, it is an honour to be able to provide the guidance, knowledge and empowerment I have gained through my journey of making, to these two artists.”

The Knowledge Exchange Booster Pack, funded by an additional grant from the Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF), aims to bring together artists, researchers and communities to create a lively space for innovation, experimentation and collaboration. The supported artists will be paired with a researcher from the London Contemporary Dance School faculty whose practice aligns with their interests. During their residencies, artists Christopher Matthews and Zaki Bin Musa will be working with Dr Efrosini Protopapa and Dr Andrew Sanger respectively, as peer experts who will help enrich the research dimension and documentation of their projects. 

“We have entered an exciting phase as an organisation, expanding our research and knowledge exchange activities with academic colleagues, public programmes teams and professional staff. This initiative as part of Choreodrome shows our commitment to collaborative artistic research and our interest in supporting the development of new choreographic methodologies and approaches to documentation.” – Christina Elliott, Head of Programming & Producing at The Place

 A new collaboration for 2025, Bradford Arts Centre (formerly known as Kala Sangam), an arts hub in Bradford specialising in South Asian arts and culture, is supporting artist Divya Ravi with the City of Culture booster pack aligning with Bradford 2025 City of Culture.

“We are really excited to be working with The Place on Choreodrome this year and to be able to offer the City of Culture Booster pack. Divya's work, combining Bharatanatyam and poetry, is fascinating and unique and we are really looking forward to supporting her residency at our newly refurbished venue.” - Alex Corwin, Programme Manager

 To all Choreodrome artists The Place offers a package of support which includes:

• a commission of £2,500
• 1-2 weeks of studio time
• Two producing support meetings
• Creative feedback
• Networking and introduction opportunities for new partners

A few of the artists selected this year are further developing promising ideas they have successfully tested in front of audiences at Resolution festival. The 17 artists and collectives who were awarded this year’s Choreodrome Research Residencies are:

Christopher Matthews - a choreographer, performer and visual artist, his choreographic projects explore spectatorship, gender, queerness, intersections of the classical and contemporary, pop culture and dance histories. His works have been presented internationally, including the V&A, Sadler’s Wells, Art Night, Reykjavik Dance Festival, and Villa Empain.

what is love, don’t hurt me builds on the concept of a performance lecture, using a hybrid of dance, text, and audio-visual to explore how queer romantic partnerships have shaped dance history. Christopher will be considering partnerships such as Cunningham and Cage, Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane, and Ted Shawn and Barton Mumaw, exploring how movement can articulate ideas that words cannot.

Muhammed Zaki Bin Musa - a multi-disciplinary creative practitioner and performance artist, driven by a profound fascination with identity, technology, and the art of narrative storytelling. Originating from Singapore, Zaki's diverse background encompasses their queer, Muslim, and Indonesian heritage.

Queer Visions of the Future is an exploration of queer bodies, dance styles, and movement, with generative AI as a co-creator. It serves as a critical lens on the idea of technology as neutral, illuminating its potential to both shape and reflect censorship societal norms and biases. Drawing inspiration from my fascination of futurology, the project envisions a future where queer identities not only endure, but flourish.

Oluwatosin Omotosho - a Nigerian-born, London-based artist whose movement is rooted in Hip-hop and Street Dance, including Waacking, House, Locking, Popping, Vogue, with influences from Contemporary, Afro, Jazz and Krump. She is also a poet, blending poetry with movement in her work.

Oluwatosin is developing a dance theatre piece that explores the broader theme of societal expectations and the complexities of self-identity. Through the lens of Nigerian culture, the work focuses on a woman in her 30s who faces judgment from four aunties for not conforming to traditional norms around marriage, motherhood, and career, delving into themes of generational conflict, judgment, and personal freedom.

Gary Clarke - a movement artist born in East London, with his movement language rooted in the nuances of hip hop social dances and KRUMP. Gary co-founded the collective, UPG, which was formed in Birmingham in 2019. The crew champions identity and raw creativity within dance.

Gary’s project delves into the cultural significance of *The Cypher* within Hip Hop dance, exploring its role in energy exchange, communication, and community-building. Deeply rooted in the traditions of Hip Hop Dance Culture, the work highlights cyphering as a universal language—one that transcends boundaries, building connections between dancers and music lovers across various contexts. 

Divya Ravi - a Bharatanatyam dancer, choreographer and educator, her choreographic practice is driven by the desire to transform poetic and abstract ideas into evocative and experiential movement. Divya’s critically acclaimed solo works have been presented to full houses and sold-out theatres in India, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Kuwait, UK and Europe.

Divya will develop Abandhana, a multidisciplinary dance-theatre work exploring the struggles, emotional labour and resilience of Theris (Buddhist Nuns), into a full-length work, drawing parallels between their unapologetic choice ‘renounce’ and the nuanced choice of contemporary women, to ‘renegotiate’ all that impedes.

Rose Sall Sao - a Dutch-Senegalese independent dance artist based in London, Rose has performed with JV2, Alesandra Seutin / Vocab Dance, Fubunation, Gecko Dance Theatre, Tom Dale Company, Tribe Dance Company, Seke Chimutengwende and others. She is a co-founder of Nomad Dance Collective, with whom she performed at several festivals in Europe and Ecuador.

Not Really Dead, Not Really Dreaming is a deeply personal exploration looking at poetry and improvisation as liberatory practices. Rooted in the writings of Audre Lorde, Maya Angelou and Birago Diop the piece investigates the intersections of poetry, voice, movement and ancestry to envision personal and collective transformation.

Shannelle ‘Tali’ Fergus - working within the dance community and industry across performance, choreography, teaching and talent management, Tali is founder, producer and lead facilitator of identity. ideas. industry. (iii), a programme and method designed to encourage dance artists’ curiosity about their creativity and the industry at large, through movement, conversation and literature. 

Tali will be working on an improvised ensemble work, building upon monthly freestyle sessions held since 2021, developing sound curation, lighting design, formality and composition for an audience while retaining the safety, consciousness and quality found in the sessions.

Head Over Wheels - a collective of multidisciplinary artists (Jonny Leitch and Tilly Lee-Kronick), primarily focusing on creating circus work, dedicated to challenging misconceptions around disability, and breaking the stereotypes of what a ‘circus body’ should look or move like. As an emerging company they strive to subvert the trends of glamorous and sensational circus, by making domestic and relatable work that can resonate with audiences on a person level.

Mummy Whats Wrong With That Mans Legs? is a playful and joyous new children’s circus show on the absurdity of how difficult it is for some to navigate the everyday world.  Two performers disrupt the norm with non-typical bodies on stage to shatter barriers and create a space of curiosity to tell universal stories of disability. 

Orla Hardie - a London-based choreographer and dance artist, her choreography has been showcased across the UK and awarded internationally. At the heart of her practice is a fascination with contrasts — light and dark, humour and unease, reality and imagination.

Following a successful R&D, Orla returns to her surreal balloon-bodied figures -The LoonHeads, continuing to explore the complexities of the human mind and emotional landscape, where nothing is black and white but layered with contradictions.

Bea Bidault - a dance artist originally from Barcelona, her work intricately explores human connection and identity through captivating, fictional, visual, and sensory performances. Her multifaceted career encompasses choreography, performance, and movement research. Her choreographic creations have been performed across the UK and Spain.

Les Nuages is a mesmerizing dance performance that delves into the intricate human emotions of loneliness and the yearning for connection, exploring how our perceptions of life — shaped by a blend of real experiences and imagined realities — influence our emotional landscape.

Darcy Wallace - a British-Australian choreographer and contemporary dance artist for film and live performance, has choreographed film work for artists and brands internationally. Her practice engages with a lot of different activities that emerge from her identity as a dancer. She works to draw knowledge from the body and the history it holds through lived experiences, encounters as a dancer and through information that has been passed on. Her practice works to place this body of information into performance and film contexts that offer a place for critical thinking and feeling as a viewer and performer.

MOTHERTONGUE is an ongoing movement research and performance project that explores and interrogates motherhood in the independent dance sector, challenging the expectations of (m)others and highlighting the lack of recognition of the maternal experience.

Becky Namgauds - a multidisciplinary artist based in London, working with choreography, performance, and visual art for stage and screen. Motivated by feminist and ecofeminist themes, she often works in direct contact with nature and landscape. Her practice explores giving form to feeling, expanding expressions of the self, and challenging perceptions of the "feminine."

Fannying About is a new solo performance born from the creative development of her full-length work THE HEAT. Inspired by a playful, absurd exploration of domesticity and time wasting with acclaimed performer Yen-Ching Lin, this piece embraces the unproductive, celebrating curiosity and inefficiency in a world obsessed with productivity. Dance artists Masumi Saito and Steph McMann will join Lin as collaborators for the research.

Max Revell – with his roots in popping and a passion for storytelling through movement,

Max uses the potential of street dances to narrate stories in theatrical contexts.

The Party speaks to the ache of separation and the vulnerability of living with what is lost, and marks Max Revell’s first ensemble work and his initial endeavour towards a full-length production. As an emerging choreographer, this residency will provide Max the opportunity to refine his artistic instinct, storytelling skills, receive constructive feedback, and continue to refine his movement language, at the intersection of popping, contemporary dance and physical theatre.

Christopher Reyes - a British-Filipino Dance Artist and curator, Chris has established himself as one of London’s distinct hiphop theatre makers and an up-and-coming community and cultural leader, curating new creative spaces for grassroot artists, and those from under-represented communities. Renowned for his award-winning immersive production CARAVAN Chris was nominated for Choreographer of the Year by the Arts Foundation UK Awards in 2019.

Chris’ project aims to explore new cultural work that delves into the untold narratives of the Filipino experience. By fusing indigenous and Westernised futuristic conceptual themes through movement, sound, and visuals, his goal is to develop creative ideas that shape a live performance fostering empowerment and a deeper discovery of Filipino identity beyond its colonial roots.

Jennifer Jackson - an award winning British-Bolivian artist based in Manchester. Her practice is multidisciplinary, encompassing movement, dance, martial arts, theatre-making, and co-creation. Her work exists at the meeting point of performance and the excitement of a sports spectacle. She is particularly interested in the liveness of the sports arena as a transformative space that deals in the fatigue and resurrection of bodies and ideas.

Jennifer's Choreodrome Project is THANK HEAVEN FOR LITTLE GRRRLS, a dance theatre performance for a cast of girls aged 8-12 years. Blending choreography, live art, and construction, the girls will build an edifice with power tools, live and in real time, in a metaphor for an imagined future. Inspired by the devastating statistics that girls fall out of love with STEM subjects from the age of 11 onwards, and the Junkyard/Adventure Playground Movement, the work challenges how we see girls, asking questions about risk, childhood and control.

Seyi Adelekun - an interdisciplinary artist of Yoruba-Nigerian heritage from London, whose practice explores the role of eco-spirituality within environmental social justice. As a world-builder, Seyi weaves together installation, movement, performance, and sound as storytelling tools to archive and share ancestral knowledge and indigenous practices rooted in relationship with the land.

Seyi will be further developing her solo performance titled I Myself Do Nothing, the Tree Spirits Heal All Through Me. The performance amplifies the voices of Black femme healers and explores animism within African spirituality by embodying Aja, the Yoruba Orisha of the forest and mother of all herbal healers, through dance, ritual, and storytelling.

Samara Langham - a mixed Japanese-British artist working with dance, choreography and sound. Her work centres sensation and intimacy, unfolding within dreamlike worlds. Samara’s quality is moth-like–both transparent and potent. Her work SKYE ZONE Burial premiered at Resolution Festival 2025 and will be performed at Thames Festival later the same year. Haku toured to Théâtre Paris-Villette in 2024.

Samara will be further developing SKYE ZONE Burial, deepening research of choreographic language and processes to magnify the layers of physicality and imagery, stepping further into the work’s shadow. The work explores the unconscious and hidden parts of ourselves, with dancers like creatures from a dream - not human nor entirely animal.

More information about the artists at The Place can be found here: https://theplace.org.uk/choreodrome-artists-2024