MA/MFA Choreography

Gary Lambert trained at the Royal Ballet School and worked with the Royal Ballet as a graduate. In 1983 he joined London Festival Ballet (now English National Ballet) dancing for two years, working with choreographers Glen Tetley, Alvin Ailey, Sir Frederick Ashton, Roland Petit and Christopher Bruce before moving on to Rambert Dance Company in 1985. Whilst with Rambert, he worked and danced in works by Richard Alston, Merce Cunningham, Glen Tetley, Robert North, Ian Spink, Michael Clarke, Christopher Bruce, Lucinda Childs, Siobhan Davies, Ashley Page and Laurie Booth, receiving national and international acclaim for his performances as a dancer. In addition to dancing, he has choreographed works for Rambert Dance Company and Phoenix Dance Company, where he was Assistant Artistic Director from 1993-96,  presenting  works in Phoenix Dance Company’s Repertory nationally and internationally, such as the Cultural Olympiad in Atlanta 1996. Other commissions include works for English National Ballet, Scottish Dance Theatre, Ricochet Dance Company, Loop Dance Company, Tambuka Dance Company (the National Contemporary Dance Company of Zimbabwe) Ffin Dance and Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance.

His independent roles such as choreographer, teacher and performer, led him to co-establish the company Small Axe in 1992, an Arts Council of England project funded Dance Company, with a national touring and educational profile. The company received acclaim for the work Cold Ground Drifting at the International Choreographic Competition in Groningen, the Netherlands in 1994, winning first prize. His collaborations include projects as a dancer and choreographers with the likes of artists such as Laurie Booth, Requair, Storm Garden, Actual Factual, 97-98 and Rosemary Butcher, Scan, 2001. In 1992 he choreographed Meantime for the BBC 2 Dance House Season, directed by Peter Mumford with music by John Mark Gowen. In 1994 his choreography and improvised performance Five Dances for the Five Floor Project was a response to Hans Peter Kuhn’s sound installation for Art Angel. In 1995 he choreographed Movements in 8 for Phoenix Dance Company, in collaboration with the Jazz composer Orphy Robinson and Artistic Director Maggie Morris.

In 1999 Gary presented XXL, an original digital site-specific performance work at the Arches Glasgow, commissioned by the Tramway in collaboration with DJ’s Carl Cox and Dave Clarke, setting an installation dance performance within a clubnite environment. Degrees of Freedom a solo work, commissioned by Edinburgh Dance Base was performed at the Edinburgh festival in 2004. It was performed again that year at Laban’s Bonnie Bird Theatre and again in 2005 at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, summer collection, at the Millennium Theatre, Cardiff and Paris. In 2010 the solo was re-worked for the Albany Theatre, Deptford as part of “Our Lives in Dance”, an evening of solo works by independent dance artists. Gary was previously Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Dance in 2004 at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance where he has worked since 1998, teaching Cunningham based technique, Choreography and creating commissioned works. He was Guest Artist at White Oak, Jacksonville University MFA programme in the USA. In 2012 he was appointed Creative Director at Tanz@Namedy, establishing a dance programme for the Princess Von Hohenzollern at Burg Namedy, Germany, presenting works by European and British artists. He was awarded the Howard Gilman Fellowship in 2013 by the Howard Gilman foundation, to undertake a MFA in Choreography at Jacksonville University, Florida, which he completed in 2015. He is currently engaged in developing new work in response to his research.

As a dancer, Zoi has worked with Kirstie Simson, Yvonne Rainer, Felix Ruckert and Siobhan Davies, among others. She launched her choreographic career in 2006 and her professional portofolio includes, among other works: Can You See Me? (2006), Dromi (2007), Limen (2007), Goddesses in Exile (2008), In The Process of … (2010), Little Creatures (2011), You May! (2012), The Chapter House (2014), Side Effects (2015), Peregrinus (2017), Vanishing Points (2018), When Pillars Evaporate; Work in Progress (2019).

She is the recipient of important UK choreographic awards such as the Robin Howard Foundation Award 2008, the Bonnie Bird Choreography Fund Award 2009 and the CFC Award 2010 by the Company of Angels, Sadler’s Wells and The Place, and has participated in Aerowaves, a well-renowned European Dance Platform. She has received several commissions (eg Greek National Ballet) and her works have been presented at venues/festivals such as: Fast Forward Festival 4, ROH2, Arnolfini, BE Festival, Lilyan Baylis, the Athens and Epidaurus Festival, the Kalamata International Dance Festival, Operaestate Veneto Festival at the Scala of Milan, Europe in Motion Festival and Springloaded at The Place.

She has participated in several international European Dance Research programs such as the Choreoroam, Big Intensive, Europe in Motion, and she is funded/commissioned by institutions such as the Arts Council England, the Hellenic Centre for theater and dance, the Onassis Cultural Centre, among others. She is a Research Fellow at the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in London and teaches internationally at institutions/festivals such as: Impulstanz Festival, Sasha Waltz Company, Independent Dance, National Dance Academy of Rome, Athens State School of Dance (KSOT) among others.

Her research is focused on notions of time and the passing of images. It reflects the direction of her practice away from the conventional theatre space and towards off-site installations and interactivity, investigates the qualities and conditions of spectatorship, and draws from the larger social for the development of choreographic activity.

For the 2019-2020 Academic year Otis was a Graduate Intern in Dance Technique and Programme Support at Trinity Laban after which he obtained an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy accreditation (AFHEA) before becoming a Lecturer in Dance from February 2021. He Teaches Classical Ballet, Cunningham based and fusion contemporary dance styles combining training methods explored spanning his fourteen-year career and currently teaches at Bird College and on the Centre for Advance Training programme at Trinity Laban.

Otis is currently engaged with CIE 7273 (Geneva) after re-joining the Company for the creation of Ever 2021 and the revival of Tarab. He is involved in various creative processes and re-staging’s maintaining a professional practice to inform his educational approach.

Since 2020, she has been leading the module Writing the Body that explores interdisciplinary and embodied approaches to writing for the MA Creative Practice at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance where she also supervises MA and MFA projects. This year, she will teach a 3-week intensive to MA Choreography students as well.

Vanio has worked extensively at Rose Bruford College since 2011 as the principal movement tutor in the BA European Theatre Arts and has contributed to other modules and supervised practical and written dissertations. She was recently appointed as Module Year Coordinator in the same course. She has convened the Research Methodologies unit at the MA Ensemble Theatre (2014 – 2018) and has coordinated the IRP projects for the MA Actor Performer Training (2021, 2022).

Vanio has taught physical and ensemble theatre at Goldsmiths (2009-2022) and has worked as a movement and dance tutor in various other Higher Education Institutions including LAMDA and Middlesex University.

After training as an actor and a dancer in Greece and the UK, she embarked on her Practice as research (PhD, Goldsmiths, 2013, funded by Greek State Institution of scholarships) into the Post-Grotowskian theatre tradition and Contact Improvisation as part of which she worked with the award-winning company Song of the Goat Theatre (Poland). She has studied internationally with various inspirational theatre and dance practitioners including Farm in the Cave (Czech Republic), Studio Matejka (Poland), Meg Stuart (UK), Nancy Stark Smith (UK/Spain), Charlie Morrissey (UK/Malta), Kirstie Simson (UK), and Simonetta Alessandri (UK). In 2022, Vanio became a Fellow of Higher Education Academy.

As a performer, she has worked for an eclectic mix of artists (Theatre Lab, Athletes of the Heart Lab, Song of the Goat Theatre, Angela Woodhouse, aswespeakproject, Nesreen Nabil Hussein). She has co-created with artist and dramatherapist Tania Batzoglou the performance ritual project titled CANDID that reflects on how female friendships evolve over time. She has led intergenerational projects for women that combine yoga, movement, and writing. Vanio’s work engages with issues of vulnerability, memory and candidness fusing physicality, video, autobiography and text into poetic, surreal and immersive environments and it has been shown in Greece, UK, Italy, Poland, Germany, Egypt and Lebanon.

Research Interests:

• Movement (somatic movement, Contact Improvisation, experiential anatomy, Laban/Bartenieff fundamentals, yoga, release-based dance, expressive movement, improvisation).
• Physical Theatre (Eastern European ensemble theatre; European dance theatre).
• Intersections between dance and theatre training and devising.
• History and Theory of 20th and 21st Century European and American performance practice.
• Critical perspectives: Phenomenology, ecology, feminism, postmodernism.
• Embodied approaches to moving and writing.
• Tools for practice as research (PaR) methodologies and critical reflective writing.

Qualifications And Background:

Education
2009-2013: Practice Based PhD: ‘Towards a practice of Attunement: An Incorporation of Elements from Song of the Goat Theatre and Contact Improvisation’ / Goldsmiths, University of London & Royal Central School of Speech and Drama

2008: Diploma in Dance / Birkbeck University
2007: MA Performance Making (Distinction) / Goldsmiths, University of London
2004: Diploma in Acting, Drama School of the Odeion Athinon / Athens, Greece

1999-2003: BA in Theatre Studies (First) / National and Kapodistrian University of Athens

Other teaching qualifications:
2022: Fellowship Higher Education Academy
2019: 200 hours Yoga Teacher Training (by Yoga on the Lane – Vinyasa flow yoga)

2017 – 18 Fellowship in Accessible Performance Practice (Rose Bruford College)
Movement tutor and movement director with D/deaf or disabled young artists Ensemble 2018 Train: Training Programme, GRAEAE.

Grants and awards:

2010 – 12: Grant by A.G. Leventis Foundation towards doctoral research

2009 – 12: Full-time scholarship by State Scholarship Foundation of Greece (IKY) towards doctoral research

2006 – 07: Full-time scholarship by State Scholarship Foundation of Greece (IKY) towards Master’s studies.

2000 – 01: ERASMUS- SOCRATES FREEMOVER scholarship (IKY) for attendance at the Theatre Studies Department (Paris VIII – Vincennes- St Denis) and Department of History of Arts (Universidad de Salamanca).

Stephen trained at Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance and began his professional career before graduation, working with Lloyd Newson, David Massingham and co-founding Triptych Dance Company as a choreographer.

After graduation, he began an apprenticeship with Rambert Dance Company before joining Diversions (now National Dance Company Wales).

Stephen began a long relationship with Mark Bruce Company, who he has worked with on many productions, as well as David Massingham Dance, Random Dance Co. (now Company Wayne McGregor,), Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures, V-Tol, Red Rain, Irish Modern Dance Theatre, English National Ballet and opera productions for ENO, ROH, Glyndebourne and Opera Glass Works.

Stephen has worked with many choreographers including Christopher Bruce, Matthew Hawkins, Richard Alston, Darren Ellis, Jo Fong, Seeta Patel, Etta Murfitt, Arthur Pita, Michael Keegan Dolan, Gaby Agis, Kate Flatt, Anthony van Laast and Alexandra Reynolds.

Theatre directors include Howard Davies (National Theatre), Stephen Pimlott (Apollo Theatre), Braham Murray and David Threlfall (Royal Exchange, Manchester), Robert La Page and Atom Egoyan.

Stephen was a dancer and principal understudy for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Bombay Dreams (original cast) and has also worked in theatre, film and TV as both actor and dancer.

In 2005, Stephen studied professional photography at London School of Communication and worked at Amberroom Studios before turning freelance. He continues to work as a photographer specialising in arts and creative editorial.

Before joining Trinity-Laban Stephen taught at Rambert School, Northern School of Contemporary Dance and London Studio Centre, as well as providing classes and workshops for professional companies to this day.

Becky also has a choreographic moving image practice, which seeks to deepen the screen application of dance practice. The choreographic concerns of the rhythm, pattern and dynamic flow of movement, are combined with a documentary practice to produce works that are a hybrid of the observed and the constructed. Her short films and installations have been shown at film festivals internationally. She was artist in residence at both Videodanza BA in Argentina and SHOOT Dance for Camera Festival in Sweden. Her feature documentary Turn Your F***ing Head was published by Routledge in 2014.

From 2010 to 2015 Becky worked in collaboration with fellow artist Lucy Cash under the company name of straybird, a platform for co-curated and co-directed projects. straybird developed and produced a number of innovative projects including the curation of the What If… and What Matters festivals at Siobhan Davies Studios, Small Matters and Stray Gifts (to be claimed by whoever shall find) at Dance Umbrella, two films for the Siobhan Davies Space (Seven Ways South and Walker), as well as What Matters, a short documentary for Arts Council England, which was shown as the opening film at SOTA 2012.

Becky teaches screendance and moving image practice at a range of instituions and is an associate artist with Blast Theory.

As a dancer, Zoi has worked with Kirstie Simson, Yvonne Rainer, Felix Ruckert and Siobhan Davies, among others. She launched her choreographic career in 2006 and her professional portofolio includes, among other works: Can You See Me? (2006), Dromi (2007), Limen (2007), Goddesses in Exile (2008), In The Process of … (2010), Little Creatures (2011), You May! (2012), The Chapter House (2014), Side Effects (2015), Peregrinus (2017), Vanishing Points (2018), When Pillars Evaporate; Work in Progress (2019).

She is the recipient of important UK choreographic awards such as the Robin Howard Foundation Award 2008, the Bonnie Bird Choreography Fund Award 2009 and the CFC Award 2010 by the Company of Angels, Sadler’s Wells and The Place, and has participated in Aerowaves, a well-renowned European Dance Platform. She has received several commissions (eg Greek National Ballet) and her works have been presented at venues/festivals such as: Fast Forward Festival 4, ROH2, Arnolfini, BE Festival, Lilyan Baylis, the Athens and Epidaurus Festival, the Kalamata International Dance Festival, Operaestate Veneto Festival at the Scala of Milan, Europe in Motion Festival and Springloaded at The Place.

She has participated in several international European Dance Research programs such as the Choreoroam, Big Intensive, Europe in Motion, and she is funded/commissioned by institutions such as the Arts Council England, the Hellenic Centre for theater and dance, the Onassis Cultural Centre, among others. She is a Research Fellow at the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in London and teaches internationally at institutions/festivals such as: Impulstanz Festival, Sasha Waltz Company, Independent Dance, National Dance Academy of Rome, Athens State School of Dance (KSOT) among others.

Her research is focused on notions of time and the passing of images. It reflects the direction of her practice away from the conventional theatre space and towards off-site installations and interactivity, investigates the qualities and conditions of spectatorship, and draws from the larger social for the development of choreographic activity.