Rosie Kay
Rosie Kay has danced since she remembers, beginning classes at the age of three. She trained at London Contemporary Dance School and, since graduating in 1998, has danced with companies in the UK and Europe. Rosie Kay is currently Associate Artist of DanceXchange, Birmingham Hippodrome, a Rayne Foundation Fellow and the Course Leader for the Centre for Advanced Training (CAT) in the West Midlands.
She has been creating choreographic work since 1999, winning an award from the Queen in person in 1999, the 1st Prize for Choreography at the International Solo Dance Theatre festival in 2000, the Bonnie Bird New UK Choreographers Award in 2003, short listed for the Samuel Beckett Theatre Award in 2004, Creative Class of Channel Four in 2005, The Sunday Herald Award for Cultural Highlight of the Year 2006 for The Wild Party, and most recently the 1st Prize for dance and Choreography at the 1st International Contemporary Dance competition, Cagliari, Sardinia in March 2008.
She set up her company Rosie Kay Dance Company in 2004 and since then has achieved considerable national success. Her current tour is with Double Points and Supernova which has toured the UK in Autumn and Spring 08/09. Double Points: K was an International Dance Festival Birmingham Commission and was developed out of a unique collaboration with International artist Emio Greco. Supernova expertly links the phenomena of outer space blasts and the cosmos with the human interior universe drawing on intensive research into biomedical science.
Previous tours include the 5 star sell out show The Wild Party which combined a live jazz band, text, expert dance and humour to create a totally new type of dance theatre. The Wild Party received rave reviews as it toured to Edinburgh, Belfast International Festival, Lichfield festival and The Place London amongst many other venues across the UK. In 2006 The Wild Party was awarded by The Sunday Herald as a cultural highlight of the year.
The company’s first UK tour was of Asylum and Other Stories and presented dramatic and expressive solos and duets to a new audience. Asylum was then eventually invited to be performed as part of the prestigious London International Dance Festival Dance Umbrella at The Southbank in October 2007.
Rosie Kay has also worked as a choreographer/ director for numerous other company’s and theatres, including at The Soho Theatre, Birmingham Rep, the Young Vic, The Barbican Opera, Royal Opera House 2 and Birmingham Royal Ballet.
Rosie Kay has been awarded the Rayne Foundation Fellowship 2007. This has lead to her working with Emio Greco and will result in a re-interpretation of his seminal work Double Points: Two which was premiered at the International Dance Festival Birmingham 08. She also shadowed the late film director Anthony Minghella on location in Botswana and will be followed the full editing process. Her third secondment was shadowing MP’s Claire Short, John Barrett MP and Shadow Arts Minister, Ed Vaizey in their constituencies and in Westminster. Her article on the experience was published in The Guardian online. She also recently completed a two-week attachment to the 4 Rifles. With the Rifles Rosie joined in on a four-day and night exercise on Dartmoor, joined in battalion training and participated in enemy activities on Salisbury Plain.
Hannah Sharpe-Company Manager
Hannah attended Leicestershire Arts in Education, where she gained associate teaching grades in Ballet and Modern dance. She then went of to do a BA (Hons) at London School of Contemporary Dance and graduated in 2001. After graduating Hannah worked for DanceXchange (dx), the national dance agency for Birmingham and the West Midlands, taken on as an assistant Project Manager and promoted to Project Manager after 6 months. During her time at dx she has worked on projects such as; Big Leaps in House; The Jerwood Changing Stages Choreolab; Bare Bones; the Big Mission and many more.
Since April 2005, Hannah has been working in partnership with Beth Nabbs and together they set up their own dance management company, two’s company dance management and offer services including, company/project management, tour booking and marketing. Past clients include, Dave McKenna of Beingfrank Physical Theatre, Kate Mason of Mobius Dance Company, National Youth Dance England, The Royal Opera House, Mickael (Marso) Riviere of BBoys Attic and current clients include Rosie Kay Dance Company, Anima Dance, Irven Lewis Dance Theatre, State of Emergency, Birmingham International Festival and NDN (National Dance Network).
The company has a very valuable board we meet regularly. Their biographies are listed below;
Board Members
Farah Baksh- Director, Board Member
Born in Guyana, South America, Farah gained her degree from Carleton University, Ottowa in business and marketing. She has 18 years experience in International Sales and has an MBA in International Business. She was Managing Director of her own Instrumentation Equipment Company and lived in Sweden for 12 years. Currently she is a Director at PWC in Business Development. She is a non- executive of Ex Cathedra, a mentor for the Princes Trust, has had full board training from Arts and Business and is a keen supporter of young artists and the arts.
Stefan Kay OBE – Chairman and Director of Rosie Kay Dance Company
Rosie Kay’s father; aged 61, married to Helen Kay with 2 daughters. Chartered Engineer; 30-some years in the paper manufacturing industry; latterly MD of Inveresk PLC, led MBO in 1990 and flotation on Stock Exchange in 1993; worked at UK and EU level on energy and environment matters for the industry; OBE 1998. Retired from Inveresk in 2001; now Director of Services for Herriot-Watt University’s Scottish Borders Campus part-time; Director/Chairman of a number of companies including a charity; Chair of Scottish Forest Industries Cluster. Chairman of Rosie Kay Dance Company Ltd and fellow director with Rosie Kay.
Frances Clarke-Director and Board Member.
Frances Clarke attended Arts Educational Schools in Tring and London before attending Laban and gaining a BA(Hons) in Dance Theatre. She has a Postgraduate Certificate of Education in Dance from Bedford College and is presently studying for the MSc in Dance Medicine and Science at University of Wolverhampton. She was a founder member of Springs Dance Company in 1979 and became the artistic director 1992-1997. She has a very wide experience of dance education as course leader at Halesowen College, mentor to Birmingham Royal Ballet dancers for outreach programmes, Senior Lecturer in dance at University of Wolverhampton and course leader for the Ba Dance Practise and Performance degree at University of Wolverhampton.
David Massingham- Artistic Advisor, Advisory Board Member
David Massingham trained at the Laban Centre for Movement and Dance before becoming a member of Transitions Dance Company for whom he made several works. He was founder and Co-Director of Adventures in Motion Pictures in 1987 before establishing David Massingham Dance in 1989. The Company toured extensively in the 1990s taking work from rural village halls to large-scale theatres. Their last work, Untold, premiered in Spring Loaded at The Place in 1998. David was also Choreographer in Residence at Northern Arts in 1995, before returning to perform his own work in 1999, with the Channel Four Per4mance series. David has worked in a variety of choreographic fields such as film, theatre and music theatre. His credits include Cabaret for Newcastle Live Theatre, The Red Balloon for Birmingham Repertory Theatre and The Tempest for The National Theatre. David is currently Artistic Director of DanceXchange, The National Dance Agency for Birmingham & the West Midlands, and of the resident dance company Bare Bones. He also continues to pursue choreographic projects, his latest being a new work for the New Zealand School of Dance in 2004.
