early years & community

I work across professional and community arts with people of all ages and abilities, facilitating inclusive, embodied creative experiences. My early years practice is multi-artform and responsive, integrating developmental movement with language-making and loose parts play + inspired by somatics, improvisation, dance and theatre. My work is informed through training with The School of Body-Mind Centering® as a Somatic Movement Educator and Infant Developmental Movement Educator

I’ve worked extensively with young people and was an Early Years Specialist with the national dance project Little Big Dance 2019-2021, created by South East Dance in partnership with DanceEast, Take Art and Yorkshire Dance. From 2011 – 2013 I was Dance Artist in Residence with Imaginate Dance Base, Scotland’s National Center for Dance and North Edinburgh Arts and attended the Fresh Tracks Europe network for youth choreographers at Tanzhaus Dusseldorf in 2012.

I am an Associate Artist with Starcatchers Scotland’s National Arts and Early Years Organisation. Having pioneered Dance and Play as the first movement class for 0-3yrs at Dance Base, this approach has evolved into Creative Movement CPD workshops which are currently delivered Scotland-wide for practitioners in the Early Years sector. During 2021-22 I was Dance Artist in Residence with Starcatchers & Scots Corner Early Learning and Childcare Center on Wee People Big Feelings and co-created a suite of accessible resources which you can find here.

‘Moving Matters: Play, Create, Imagine’ was an artist residency hosted by Hillend Children’s Centre, an integrated nursery in Greenock, together with Starcatchers. The project involved mentoring, dialogue, discovery, creative movement research & development in collaboration with staff and children over a 6 month period from 2015 – 2016. Read more here and here.

I’ve worked in traditional arts and education settings as well as site-responsively and in post-war zones. I was twice invited by British Council/ Fadj International Festival to teach and co-create new work with theatre students and artists in Iran, in collaboration with Scottish colleagues.

During lockdown 2020, I created Being at Home in the Body-Mind a movement session for Luminate – Scotland’s creative ageing organisation. You can attend the free online class Here.

Creative teaching and community engagement projects past and present include: Paris Summer Academy, The University of Edinburgh/ Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, Beacon Arts, Dance Base, Youth Music Theatre UK, Performance Captain Commonwealth Games, Scottish Youth Dance, The Scottish School of Contemporary Dance and War Child. I am also co-curator of Something Smashing and ITCN ‘n’ OUT performance events. Ongoing teaching practice includes somatic workshops and participation in the Scottish contact/ improvisation circuit.

I trained in the Feldenkrais Method with Director Elizabeth Beringer and graduated as a practitioner in 2022.