London Studio Centre will be hosting its fourth Professional & Research Network Roundtable Discussion on
Tuesday 20 October from 6.30 until 8.00pm: ‘Creating narrative, building characters’
at artsdepot in North Finchley. We’d love for you to attend. Please email Emma Welsh on to reserve your place.
The event aims to open up conversations about the dancing body and storytelling. In which ways are choreographers/directors inspired to work with narrative? What are the relationships between choreographic, musical and narrative structure in the 21st century? How do choreographers/directors work with narrative to create complex layers of meaning to their work? What do dancers need to be able to do in order to work with choreographers/directors on creating narrative performance?
Invited speakers are:
Heather Caruso – Director/choreographer passionate about integrating the elements of physicality, music & sound, design and text to create fantastical yet accessible worlds for audience and performer alike to explore. Heather trained as an actor and director at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts (Playwrights Horizons Theater School & Experimental Theatre Wing) where she received her BFA in Drama. In New York, she worked extensively in the downtown theatre scene as a performer, creator, stage manager & choreographer including involvement in productions in the New York Fringe Festival and the New York Musical Theatre Festival. She then left the familiar streets of New York and the theatre to earn her MFA in Choreography at Roehampton University in London where she’s stayed ever since! Founding nylon theatre in 2011 with Amy Watson, her choreography has been performed at The Place’s Resolution! Festival (2013), and she has co-created and performed Every Way Up Has Its Way Down at Rich Mix (London, 2013), Accidental Festival (Roundhouse, Camden, 2014), JW3 (London, 2014) and most recently at the Brighton Fringe Festival (May 2015). As an educator, Heather merges her theatre background with her contemporary dance training to create workshops that develop dancers to explore text and acting frameworks, and actors to expand their physical range.
Sally Marie – Since her training at Central School of Ballet, Sally Marie has performed extensively with Protein Dance and Sean Tuan John, as well Jasmin Vardimon, Tilted Productions, Duckie at the Barbican, H2, Lulu’s Living Room, Rajni Shah, Deja Donne in Italy, Frauke Requart, IJAD, Geoff Moore, Gary Stevens, and Ridiculussmuss. She has twice been voted Best Female Performer by Dance Europe, as well as nominated for a Spotlight Award 2008 and Best Female Performer in the National Dance Awards, 2009 and 2011. She was also awarded the New Adventures Choreography Award 2013 and The Children’s Choreography Award 2014, which was a Sadler’s Wells/ Place commission in collaboration with MOKO Dance and Company of Angels. The ensuing piece I am 8 was performed at The Place and Lilian Baylis Sadler’s Wells in February this year. Through her own company, Sweetshop Revolution, Sally has directed two solos; The Extra being performed at The Linbury, Royal Opera House. She has also made two full length works. Dulce et Decorum, about women at war and Tree, which was about our relationship to nature as seen through the eyes of four men who find themselves thrown together in the woodland. I loved you and I loved you is her new full length show about the true story of welsh composer Morfydd Owen. It has been funded at research level and now commissioned by Coreo Cymru and funded by Arts Council England. She has also begun mentoring, having qualified as a life coach and has worked recently with Keira Martin and Zoe Parker, as well as assisting in the creation of a new work with Stuart Waters. ‘I came to movement because I was too shy to speak. I stayed with it because I found in it some essential honesty. Movement seems to speak the silence between the full stops that words can never reach.’
After the discussion, there will be an opportunity to network over a drink.
London Studio Centre’s Professional & Research Network brings teachers and lecturers of Dance and Music Theatre together in a series of roundtable discussions with key industry professionals. The Network aims to generate debate about recent developments in the field, employability and creativity, and foster connections between Higher Education and the professional field. The events are hosted three times a year by London Studio Centre at the cultural hub artsdepot in North London, and are curated by Dr Francis Yeoh and Dr Lise Uytterhoeven.
The event is free of charge. Please email Emma Welsh on to reserve your place. For directions to artsdepot, click on