ASSOCIATE ARTISTS
Dr. Adesola Akinleye
Associate Artist
Currently working in the USA as an Assistant Professor at Texas Woman’s University, IRIE! will be working with Adesola to formulate and build collaborative projects that will enhance and enrich the curriculum
Dr Adesola Akinleye, FHEA, FRSA , is a choreographer and artist-scholar. She began her career as a dancer with Dance Theatre of Harlem Workshop Ensemble (USA) later working in UK dance Companies such as Carol Straker Dance Company and Green Candle as well as running her own dance foundation, Saltare Foundation for the Arts in 2000s. She is founder and currently co-artistic director of DancingStrong Movement Lab. with Dr Helen Kindred. Over the past twenty years she has created dance works ranging from live performance that is often site-specific and involves a cross-section of the community, to dance films, installations, and texts.
Akinleye’s work is characterized by an interest in voicing people’s lived-experiences in Place(s) through creative, moving portraiture. A key aspect of her process is the artistry of opening-up creative practices to everyone from women in low wage employment to architects to ballerinas to performance for young audiences. She has won awards internationally for her choreographic work and is published in the areas of dance and cultural studies. As well as her work with IRIE! she is a Research Fellow with Theatrum Mundi, and Research Affiliate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
DANCING STRONG MOVEMENT LAB
Associate Artist
Dancing Strong Movement Lab (DSML) is an umbrella organization using dance knowledges to explore, create and comment. Through interdisciplinary, somatic-based, practice-as-research the company create performance, texts and film projects. Under the Artistic Direction of Adesola Akinleye and Helen Kindred, the company's work values ‘pro-feminist, anti-racist and queer affirming’ creative processes. 'We believe dance/the arts are not a luxury but a right for everyone; the right to be physically literate, have a positive relationship with one's body and body image, and to feel comfortable expressing and sharing our stories and experiences through the non-verbal medium of movement'.
The ethos of the company is to create high quality arts engagement, participation and performance with communities and localities who through socio-economic and cultural factors have limited access to arts and culture. Specialising in somatic practice, the company’s approach provides an open and accessible framework for collaborating with communities. As Associate Artists of IRIE! Dance Theatre DSML offer an apprentice position with the company for a graduating dancer form IRIE's BA (hons) Diverse Dance Styles programme each year.
Photo cedits Cheniece Warner @chen_lightcapturer