SUMMER
WORKSHOPS
TEACHERS 2026
Thursday 20th August 2026
Claire Lambert
Claire graduated from London Contemporary Dance School with Postgraduate Diploma in
Performance, having completed her BA (Hons) in Dance Theatre at Trinity Laban.
Claire has devised and toured new works nationally and internationally; Olivier award-winning
Angels in America at the National Theatre, Beyond Words, CoDa Dance, Lila Dance, Laura Booth,
Tavaziva Dance, Highly Sprung, Four Hands, Filskit Theatre, Beautiful Thing for GDIF18, Casson &
Friends, Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games Opening Ceremony, London 2012 Olympic
Opening Ceremony.
Aerial work; CastAway (gyroscopic flying rig), aerial rugby player (Robby Graham), R&D for concept
film vertical dancing on cliffs (Kate Lawrence) and vertical dance piece with Upswing Aerial for
Coventry City of Culture 2021.
Claire has received ACE funding for a DYCP & NLPG grants & teaches for Royal Birmingham
Conservatoire, Performer’s College, Brum Pro Class, Coventry Pro Initiative, Birmingham CAT Scheme,
BRB, Hippodrome, ACE Dance & Music and Dance Co-operative Birmingham.
Workshop Description:
Claire will lead an open level full-bodied, expansive class with a mixture of detailed content and
moments to explore your own physicality. Expect a blend of taught sequences, improvisation and
joyful playlist! Claire's class encourages personal expression whilst building connection, strength and
articulation in the moving body.
Following class, we will explore some choreographic games and spend time working on creative play
in solos and groups. We will finish with an invitation to share what we’ve made with each other in a
relaxed setting. The emphasis of the day is to invite your artistic ideas to emerge and lead the way
within a fun and friendly atmosphere. Let’s go!
Photo credit Rosie Powell
Friday 21st August 2026
Jodie Cole
Biog:
Jodie is a choreographer, movement director, facilitator, & performer, & is lead artist at Jodie Cole Dance. Inspired by the healing powers of movement to cross social divides, she celebrates difference, uses movement to unite experience & brings performance to unexpected places.
Jodie runs weekly Open Practice sessions in Margate, an invitation to do your own thing in the company of others, with a playlist of eclectic tunes. She works internationally in communities, in theatre, & in disability arts settings, & is trained to level 3 British Sign Language.
In 2021 she was appointed as Jerwood Creative Fellow with Extraordinary Bodies to develop inclusive practice. In 2022 she toured Boogie Booth, a popup participatory dance with embedded BSL. In 2023 she completed a DYCP research exploring “Class, Collaboration, & Complex PTSD" and she developed "Feel the Beat", a participatory dance show with embedded audio description playing with sensory ways into dance.
In 2024 she was associate artist with Arts & Homelessness International exploring her experiences of homelessness in solo dance making. She is currently an associate for the Jerwood Toolkit promoting socio-economic diversity in the arts, working with organisations nationally.
Class description:
This session is for anyone who would like to explore the creative potential of their body, with others, through gentle tasks, joyous play, and structured improvisations.
You will be invited to connect inwards to sensations, breath, feelings and imagination, and outwards to others through play. You can expect great tunes, soft melodies, dad dancing, and lots of lying down to take it all in.
Jodie’s practice explores moving in community as a healing experience. Jodie seeks sensation, connection, and pleasure through moving to music with others and with shared aims. Having experienced physical discomfort and relational fear for most of her adult life, moving and playing with others has been a way to ease out of these experiences.
Jodie is an experienced facilitator, known for her gentle and joyous approach having worked with LAMDA, Mountview, SLiDE, Step into Dance, Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, Extraordinary Bodies, Diverse City, Camp Bestival, Gecko, New Adventures, and Good Chance Theatre.
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Saturday 22nd August 2026
Sophie Austell
Biog:
Sophie Arstall is a London based Contemporary Dance Artist working as a performer, maker and facilitator for over 20 years. She has worked extensively in the UK scene and beyond with many choreographers such as Hagit Yakira, Rosemary Lee, Stacked Wonky, Protein Dance Company, Candoco Dance Company, Vanessa Grasse, Annie Hanauer and Charlie Morrissey, performing and devising new work whilst creating her own work for stage and film. As a facilitator she has a developed teaching practice bringing Creative Contemporary Dance to professionals and communities alike, and has been Rehearsal Director for the renowned Candoco Dance Company and choreographer Rosemary Lee amongst others. Her work focuses on improvisational and compositional approaches, drawing upon Somatic techniques, Internal Martial Arts and an ever present outdoors practice. She has most recently become a mother of 2 girls and is currently training to become a Tai Chi Qigong teacher.
Workshop Description:
In this day workshop we will come together to explore our dancing through guided improvisation, somatic movement and Contemporary Dance approaches.
We will begin the day with a class to warm up the body and mind, bringing our attention inwards to guide and cultivate our energy, drawing upon Tai Chi-Qigong and experiential anatomy to do so. We will ground ourselves, allowing us to work with gravity, release tension and expand, opening up a flow of connection throughout the body mind. From this place of nourishment we will move outwards resourcing a variety of imagery, qualities and energies to open up our possibilities of expression. Bringing attention to our environment and the relational will offer more information and intelligence to dance with.
In this wider field, we will activate an awareness of composition that is ever present whilst maintaining an inner attention to resource us. This dialogue between our internal and external worlds will continue as we introduce scores and set material to play with, offering new possibilities in time and space. We will work solo, in small and larger groups and perhaps introduce the possibility of contact.
In the afternoon we will continue with the weaving of set and spontaneous material. We will break things down to look at and to bring details into our dancing whilst building structures to frame and develop the material offered. We will open up our dancing further to be witnessed by each other and to explore this state of presence and awareness.
By the end of the day we will be thoroughly danced out and I hope happy!
Photo credit
Sunday 23rd August 2026
HANNAH RUDD
Thursday's teacher will begin the day with a technique class followed by repertoire and creative work. (Biography to come)
Photo: