Join us on Friday 24th October, 6:30 PM for a conversation with dance artist Temitope Ajose and choreographer Grace Nicol, hosted by Richard Pye as part of his artist residency Bystander. 

They will explore how the body engages with lived experience, considering the effects of trauma, threat, and environment, alongside practices of care within artistic and community contexts. The conversation will examine how trauma-informed approaches can be applied, and how these perspectives consider performers, viewers, and artists alike.

Temitope Ajose is a London-based Dance Artist with an interest in myth, psychology, and magic. Often playing between the sacred and absurd, Temitope’s creative process is intuitive, idiosyncratic, and very human.

Temitope has staged works at venues such as The Royal Opera House, The Place, DanceXchange, RichMix, Dancebase, and the Soho Joyce (New York). As a dancer, Temitope has worked with numerous artists and companies, including Punchdrunk, Director Carrie Cracknell at The Gate Theatre and The National, Theo Clinkard, Protein Dance Company, Lea Anderson, Frauke Requardt and David Rosenberg, Joe Moran, Seke Chimutengwende, and Lost Dog. She performs for visual artists and makers, including Florence Peake, Adelaide Cioni, Sam Williams, and Megan Rooney.

Temitope also engages in movement direction (Old Vic and National Theatre) and for artist Megan Rooney on her solo shows at Kunsthalle Germany, Salzburg Kunstverein, and The Lyon Biennale.

Temitope continues to make her own work: My Name is My Own, at The Southbank with director Jo Tyabji in collaboration with critically acclaimed writer Jay Bernard.

In the family of things, Trinity Laban Dance Collective, and her solo work Lady M (At Home with Lady Macbeth), commissioned by The Place, premiered in May 2023.

Grace Nicol is a choreographer, movement director, curator, and activist based in London. Her artistic practice has a particular focus on object-body relations and materiality, investigating juxtapositions and associations of objecthood and bodies to explore movement within socio-political contexts.

Grace’s personal choreographic work has toured nationally and internationally. Among others, Grace has worked with London College of Fashion, Hackney Showroom, ]Performance Space[, NN Contemporary, Tate Modern, V&A Museum, Guest Projects.  Grace also works as a choreographer and movement director for film and photography. She has worked on commercial projects and choreographed for music videos, including work with the BBC, NTS, Lauren Faith, Chivas Regal. Grace has also worked with actors, including Alex Lawther and Roman Griffin Davis. Grace also provides movement direction for fashion including  i-D x Christian Louboutin and Sinead O’Dwyer.

Grace is a visiting lecturer at AMATA and London Contemporary Dance School and provides mentoring and one-off talks and lectures for other institutions (including Roehampton University, University of Suffolk & Kickstarter Company at Dance East) around her practice. She has supervised the MA programme at ArtEZ, and given the following talks including Programming for Lates (V&A Museum) and Public Dance: Performance for Galleries, Museums and Other Public Spaces (Dance4).

Grace has been developing new ways of working and advocates for practicing care within choreographic working methods. She has co-founded the Pastoral Care Offer scheme with artist Temitope Ajose. Her most recent project, Slip Mould Slippery, involved the creation of a Public Dance pack which looks to aid dance artists and venues when collaborating. In addition to this, Grace was a founding member of the collective Womxn SRSLY and co-founded Understory. Understory is a website that hosts a series of informal chats from artists to support those entering the dance industry.

Grace has been interviewed for and featured in various media publications including Arts Professional, Hunger, Dazed, i-D, Girls Are Awesome and It’s Nice That. She has been a recipient of a Stockholm Fringe Award, a BBCF award, a Choreographers Gallery Award, the Major of London Culture Seed Fund and receives support from Arts Council England.