Episode 16: Siobhan Davies

Siobhan Davies is a contemporary dance pioneer who has witnessed and contributed to the development of the British dance scene over the past 50 years. Having originally studied visual arts, Siobhan discovered contemporary dance in 1967, when she began to take classes with the Contemporary Dance Group, which later became London Contemporary Dance Theatre. In 1969, she started performing with the company, and by the seventies she was choreographing for them.

Siobhan has had many different chapters of her career, from joining forces with Richard Alston and Ian Spink to form Second Stride, one of the most influential independent British contemporary dance companies of the 1980s, to taking a year’s sabbatical in America on a Fulbright Arts Fellowship, from working as an Associate Choreographer for Rambert to founding the Siobhan Davies Dance Company.

Siobhan’s work is marked by her interest in presenting dance in visual art and gallery spaces, and throughout her career she has worked with venues including Victoria Miro Gallery, the ICA, the Whitworth Gallery, Glasgow Museum of Modern Art, and Turner Contemporary. In the mid 2000s, she opened Siobhan Davies Studios in South London, a base for her research that has become a place not only of dance activity but of traffic between dance and other fields.

Two years ago, Siobhan stepped down as artistic director of Siobhan Davies Studios. Since then she’s been busy with various personal projects, from being appointed as an Associate Professor at C-dare Coventry University to traveling as an artist to the High Arctic with the Environmental organization Cape Farewell. She’s also created ‘Transparent’, a film that unravels the complex processes underpinning her 50 years of work in dance.

Premiered at the BFI London Film Festival, the film is going to be shown at Sadler’s Wells on 20th April and will be followed by a post show talk. Ahead of the screening, I couldn’t wait to speak to Siobhan to find out what we can expect, reflect on her extensive career, and discuss her plans for the future.