Woman-Made: The Future Ballet Choreographers are Here!

During the Summer term, Lecturer in Dance, Deborah Norris delivered a research project in partnership with the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance, and DANSOX/St Hilda’s College – Oxford University, in order to explore the dearth of women ballet choreographers in the UK.

Invited by Board Member, Susan Jones, a group of women dance students gathered at St Hilda’s College, Oxford to re-visit the seemingly unanswered question: Where are all the women choreographers? A five-day residential hosted by DANSOX, offered six dance students from two of the UK’s leading conservatoires a series of workshops with prominent women choreographers, Kate Flatt, Dr. Susie Crow, Jennifer Jackson, Julia Gleich, and space and time to explore new choreographic ideas. The week culminated in a sharing of the students work and a panel discussion with academics and practitioners from the dance research field.

Undergraduate student, Martha Tribe visited the RCS in Glasgow in October to take part in a Knowledge Exchange talk led by Deborah Norris, in collaboration with the students involved, which offered an insight into the research project and pose some of the potential changes that could initiate a shift in the culture to find a greater gender balance of ballet choreographers making work on the world’s main stages in the future.

The research is to be published as an article in the Istanbul University Journal of Women’s Studies in 2023.