Following a successful two year pilot project, South East Dance is pleased to announce Antonia Grove and Ben Duke as the new Associate Artists, 2012-14. Following in the footsteps of outgoing associates (Ben Wright, Lucy Cash, Charlie Morrissey and Subathra Subramaniam), Ben and Antonia will receive a package of financial and administrative support in addition to collaborating with Creative Producer, Chris Fogg.
Antonia Grove is the co-founder of Probe and is an award winning dancer and choreographer. She says: “I am so excited about being made an Associate Artist. It has come at exactly the right time in my career, and will enable me to realise the ideas and artistic vision I have for Probe through supporting me as the artist at the heart of that.”
Ben Duke is the co-founder of Lost Dog, whose most recent work, It Needs Horses, won the Place Prize final 2011. He says: “I am absolutely delighted to have been chosen as a South East Dance Associate Artist. It is an amazing opportunity for me to develop my work and to enable me to turn Lost Dog into a company with a national and international presence but based here, in my home, in the South East”.
The Associate Artists Programme is one strand of South East Dance’s Artist Development Programme, which aims to offer a range of professional development entry points for dance
artists within and beyond the region.
Other strands include the South East Dance Fellowship, a new one year offer made to established artists who have already made a significant contribution to the dance sector nationally and internationally. Rosemary Lee is the first recipient of the South East Dance Fellowship (2012-13), which will allow her time and opportunity to reflect on her creative practice and explore new ways of working over the next phase of her career.
Rosemary says: “I am thrilled and delighted with this opportunity and I should like to use my fellowship to explore the relationship between art and ways of behaving within communities with a view towards creating cultures of kindness”.
Finally, South East Dance is also delighted to announce its Made in Kent commissions, to support four new dance works created in residence at South East Dance Studios. Made in
Kent has been made possible with investment from Kent County Council, with commissions awarded to Yael Flexer and Nic Sandiland, Theo Clinkard, James Wilton and Ben Wright.
For more information about the artists and their proposed work with South East Dance please visit: www.southeastdance.org.uk