Choreographer and dancer Siobhan Davies CBE is one of the dancers on the Big Dance list of greatest dancers as chosen by BD followers. Featured on the list representing stage, pop and screen are: Madonna, JLS, Michael Jackson, Dame Margot Fonteyn, Fred Astaire, Michael Flatley, the Nicholas Brothers and Carlos Acosta.
Siobhan Davies studied art at Hammersmith School of Art and Building. Her interest in dance grew when she started taking classes in the late sixties with the Contemporary Dance Group, (which became the London Contemporary Dance Theatre). A few years later, she was dancing and choreographing for the company.
In 1987 she became the first choreographer to receive a Fulbright Arts Scholarship. She left London for America on this scholarship and formed Siobhan Davies Dance Company on her return in 1988.
Since the company acquired its own home, Siobhan Davies Studios in South London, it undertakes various strands of work, including education projects, professional development opportunities and work within the community. The new building hosts performances, events, exhibitions and a dance and body conditioning class programme as well as a complementary therapy room.
Her contribution to modern dance in the UK has been immense and is recognised through accolades, awards and praise from her contemporaries nationally, internationally and within her local community.
Significantly, her work Bird Song is a GCSE Dance Syllabus set work, and she is a recommended figure to study for the A Level syllabus.
Ever pushing boundaries, Siobhan has launched a series Siobhan Davies in Conversation, where she speaks to eight artists including a novelist and ceramicist about choreographic practices in their work and earlier this year, she launched the MA in Creative Practice with Independent Dance and Trinity Laban.
In 2009 the company launched the first online digital dance archive, Siobhan Davies RePlay, which visually illustrates the choreographer’s practice and creative process through 36 key dance works.
She is a multi-award winning artist winning the Laurence Olivier Award, Prudential Award for the Arts (Dance) Prix D’Auteur, Bagnolet International Choreographic Competition but to name a few and she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Surrey and a Doctor of Letters from Leicester University.
Though much has been written about Siobhan, less is known about her company’s work to bring dance and movement to primary school children.
Siobhan Davies Dance led on and coordinated Big Dance activity in the following London Boroughs: Croydon, Kingston-upon-Thames, Merton, Lambeth, Southwark, Sutton and Wandsworth.
Read about Siobhan Davies in the Big Interview
