PEOPLE
Meet us!
Credit Dimitri Djuric
Alessandra Ruggeri
Alessandra initially trained as a gymnast and earned a Master degree in Economics and Cooperation in Rome. As her interest in movement was growing she moved to London to study dance at Trinity Laban. Since then she has worked and performed for artists and companies in the UK including Clod Ensemble, Jasmin Vardimon, Aletta Collins, Frauke Requardt & David Rosenberg, Theo Clinkard and Tilted Productions). More recently she has been travelling to work with choreographers in Austria, Norway, Switzerland and Ireland and to experience new environments. She enjoys teaching and holds a Postgraduate Diploma in pedagogy. She has taught in various contexts facilitating professional dance training, movement classes for actors, choreographic commissions as well as community classes, in which she draws from her Pilates training.
Credit Christopher Lewis-Smith
Ben McEwen
Ben graduated from Trinity Laban before going to complete the training cycle at P.A.R.T.S. (BE) and holds an MA in Creative Practice from Independent Dance/Trinity Laban. He regularly works as a performer and movement researcher for (among others); Charlotte Spencer Projects, Vera Tussing, Francesco Scavetta/Wee and Lisa May Thomas. Between Autumn 2021 and Spring 2022 Ben joined Scottish Dance Theatre as a guest dancer. Alongside performing he teaches at dance conservatoires (London Contemporary Dance School, Northern School of Contemporary Dance, Trinity Laban), universities and professional classes throughout Europe. He also practises Aikido at Tetsushinkan/MovingEast, enjoys barefoot running and wandering amongst mountains with a small tent and a big smile.
Julia Testas
Credit Sophie Holland
Becky Horne
Becky is an artist currently working around the UK as a dancer, maker, performer and researcher. She is most invested in highly collaborative processes, improvisational practices and site-specific work. Studio-based research is an important part of her practice; she is curious about humans and the body, and amongst other areas of interest enjoys physicality, efficiency and stillness. With a focus on wellbeing, her work often explores togetherness, touch and connections with our environments through sensory experiences.
Originally from West Berkshire, Becky trained at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, where she also completed her MA in Dance Performance as part of Transitions Dance Company, funded by Mercers Arts Award. She has since worked as a freelance performer with a variety of practitioners, is currently a young associate artist at Swindon Dance, and a member of movement collective SALVAGE.
Bun Kobayashi
Bun trained at London Contemporary Dance School with an exchange to the Danish National School of Performing Arts, practising dance, choreography, instant group composition and experimenting with film. She is interested in exploring the world of (in)animate objects and investigating routes of ‘failure’, malfunction, regression and undoing to see what other narratives are possible in the dancing body. Since graduating, Bun has worked with artists Vera Tussing, Pepa Ubera and Ben McEwen on themes of touch, sensation, manipulation and autonomy in improvisation. While working with Theo Clinkard, Bun developed an interest in notating dance and bodies in movement, playing in the space between specificity and abstraction. Bun was able to reconnect with voice and improvisation in a recent research with Gracefool Collective.
Sophie Arstall
Julia is an artist, performer, & movement teacher based in London for the last decade.
Julia's artistic practice is based on relationships and experiencing the present in photography, movement, and performance. Julia dances and invites you to play and explore presence in relationships, through teaching Flying Low (by David Zambrano), Dissolving (her practice), and Organic Flow (by Jorge Itapuã).
Teaching Dissolving during her MFA in Creative Practice at Trinity Laban in London was part of her research. Dissolving approaches a somatic embodiment and physical theatre to engage the sense of self-awareness and integration. Dissolving uses of creative outputs, imagination, nature metaphors, movement improvisation, sweating, and histamine, to learning anatomy through experiencing images.
Sophie is a Dance Artist; a Performer, Maker and Facilitator working in a variety of settings and contexts. For choreographers: Hagit Yakira, Rosemary Lee, Candoco Dance Company, Stacked Wonky, Vanessa Grasse, Annie Hanauer, Mirjam Gurtner, Ingri Fiksdal, Willi Dorner, Tony Mira, Ben Wright, Charlie Morrissey in performances for Theatres, Outdoor and Gallery settings, Festivals and Operas. She makes her own work, both solo and collaborative creating diverse choreographies aesthetically and conceptually. Her current artistic research focuses on the poetics of movement, delving into ideas around materiality and craftsmanship with a strong outdoors practice. She works in particular with Improvisational and Compositional approaches and draws increasingly upon Somatic techniques and Internal Martial Arts practices as a foundation to the work. She also has a developed teaching practice bringing Creative Contemporary Dance to all ages and experiences fed by her research and many years dancing. She is currently studying Body Mind Centering with Embody Move, UK.