GEMMA CONNELL, MFA
Gemma is a Choreographer, theatre maker and dance researcher who has worked across the UK for the past 9 years. She enthuses all kinds of people to get excited about, participate in and invest in the arts, and believes in developing the artistic workforce with the ideas of the next generation.
She graduated from The University of Warwick with a BA in English Literature, and launched herself into a career in the performing arts. Whilst at university, she trained in a variety of commercial hip hop styles under the guidance of one of Kanye West's former dancers. As an Independent Dance Artist, she has supported internationally renowned rappers Kano and Wiley. Her artistic practice has evolved to form a blend of commercial hip hop, experimental physical theatre and contemporary dance, with a penchant for collaborations with spoken word artists. Gemma has worked with Jonzi D, and has been mentored by both Gwen Van Spijk and Vocab Dance's Alesandra Suetin. In 2014, she served as Shadow Movement Director on the rehearsals of John Berkavitch's "SHAME" which toured across the South West of England. Gemma has also performed with Community Arts North West, Exodus, Global Grooves and Cheshire Dance. Her time with Contact Theatre extends to performing to audiences in New York, via telepresence.
From 2010-2014, Gemma lead experimental Dance and Spoken Word ensemble, Broken Rose, to great acclaim, working with Breakin' Convention and touring across the UK. Broken Rose’s first show, spoken word and dance open stage event Flow! debuted at Contact Theatre in Manchester in October 2011.
Since then, Broken Rose has toured to the 24:7 Theatre Festival, produced a short play, Bitten, and delivered dance workshops around the UK. Broken Rose’s first children’s show, Spooked, debuted with a 6 show run at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London in August 2013, as part of the Lollibop Festival. The company came to a beautiful end in 2014, when the members began to pursue other artistic endeavours.
Gemma has produced projects for the Manchester International Festival, Manchester Literature Festival, Cheshire Dance, Pavilion Dance South West and the 24:7 Theatre Festival, as well as Stage Managing for Festival 2012's Piccadilly Circus Circus and various shows by Avant Garde Dance.
The Jerwood Charitable Foundation funded her attendance at the Atelier for Young Festival Managers in Slovenia, 2012, a pan-European conference for outstanding individuals working in the arts. As a result of this, Gemma is one of the founding members of the European Festival Association's Festival Academy.
Gemma has guest lectured at Bournemouth and Poole College of Higher and Further Education and The University of Winchester, specialising in Dance for SEN and Community Dance Facilitation. Her paper “Whose Story to Tell?” was included in The University of Aberystwyth's Post Graduate Creative Writing Conference in 2014. Recently, she curated an Independent Dance Artists' Day at The Space (The Scottish School of Contemporary Dance) at which she taught classes in Commercial Hip Hop, dance and spoken word, and describing your own practice. In 2018 she presented at the Edinburgh International Culture Summit on outreach programmes in dance and spoken word, whilst performing alongside Prince Totto Théogène Niwenshuti.
Gemma now has a dual identity as an artist; firstly create dance in conversation with other art forms, under the brand of "The Artifact". She also creates ensemble physical theatre in collaboration with artists of other disciplines. As a freelancer, she has worked with Rosie Kay Dance Company, Youth Theatre Arts Scotland and 2Faced Dance. She holds an MFA (Distinction) in Art, Society and Publics from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, where she researched and explored the evolution of hip hop via practice as research.
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Gemma took part in One Dance UK's Scottish Dance Artists Mentoring Programme for 2017-2018.