About
Hagit Yakira Company creates work whereby storytelling, intimacy, dance and text are uniquely interwoven into an individual interpretation of inter human relationships and emotions through dance theatre and performance.
Hagit Yakira
Award winning Israeli choreographer Hagit Yakira founded Hagit Yakira Dance Company in 2007 and has since gone on to tour the UK, Europe, Scandinavia and Israel.
So far she has created six works for her company amongst many other commissioned works for other companies and students. Two of her company works were awarded: first prize for ‘Oh Baby’ in the ‘Kajaani Choreography Competition’, Finland 2009, and second prize for ‘Somewhere between a self and another’ in the ‘Burgos New York
Choreography Competition’ (New Dance Trend Category), Spain 2007. She has toured in numerous festivals and dance platforms in the UK, Europe, Scandinavia and in Israel. She has also been choreographing for different companies and institutions around Europe and the UK as well as leading performance projects and workshops for both professional dancers and the community.
Hagit is a teacher and a guest choreographer at Trinity Laban and at The Place and since summer 2011 she has been delivering workshops at ImPulsTanz, Vienna. Recently Hagit has been choreographing and teaching in Norway, and has been invited to collaborate with the Stavanger University in 2014.
Hagit has been developing a unique style and way of teaching. She is constantly in demand to deliver classes for professional dancers and the community around the UK, Europe, Scandinavia and Israel. They are received with great success and she has many dedicated followers.
Hagit’s training commenced at the Music and Dance Academy in Jerusalem, Israel. After qualifying as a Dance Movement Therapist in 2004, Hagit relocated to London where she completed an MA in European Theatre Dance (2005).
2013 will see Hagit choreographing her new work, teaching in Vienna, Hungary and Israel, alongside undertaking a PhD in Choreography at Trinity Laban, researching the notion of choreographing autobiographies.
Hagit’s aim is to develop a personal approach, which is based on close collaboration with various artists working within different art forms. In her work she explores different aspects of human relationships, by playing with fiction and reality, emotion and feeling, and by shifting between drama and humour. Her approach in general as well as to the movement research, is based on autobiography and emotions, and is being informed by her background as a dance movement therapist alongside her background as a performer and a choreographer.
Performers
Takeshi Matsumoto
Takeshi is an actor and performer with a broad experience in performing both for theatre and dance productions. He has a wide range of experience in various styles of performance such as physical theatre, Butoh, Japanese folk dance and Japanese drum, contemporary dance (dancing for Christian Duarte, Azure Barton and Henri Oguike as part of Transition Dance Company at Trinity Laban, Darren Johnston for a year production).
He trained as an actor in Japan and as a dancer both in Japan and Trinity Laban, London. Takeshi is now studying MA in Dance Movement Therapy, working mainly with autistic children. Takeshi has been working with Hagit Yakira for the last two and a half years, and he was a part of the creative process for the last three of the company’s productions.
Sophie Arstall
Sophie Arstall is a dancer, maker and facilitator. She trained at the Northern School of Contemporary Dance, UK (First BA Hons) and completed a Masters in Performance at LABAN as part of the internationally touring Transitions Dance Company. Sophie has worked for many Choreographers in the UK and abroad such as Ben Wright, Rosie Kay, Ingri Fiksdal, Rosemary Lee, Willi Dorner, Tony Mira, Harry Theaker, Charlie Morrissey and in Festivals such as Glyndebourne Opera, Greenwich and Docklands International Festival and Harare International Festival of Arts, Zimbabwe. Alongside performing, she choreographs and teaches in a number of community and professional settings around the country and collaborates with artists of different mediums to create works in diverse performance contexts.
Mariana Camiloti
Born in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Mariana is a versatile dance artist with broad experience in creative collaborations. She has been performing across the UK and Internationally with different companies such as Fevered Sleep, Clod Ensemble, and Companhia de Dança do Norte (PT). Alongside Riccardo Buscarini and Antonio de la Fe, Mariana was one of the finalists of The Place Prize 2011 with their work Cameo. In the same year she attended workshops led by Rui Horta, Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre, Rosemary Butcher and a Choreodrome residency by Antonio de la Fe. Mariana has been working with other independent artists including Carolina Melis, Alex Howard, Simonetta Alessandri, Letizia Mazzeo, Jia-Yu Corti and Gabriela Tropia. Mariana began her performing journey early at Cisne Negro Ballet School and later completed her BA in contemporary dance at University of Campinas. Shortly after moving to London she joined EDge — The postgraduate company of London Contemporary Dance School and performed works by Jonathan Lunn, Rachel Krische and Filip Van Huffel.
Jamie Morgans
I trained for three years at the Northern School of Contemporary dance doing my BPA (Hons) Degree in Contemporary Dance, and in my third year specialising in Choreography. Following this I studied at Laban for a year where I was apart of Transitions Dance Company where I completed my Postgraduate diploma. Since then I have been working professionally with a variety of different companies starting with Dynion Pro, an all male dance company based in south Wales, which led to work in London with Jean Abreu Dance where I performed in the Queen Elizabeth Hall on the South Bank. I also have had the opportunity to perform in the Royal opera house as part of Dance Exposure with Jorge Cresis, and more recently have been performing with C-12 Dance theatre around the country with a work by Shaun Parker “Trolleys”.
Marc Stevenson
Marc is a versatile contemporary dancer mostly influenced by hip-hop, capeoira and west-african dances. He mainly trained nine years in Compagnie Grenade in Aix-en-Provence (France) both as a young dancer and a professional. Based in London since the end of 2010, he works as a freelance dancer and has worked with choreographers and companies such as Dance Theatre of Ireland, Jose Agudo, Shaun Parker & C-12 Dance Theatre, and Pair Dance. He has also a passion for singing and song-writing and sometimes works as a solo act, performing with a guitar.
Collaborators
Sarah Shead — Producer
Sarah Shead has an extensive background in arts development having worked at Dance4 as Continuing Professional Development Coordinator and Creative Partnerships Coordinator, Yorkshire Dance as Artists Development and Project Manager and Cida Co (Creative Industries Development Agency) as Programmes Director. Each of these roles enabled her to refine her practice as a Producer, Programmer and Manager. Sarah is a certified Relational Dynamics Coach and an ‘Associate Coach’ for PANDA – Performing Arts Network and Development Agency.
Sarah founded Spin Arts Management in 2011 and has since continued as Director & Creative Producer. Spin Arts is a development & producing organisation for artists working in dance, theatre, music, live art, visual art and mixed media. Some of the artists and companies Spin Arts support/have supported are; InstantDissidence, balletLORENT, Mad Dogs Dance Theatre, Simon Birch Dance Company, Hype Dance, Rationale – Hip Hop Dance Productions, Wayne Sables Project and Hagit Yakira Dance.
Sarah has helped numerous artists secure funding from Arts Council England, local authorities and a range of Trusts and Foundations. She delivers CPD initiatives across Yorkshire including; ‘New Associates’ scheme in partnership with Yorkshire Dance and the Northern School of Contemporary Dance Associate Artist Programme.
Maika Klaukien — Rehearsal Director
Born in Germany, Maika gained a BA in contemporary dance and MA in choreography from London Contemporary Dance School at The Place. Founder member of the company Genau, she has performed and choreographed dance theatre and site-specific works, touring internationally. She is the rehearsal director for Hagit Yakira Dance Company since 3 years and currently works on a theatre play with direktor Tarek Iskander at The Yard Theatre.
Peta Barrett — Production Assistant
Peta Barrett has a postgrad degree in Physical Theatre from Rhodes University, South Africa under the inspiring guidance of Gary Gordon, Andrew Buckland and Juanita Finestone-Praeg. Having moved to London to travel Europe Peta has visited over 40 cities in 25 countries she is now directing her focus towards the dance world. Peta currently works in office management and has taught theatre and dance workshops throughout London as a freelance facilitator and with Bigfoot Arts Education. Peta met Hagit while dancing at Laban and has performed in Hagit's community work entitled 20 Woman at The Place.
Inbar Jeffery — Administrator
Born and raised in a kibbutz in Israel, Inbar has been living in the UK since 2005. She has a rich background working and running restaurants and boutique hotels in the midlands. Throughout the years she has travelled extensively in South East Asia and South America, and was excited to explore and experience the world and its diversity. She is currently running the reception of a wealth management firm in London and cooking up ideas to open her own café and bakery... She is passionate about all things pleasurable in life. After being introduced to Hagit’s work and approach through her dance class at ‘ThePlace’ in London, Inbar joined the company as an administrator and is working on marketing and development.
David Leahy — Musician
Trained as a professional double bass player, David Leahy has for nearly 20 years worked closely with dancers and dance makers. This relationship has now developed to a stage where his own performance practice is now equally divided between the two artforms. He has worked with dancers such as Frey Faust, Nancy Stark-Smith, Geraldo Si and Claire Filmon, and musicians such as Evan Parker, Tony Marsh, Tony Kofi, Roland Sutherland and Mike Vargas. ChFor more information please go to David's website www.dafmusic.com.
Berit Laageide — Costume Designer
Berit studied design and dressmaking in Norway before completing a degree in Costume at London College of Fashion. She has been involved with costume design, making and dyeing for productions for a wide range of companies and choreographers including English National Opera, Shakespeare’s Globe, Royal National Theatre, Secret Cinema, Motion Group Pictures, Lizzi Kew Ross, Made By Katie Green and Martin Nachbar.
Lucy Cash — Photographer
Lucy is an artist and filmmaker. Her background in performance making and choreography informs her approach to the work she now makes in different media, and she continues to explore innovative forms of collaboration – working with people from a range of communities and fields of expertise.Her moving image work has been shown on television, (Ch4, Filmfour, BBC4 and BBC2) and internationally at both film festivals and in galleries. In 2010 she received a Screendance Fellowship from South East Dance and in 2010 - 2012 she was an associate artist with South East Dance. Since 2007 Lucy has been an associate artist with Artsadmin. Alongside Becky Edmunds, Lucy has recently created straybird - a platform for co-directed moving image works and curatorial projects. straybird has curated What If... and What Matters at Siobhan Davies Space and is currently developing Small Matters for Dance Umbrella 2012.
Filipe Alcada — Film
Filipe Alcada originally trained as a Graphic Designer/Illustrator and quickly moved on to moving image completing an MA in Animation at the Royal College of Art in London.
He then launched an animation company, Belzebu Films, with two colleagues. Their first job was a controversial animated music video for the band Add ’N’ to [X]. The video won best music video at the ‘New York Underground Film Festival’. Several music videos followed, including a double award winning video for Moby. He continued working as an animation director and Illustrator directing commercials, broadcast work, music videos and illustrating for magazines, book covers, advertising campaigns, etc…
Recently he has been working on Arts based projects collaborating with musicians and contemporary dancers and producing work for live-performances and live-action films. His film work has also been shown at the Wolverhampton Art Gallery as part of ‘Sublime Spaces’, the Design Museum in London as part of ‘Sparkle the dark Up’ and at Bloomberg Space as part of Comma 40-The place.
Previous Collaborators
Producer — Maria Tsaousi
Performers — Orley Quick, Cornelis Joubert
Dramaturge — Yarit Dor
Scenographer, Lighting Designer — Rachel E. Stanners
Photographers — Julia Burstein, David Packard, Ruth Shocken Katz, and Tony Nandi
Music — Tom James Scott
Interactive Sculpture — Thomas Crane
Composer and Voice artist — Portia Winters
Costume Designer — Giulia Scrimieri
Musician — Alon Ramage
Costume Maker — Eve Collins
Bo Weavil Recordings
Performer — Annaritta Mazzilli
Performer — Yonat Bitner
Rehearsal Director — Melodie Gonzales
Costume Designer — Ruggiero Dessnatis
Special Thanks To
Ronen Korokaro
Nily Ron
Hilit Ben Avraham
Shira Goodal
Tarika Hidayatullah
Azusa Ono
Peta Bridgette Barrett
Yonat Bitner