PAST WINNERS
2025 WINNERS
Abbeygail Crichlow-Morrison
Abbeygail has been living with patellofemoral joint dysfunction, resulting in significant restrictions in the lateral muscular structures of her knee and lateral tracking of the patella. She also experiences weakness in the medial quadriceps musculature. This injury has persisted for nearly 10 years. Due to bereavement and unforeseen circumstances, she has faced barriers in accessing the rehabilitation necessary to fully return to her creative practice. With support from the Thea Barnes Legacy Fund, Abbeygail received the necessary rehabilitation for her knee, restoring her physical capacity to continue her career as a freelance choreographer. In addition, she pursued dance-based therapy to address mental health challenges stemming from prolonged setbacks, rejections, and the impact of racial and aesthetic biases within the industry. This therapy will help her build the mental fortitude required to expand her artistic practice, providing a healthier foundation for future work.
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Sylvain Kezir
Sylvain Kefir Mangoni is a vibrant dance artist and a passionate advocate for social change. His work bridges cultures, fostering inclusivity among asylum seekers and local communities in Ireland through diverse artistic expressions such as ancestral storytelling, traditional dances and percussions. As the founder of Freedom Dancers, a dynamic group uniting asylum seekers and local residents, Sylvain champions the power of movement and rhythm as a form of liberation. The group’s performances have featured in numerous multicultural events across North Dublin. They serve as both artistic expression and therapy - enhancing physical well-being, relaxation, and mental resilience. Sylvain uses performance arts as a tool for empowerment, healing and community connection. His work embodies the spirit of connection, empowerment, and freedom, making him a beacon of resilience and creativity in the Irish community.
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Seyi Adelekun
Seyi Adelekun is a multidisciplinary artist of Yoruba-Nigerian heritage whose practice explores ecospirituality within environmental justice. Their installations, performances, and sound works use regenerative design principles to world-build alternative realities that archive and disseminate indigenous knowledge and ecological wisdom. Rooted in ecosomatics, their performances and workshops integrate ritual, craft, embodied movement, and land-based practices to cultivate liberative spaces fostering interconnectedness and collective healing.
2024 WINNERS
Alison Ray
Alison Ray will write a guide book on Choreographers and dance Companies of the African Diaspora from UK, Europe, America and Africa who has had an impact on the Black dance Scene from 1985-2000. The aim of the book is to inspire, inform and add to the legacy of the Black British Dance history. I am grateful to the Thea Barnes Legacy fund for funding this work.
Yee Kei Yuki Chung
On The Other Side《彼岸》explores the emotional impact on people who have experienced the death of others, imagination of death, and the imaginary contact between the dead and the living. In Resolution 2024, we will be presenting the 6th stage of new development of On The Other Side《彼岸》, which brings on an added element and focus on resilience. This next stage walks through how we live through traumatic experience such as sorrow, grief, and anger, to then build resilience. After traumatic experiences, we can re-find and regain power to become a new stronger person. We hope this performance resonates not only with people who have found the strength to get up in their past, but also empower people who are still finding their strength. The whole process of On The Other Side《彼岸》started in 2020 and had been through 5 stages of research and development: Trio R&D, First Solo, Ensemble, Second Solo, and Duet. It has been presented in dance festivals such as Florence Dance Festival, and been commissioned by dance companies such as Brancaccio Danza support by Italy Ministry of Culture. Its previous choreographic outcomes have predominantly been presented in the UK and Italy.
Esme Benjamin
Esme Benjamin will be exploring ideas around process as performance through the development of a solo piece 'Free and Malfunctioning' - challenging the ways that society puts value on our bodies, to defy cultural expectations on how we should look, move and be in the world'. As part of this project, Esme will be writing a research paper discussing her creative methodology and how we translate bodily knowledge into language.
Kathryn Cooley
I have sustained an injury to my spine. When the pandemic hit I took the time to get my spine medically diagnosed. After three years of extensive medical examinations I was diagnosed to have four herniated discs (discs C6, T9, T10 and T11) in my spine, and an additional three sprung ribs which have healed incorrectly. Therefore my specific artistic aims and outcomes of this proposed activity revolve around taking a small period of time out from performance to allow for healing and rehabilitation enabling me to get back to my best in terms of my technique, performance and delivery of educational and choreographic projects. The Thea Barnes Legacy Fund is enabling me to pay for treatment costs over a 3-month period that will help me to fully recover from my injuries. The financial help will allow me to return to peak health and to continue my career.
Hayley Matthews - 2019-2020
Project : Sanctuary on the Fault Line
Sanctuary on the Fault Line is a global female led dance movement. Guided by woman, wildness, health, contemporary movement science, uniqueness and the birthing of effortless power, agency and dance. It supports and nurtures dancer's power, and how this power can reach society in its freshness and potency. It does this through establishing deep holistic health as the key to great dance. It gardens the foundations of this deep health by making available - contemporary movement science informed by Rolfing, the work of dance's great ancestresses, meditation as vital to dance training and exquisite performance, deeply healthy horizontal global and local relationships between dancers and dancers and audiences, gift economies for dance to dwell in, a wise group of friends from different fields, a license to take space in the wild to dance professionally without permission and support to do this, and by slowly growing scientific evidence to fortify the work of dance performance in the wild.
